SCOTCH PLAINS — “Tough on the ice, but a gentle spirit off the ice,” is how Bill Buckley remembers Dan Triano, the Kenilworth teen who was fatally injured in a head-on collision on Cooper Road yesterday.
Buckley’s son Charlie played with Triano on the Devils Youth Hockey Team, a competitive traveling team.
Triano played at the AAA level, the highest level of play for a travel team, and with the Dayton-Brearley high school hockey team, effectively playing year-round. He also became the captain of the Dayton-Brearley team, a position typically reserved for seniors, during his sophomore year.
“He was a talented and aggressive player who scored a lot of goals and who also spent his fair share of time in the penalty box,” Buckley said. “He was always very animated upon his arrival in the box, usually telling me how the ref got the call wrong or how the player on the other team was the one at fault. But every once in awhile he would come to the box with a gleam in his eye and a smile and no words were needed.”
At a makeshift memorial at the crash site today, friends of Triano stopped to say a prayer, light a candle or leave flowers, while several drivers passing paused, nodded or made the sign of the cross before continuing down the road.
Three of Triano’s teammates on the Dayton-Brearley hockey team testified to his superior skills – and said playing for Dayton-Brearley wasn’t so easy.
“We were in a competitive conference with bigger and better schools and struggled, but we always came out and played our hardest anyway,” said Bailey Rudolph, 19, of Springfield.
The boys said the team changed dramatically when Triano joined.
“He was two years younger than us and made a huge impact,” Rudolph said. “It wasn’t until he got there that we put together conference wins we hadn’t had in years. It was a whole new dynamic. We even beat Governor Livingston and Scotch Plains-Fanwood, which were some of our biggest rivals.”
On the ice, they describe Triano as fierce but always smiling and positive, quick to get up from a tough hit.
“He cared about others and put the team first,” said Alex Frei, 19, also from Springfield. “He would be upbeat and made everything seem lighter.”
Even though he played as a defenseman, he would often be able to take the puck from the other team all the way up the ice and score, they said.
“He was the captain his sophomore year and that doesn’t happen,” said Connor Krumholz, 19, of Springfield. “He would have made the ‘100 club,’ [for goals scored]. He had scored 89 points already in his high school career.”
Rudolph said he thought Triano would definitely have played at the college level when graduating and said that when he came home from college last summer, Triano would get up at 6 a.m. and meet him at the rink to help him practice.
“When I got home from college, I hadn’t been playing hockey and he convinced me to get back into it,” Rudolph said. “I play goalie, and so Monday to Thursday we’d be at the rink at 7 a.m. and he’d shoot for two hours on me. He was the only one who would get up at 6 a.m. to do that with me.”
In January, Triano was voted the top player in Union County – with more than 6,700 votes – in our NJ.com poll.
“He was the hardest working, friendly, outgoing,” Krumholz said. “So relaxed. Never complained and always did what he was told. We are just in shock that this happened to someone like him.”
Other friends of Triano also spoke about his constant positive spirit. Joey Scanio calls Triano his very first friend after the two met in preschool.
Joey Scanio and Dan Triano – Scanio says Triano was his “very first friend.” (Courtesy Joey Scanio)“He was very respectful,” Scanio said. “He’s funny. A great kid. Never had a frown on his face and always there to cheer you up.”
Scanio remembers going to Devils games with Triano and both of their fathers. The two boys would come up with schemes to try to get on the big screen.
“One time we pretended we were asleep at the game,” Scanio said. “It didn’t work but it was fun. It was just laughing all the time when you were with him.”
Kelly Wohltman, a junior at the Union County Vo-Tech Academy of Information Technology, where Triano was also a junior, calls Triano “one of the nicest guys she’s ever met.”
“He was always happy, cracking silly jokes and knew how to get along with everyone,” Wohltman said. “We all loved him so much. I wish I could have told him how much I and the entire UC Vo-Tech Schools appreciated him.”
Around 7 p.m. a group of Dayton-Brearley players and other friends and parents gathered and prayed silently at the crash site. Beneath them were photos of Triano, flowers and messages written on hockey pucks in the shape of an 8, Triano’s number.
Before they parted, they huddled in a tight circle, shouting “Dogs!” – for the Dayton-Brearley Bulldogs – on the count of three.
Jessica Remo may be reached at jremo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaRemoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
