June 15, 1980 When Scott Chamness skated onto the ice four years ago his first varsity hockey game for Archbishop Carroll High School, he gathered his teammates around him, and announced, “We’re gonna tear this league apart.” The league Chamness was referring to was the Inter-County Hockey league and, although nobody knew it a the time, he was right. The Inter-County League, and area hockey in general hasn’t been the same. His contributions are more than just the staggering point totals he has amassed, Chamness, more than any other player made hockey a major scholastic sport in Southeastern Pennsylvania. That may seem an overstatement. He is, after all, an 18-year old just one week out of high school. But Chamness created the one thing that hockey in local schools always lacked – the media interest to put the sport on a par with the established sports. When school opened in […]

April 13, 1980 Scott Chamness, winner of the Bobby Clarke Award in the recently completed Flyers Cup, heads the Inquirer’s all-area hockey team. Chamness, the highest scorer in area scholastic-hockey history, has been named to the team in all four years at Archbishop Carroll. In a rare display of what he has meant to his team and his school, the Patriots retired his jersey, so that no one else can ever wear 10 again at Carroll. Chamness scored 69 regular-season goals this year, far and away the highest total in the area. He led Carroll through the expansive Inter-County Hockey League (ICSHL) playoffs with only one loss, then scored 13 goals in the four Flyers Cup games to give the Patriots the first Cup championship. In four seasons, he scored 271 regular-season goals in just 64 games – an average of 4.2 goals a game that will probably never be […]

  March 27, 1980 About 20 years ago the New York Yankees had a farm team called the Kansas City Athletics. The Athletics, of course, played in the same league as the Yankees. It was a cute little system. Anytime Kansas City came up with a genuine talent – Roger Maris, for instance – they ‘traded” him to the Yankees for a bullpen catcher to be named later. The Yankees won the pennant just about every year, and Kansas City battled the Washington Senators for next-to-last place. The same thing could have happened to Archbishop Carroll’s hockey team this year. The Patriots were supposed to have everybody back from their two-time Inter-County League champions, but half of their regulars up and left for a high-powered New England prep school where they could polish their skills to a high gloss. About the only thing Carroll had left was Scott Chamness. Which […]

March 27, 1980 Archbishop Carroll High’s hockey team won the Flyers Cup last night. FINALLY! After three years of season-ending injuries, fights, suspensions, withdrawals and assorted problems, Carroll finally proved it is the best high school hockey team in the area. With Scott (The Shot) Chamness scoring his fourth “hat trick” in the four-game series, Carroll defeated Malvern Prep, 6-2, before the largest crowd ever to play to see a high school hockey game in the Delaware Valley, 2,207, in the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 1923 Rink. Chamness who had 13 goals in four games, won the Bobby Clarke Award as the Flyers Cup most valuable player. “The MVP doesn’t really mean that much,” said Chamness. “I couldn’t have won it without Jeff Arnold, or my brother (Phil) or Carmen DiGiandomenico.” It’s their award too. “But The Cup… it feels great to win everything when you have to work […]

Wednesday January 30, 1980 Original Source / Philadelphia Inquirer – Don McKee The Flyers yesterday elevated scholastic hockey in the area to a position of public visibility equal to or greater than any other high school sport. At a news conference at the Spectrum, Flyers executive vice president Bob Butera announced the creation of the Flyers Cup Tournament, a regional scholastic event that the team will underwrite and organize. Scholastic hockey in Pennsylvania is administered by the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States. It does not come under the administration of the Pennsylvania Inter-Scholastic Athletic Association, the Public League or the Catholic League, even though teams from all three of those organizations (plus the Inter-academic League) compete against each other. The new tournament, which has the full backing of the three organized scholastic hockey leagues, replaces the unwieldly regional tournament of the last several years. The Flyers Cup will […]