CANTLON'S CORNER: KEVIN MORRISON, A NEW HAVEN ORIGINAL
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - Hockey has been ingrained in Kevin Morrison’s DNA from his early days in Nova Scotia through the time he passed through Connecticut in the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving an indelible mark in New Haven. In the fall of 1969 New Haven, while much of America was embroiled in tremendous social change and a great degree of civic disorder very similar to the turmoil the nation faces currently. Student protests against the Vietnam War raged on in The Elm City at nearby Yale University. The country was coming apart on the heels of two very public and brutal assassinations of the Reverend, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, the 1969 trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale and the “New Haven Nine” was just starting. However, amid the chaos and disorder, there was one thing that was a uniting and dominant force, hockey on Saturday nights with the Eastern Hockey League's, New Haven Blades at the old New Haven Arena. “It was a crazy time," then Blades d-man, Morrison said. "Cops told us what streets to avoid to get away from any hassles. We all mostly lived in East Haven, so about eight of us met at a gas station and followed one another in (on I-95 South). We got off the first exit over the bridge (Q-Bridge/Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge) and worked our way down to the arena (via Chapel Street), which had a gated parking garage (on Grove and Orange Street) at the time and we all parked there." Entering Read the full article
