CRAIG JANNEY ’85
/ b y B o b Yo r k
62 | THE COMMON ROOM
Jim Lindsay ’70 can now tell his grandchildren, or anyone else for that matter, that he skated on the same line as a hall of famer. The former Deerfield hockey coach might not mention the fact that these ice capades were limited to practice, however. Lindsay, Big Green varsity hockey head coach from 1988 to 2003, was an assistant under Jay Morsman ’55 during the 1984-85 season when one of the players on that team was a post-graduate from Enfield, CT, named Craig Janney. Despite having helped lead Enfield High School to back-to-back state championships, Janney’s arrival at Deerfield went pretty much unheralded—until hockey season. “It only took about two or three shifts into our first practice to realize we had something really special in Craig Janney,” says Lindsay. And by the time Janney had led a 16-0 rout of Vermont Academy in the Big Green’s season opener with a six-goal performance, “everyone else in New England began to take notice that we had something special, too.” Following a 16-6-1 season in which Janney led Deerfield in scoring with 68 points on 33 goals and 35 assists, he secured his spot as arguably the best hockey player in school history. His one season at the Academy also helped catapult him to the heights of hockey on the collegiate, international, and professional levels. For those achievements, Janney was enshrined in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame this past December as a part of its Class of 2016. “Craig had outstanding hockey sense . . . an ability to anticipate where everyone was on the ice and get them the puck,” says Morsman. “Sometimes you’d watch him and swear that he had eyes in the back of his head after watching some of the passes he’d make.” Lindsay, meanwhile, admits to becoming so fascinated by watching Janney’s maneuverings that whenever one of Janney’s line mates missed practice, “I’d go out and skate on his line. It was fun . . . his ability to pass the puck really kept you on your toes.” One of those line mates was team Captain Brian Jurek ’85, who credits Janney as being “one of those elite athletes who made everyone around him better,” and that obviously included Jurek, who quite possibly produced the best statistical year of his entire hockey career that winter with 50 points on 25 goals and 25 assists. “Craig was the most amazing player I’ve ever seen when he had the puck on his stick,” says Jurek, a member of the 1984 Big Green squad that captured the New England prep school crown. “Next to Wayne Gretzky, I don’t think there’s anyone who has had better puck control and passing ability in the game of hockey. Opponents would double and triple-team him in the corners, yet they’d rarely get the puck away from him. “Our game plan was simple that season,” continues Jurek, “get the puck to Janney in the neutral zone and then head for the goal. That’s where Coach Lindsay was constantly reminding us to keep our heads up, because when you least expected it, you’d find the puck on your stick.” “I just considered myself a playmaker who was privileged to always have some outstanding scorers around me,” says a modest Janney, who was selected by the Boston Bruins with the 13th overall pick in the 1986 NHL Entry Draft. “It was my job to put the puck on a teammate’s stick and I use to tell them ‘just keep your stick on the ice and I’ll find it.’”
Topps trrading cards used courtesy of The Topps Company, Inc.
The Hall of Famer