Goalie Parker Gahagen shares his unique path that led him to Railers
· Yahoo Sports
He played two seasons of hockey in Florida. He nearly played hardball there as well.
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Parker Gahagen was his baseball team’s MVP in 2011 while at Williamsville North High School, located 12 miles northeast of Buffalo, New York. And he seriously considered playing at Florida Southern, which has won nine Division 2 national championships and produced 13 Major Leaguers.
Currently in his 10th professional hockey season – spanning 13 teams – the Worcester Railers goalie has no regrets concerning his career choice.
The man with 122 career pro wins is still connected to baseball, however. Mostly from afar, but also through his dog.
Gahagen follows a certain team that wears pinstripes - “My dad is a Yankees fans, so it carried down,” he said – and his corgi is named Yogi Berra.
Berra, as she is known, ran in the annual Buffalo Bills Corgi Cup championship at Highmark Stadium on Sept. 27 at halftime of the Bills/Rams game, competing against the likes of Fenway Frank, Sauerkraut Kenobi and Riot.
“She didn’t win; she got distracted,” Gahagen said. “But she had the most fun out there.”
She also has 484 followers @berrathecorgi on Instagram.
In an interview held at Worcester Ice Center on the eve of the World Series, Gahagen also picked the Milwaukee Brewers to win the World Series.
“I feel like they might deserve it a little bit more,” he said. “I like how they play small ball. All the finer details. It’d be cool to see that type of team win. Usually, it’s always about the long ball.”
(The Brewers clinched the Series in five games Wednesday night, hitting just three home runs).
Back to hockey. Gahagen has played on the West Coast (San Jose Barricuda), the Rockies (Utah Grizzlies; Colorado Eagles), the Northeast United States (Lehigh Valley Phantoms; Reading Royals) and in Canada.
While he won the Kelly Cup with the Florida Everblades in 2022, another unforgettable memory happened well to the north when he played for the Newfoundland Growlers in '19-20. Gahagen won 10 of the 15 games he played and posted a career-low 1.81 goals against average, but what happened outside the rink has never left him.
“We got snowed in to our apartments for week and half,” he said. “The snow was above the door frames; that one’s hard to forget. All the ships were stuck in the harbor.”
Gahagen went undefeated at Hart Center in college
After he was named New York State Public High School Athletic Association Hockey Player of the Year in 2011, Gahagen enrolled at Army West Point and served a year of active duty in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (He and his wife live in Denver during the offseason).
“It’s definitely a reality check,” he said of his four years at West Point. “You had Basic Training. The first year was definitely tough: they throw a lot at you school-wise and you have the distraction of the military piece of it and the demand of playing a Division 1 sport. The first year was very demanding; definitely one of the tougher years of my life, but once you get through it, it gets a little bit better every year.”
Gahagen was a two-time American Hockey Association second team all-star at West Point and had several strong performances when the Black Knights played against Holy Cross in Worcester. He went 5-0 at the Hart Center against the Crusaders including his team’s two-game sweep in the 2016 AHA Tournament where he stopped 67 of 68 shots in his junior year.
As a senior, he made 32 saves in an 8-1 win at the Hart Center. The next night – at West Point – in his 100th career start, he set the school’s career saves record in another win over Holy Cross.
After nearly making the US Olympic team in 2018, Gahagen embarked on his pro career. His return to Worcester this season marks just the second time he has played more than one season with a team.
“It always keeps you on your toes,” said Gahagen, who has given up nine goals in three games for Worcester, which travels to Adirondack for a 7 p.m. Friday game before heading home for a 10:05 a.m. rematch against the Thunder on Monday at the DCU Center. “Going from team to team gives you an appreciation of what each organization brings.”
His one constant is stopping pucks, an activity he compares to another ball sport that involves a swing.
“I think of playing goalie as like your putting game a bit. As a goalie, you’re on an island. You can have such an impact on the game. Sometimes you can be given all the credit or you can take all the blame.”
Gahagen can’t be blamed for following his heart and choosing hockey.
“Worked out, I suppose,” he said with a smile.
‒Contact Tim Dumas at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram at tdumas1 and X, formerly known as Twitter, @TDumas2112.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Goalie Parker Gahagen shares his unique path that led him to Railers