Zappala: From the Brink Back to the Rink

On January 10, Yale forward Joe Zappala scored the game-winning goal against St. Lawrence, delivering the Elis’ third straight victory in a win streak that stands at six games entering tonight’s contest with Harvard.

The goal came with 24.8 seconds left in overtime—and at 9:36 p.m. local time. Two hours, 24 minutes later, the clock struck midnight in New Haven, marking another event in Zappala’s life that was far, far removed from hockey.

It was the third anniversary of the day he underwent brain surgery.

“That was a really tough time in my life,” remembered Zappala, thinking back to his senior year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School (BB&N), a short Zamboni drive away from the Harvard campus.

Zappala, now a 20-year-old sophomore, was 17 when doctors told him the unbearable words: “You might not play hockey again.”

There was cause for such grave concern. For two full months that school year, every time Zappala stood up, he blacked out for 15 seconds. He had to clutch onto whatever he could find to keep from falling down.

But he is, after all, a hockey player, and hockey players have a certain hubris when it comes to matters of bodily disrepair. So you could’ve guessed Zappala’s response: He thought it was a “really bad headache” and tried to play through it.

“I thought I was just stressed out over school, worrying about hockey,” he recalled. “It was definitely something entirely different.”

The diagnosis: hydrocephalus. Doctors cut into his skull on Jan. 11, 2001. The operation was a success, draining the fluid that had collected on his brain. Subsequent MRIs have given Zappala a spotless bill of health.

Still, it could’ve ended his career. It could’ve made him worry so much about the dangers of a blow to the head that he turned in his skates. It could’ve enabled fear to put a lock-tight grip on his life.

Instead, Zappala responded the only way he knows how—with focused, unwavering resolve.

You want guts? Through the headaches, blackouts, and brain surgery that year, Zappala missed a total of three weeks. Yes. Three weeks for brain surgery. He had a hat trick in his final game, catching the eye of one Tim Taylor ‘63.

You want resiliency? Undeterred in his dream of playing Division I hockey and not satisfied with the Division III looks he was getting at BB&N, Zappala enrolled at Deerfield Academy for a postgraduate year. He thrived there, excelling in the classroom and performing well enough on the ice that big-name suitors came calling. “Academically and athletically, he did a great job up there,” said Taylor, Yale’s longtime head coach. “He was a very easy kid for Yale to admit.”

And you want an all-around, feel-good success story? After a 15-point freshman season, Zappala worked tirelessly on his speed over the summer—tell me you’re not surprised—and has lit up the ECAC like a Christmas tree this year. He is second in the league in point-scoring (19) and goal-scoring (11) and leads his team with 26 points overall.

Those numbers get a little better when you consider this: Eight of his 11 goals have been game-winners. Yale has 11 wins. You do the math.

And, for the most part, these are not second-period goals that, after an even third, have a “GWG” tacked on them in the scoring summary. No. These are game-winning goals, and his eight lead the nation.

The Bulldogs are 3-0-0 in overtime this year. You-know-who has had the deciding goal each time.

“You always look to the clutch players, and I can’t think of a better way to describe him than that,” said linemate Ryan Steeves. “Everyone stands up on the bench a little when he’s on the ice.”

And with good reason. Zappala’s overtime winners came with 20 seconds, 24 seconds, and 3 seconds left, respectively. Talk about a flair for the dramatic. It’s as if the victory puck is forever tucked somewhere in the guy’s pants, and all he has to do is flip it onto the ice, swat it in, and watch everyone go berserk.

But even though it seems Zappala has the fiercely loyal Ingalls Rink fandom tightly wound on his finger, his demeanor is still that of the lunchpail-and-hardhat grinder. “I tell him all the time that he’s having a helluva season, and he just deflects the praise,” Steeves said. “It’s great to see such a level-headed kid be successful.”

He knows how to take a joke, too. In reference to Zappala’s thick accent drawn from his Medford roots—check that, “Medfid” roots—Yale’s team trainer has taped foam “R’s” onto his locker.

“He can’t say his R’s,” Steeves said, laughing. “I’m from Canada, and I’ve never heard accents like his. I can’t hear a word he’s saying.”

Maybe Zappala should avoid careers that involve a lot of public speaking. Then again, that might not be an issue. If he keeps playing like this, Zappala is a good bet to find some paid work in the puck profession.

Just don’t expect him to get a big head about it.

“It’s definitely come as a total, fun surprise to me,” Zappala said. “I had no idea my season would be going the way it is. Things just seem to be going right, and I’m having a blast in the process.”

Hear that? This 20-year-old has the rare hat trick of humility, talent, and a sharply-defined focus. You might say it’s easier to put everything in perspective once your brain has been laid bare.

“He’s on a mission,” Steeves said. “That’s how you describe his life.”

Thanks to Zappala’s dogged determination, his college years haven’t been constrained by what happened on an operating table three years ago. No way. Joe Zappala—the student, the athlete, the person—is defined by his sweet successes since.

Having Their Number

You wouldn’t know it from watching them against Harvard, but the Colgate Raiders (15-8-3, 10-4-0 ECAC) stand one point behind league-leading Brown with eight games remaining.

They have won six straight, including last weekend’s home-and-home sweep of Cornell, which vaulted them into the national rankings at No. 15. Yet, the Crimson owns a five-game win streak over the Raiders, outscoring them, 29-5, over that span.

That goes to show you that hockey games are—excepting outstanding goaltending performances—won and lost based on whose style of play prevails.

Harvard, which seems to need more time and space than most to establish its offensive sets, has played well in recent years against Colgate, Dartmouth, Yale—skating teams that, generally speaking, do not have an overabundance of size and are less defensive-minded. The Crimson’s record against those teams this year is 3-0-1. Last year, it was 8-0-0.

But Harvard has struggled against teams like Brown, Cornell, and Princeton—clubs that play strong on the wall, sometimes trap in the neutral zone, and collapse around their own net quickly. The Crimson’s record against those teams this year is 0-6-0. Last year, it was 2-5-0.

In other words, keep close attention to the ECAC standings during the last month, knowing that Harvard’s playoff future hinges less on where it finishes and more on who it plays.

If the season ended today, the Crimson, in eighth place, would play a first-round series at home against ninth-place St. Lawrence. If Harvard won that, it would earn a trip to Brown’s Meehan Auditorium, a place where it hasn’t won in two years.

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.