The game clock said 6:47 when the St. Francis Fed hockey team took a 3-1 lead against Lew-Port. Andrew Michalski scored the goal to give the Red Raiders that 3-1 lead in the third period of their first game of the 2017-18 season on December 3, 2017.
Not everyone at the rink that night knew the context, but Michalski’s burst of energy and celebration made it clear that there was something significant about that goal.
After the game, Michalski’s teammates explained. Michalski hadn’t scored a goal in a while. In fact, he hadn’t played organized hockey since eighth grade.
He had, however, played varsity baseball and been a member of the varsity cross-country team since his freshman year at St. Francis. It was baseball and Michalski’s future in the sport that influenced his decision to give up hockey after eighth grade. At the time, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever play hockey again.
“I stepped away because I just wanted to focus on baseball,” Michalski explained. “I knew that baseball was something I wanted to do at the next level after high school. It was mainly my parents telling me because my brother, he was a pretty good baseball player — he just finished up at Cortland — and he actually hurt his thumb playing hockey and he separated his knees and shoulders, so he had a lot of wear and tear that kind of affected his baseball. My parents didn’t want the same thing to happen to me, being as I’m smaller than him and I’m not really as big as some of the kids I’m playing against, so I kind of took a step away from hockey and wanted to focus on baseball.”
Michalski learned early to make sacrifices in sports, and cross-country is full of them. He joined the cross-country team late as a freshman.
“In gym class, we did a run walk, and my gym teacher talked to the cross-country coach, and they set it up for me to come a couple weeks late into the season. Right away, I could tell that this was something I was pretty good at,” Michalski explained.
But just being good at it didn’t make it fun. Michalski’s success in the sport made it worthwhile and showed him the value of sacrifice once again. Freshman year, Michalski finished second in All Catholics behind St. Francis teammate Jake Lanning. Junior year, Michalski finished second in All Catholics once again, and he was able to bring his team with him to Feds. Senior year was even better for Michalski and St. Francis as a whole.
“This year was a historic season because it was the first time in 40 years that cross-country has won anything with All Catholic,” Michalski explained. “We split the league title with Joe’s and Canisius and won All Catholics, so that was just an awesome cherry on top of a really dreadful four years for cross-country, just because it’s such a non-glamor sport. It’s pretty awful to do. You don’t enjoy it; you do it because it teaches you something, and it taught me to never give up. When you’re running and you’re feeling awful, it’s just something that kind of sparks your competitiveness. So yeah, it was just awesome when we won that.”
With his future in baseball set and his cross-country career coming to an end, Michalski couldn’t help thinking about hockey again. “What if I did?” was the thought that played over and over in his mind. He knew the risks, but he also knew the thrill.
Having turned 18 in September, Michalski had a serious conversation with his dad and explained that he wanted to return to a sport he loved.
“Talking to my dad, I just told him, ‘I’m 18 now, I’m an adult, I can make my own life choices right now,’” Michalski said. “And he said, ‘Sure, you can tell me what you wanna do, and you’re an adult, you can do it.’”
Michalski hadn’t played since eighth grade, but his memories of youth hockey were enough to feed his excitement to return to the ice. He hadn’t been on the ice in six months, but that changed when tryouts for the St. Francis Fed team came around in early November.
“We would do skates, but I hadn’t done that since six months before that, so tryouts was the first time stepping on the ice in that amount of time, and it was a lot of fun,” Michalski said. “The season was just awesome, being back in the locker room and just all the things that I missed from playing hockey, because I played all the way from mites, played travel, up until bantam major. So it was just awesome getting back into it and rediscovering my love for the game of hockey. I got to spend it with guys like Justin [Kirst] and [Andrew] Mazzone and just guys on my team that just made it an awesome year and something that I’m never gonna forget.”
Andrew Michalski (second from left) wears the player of the game sombrero and holds the puck from his first Fed goal.
The season started on a Sunday evening at HarborCenter, and that was when Michalski scored his first goal to start a season of memories he’ll cherish for a long time.
“We had a play that we had designed, a faceoff play in the offensive zone,” Michalski explained. “It’s like a rim play, and it squirted out to me out in front, and I just buried it. And just the feeling was crazy, just because I was never really a big goal scorer. I just played defense, so this was my first year playing forward since I was like a mite. But scoring that goal was kinda like, ‘Alright, I can do some damage out here. I can hang with these guys.’ And just scoring that goal was just awesome. If you see the video, you can just see the pure excitement that I have. It was just unbelievable.”
Michalski went on to score eight goals and tally 10 assists in 17 games, including a 17-second natural hat trick (he scored a total of four goals that game) against Niagara Falls. He was named a Division 3 Honorable Mention All-Star at the end of the season. But Michalski and his linemates, Justin Kirst and Pierce Greene, weren’t the line known for scoring. Borrowing a nickname from Miracle, they referred to themselves as the conehead line, and it took off.
“The conehead line – me, Kirsty, and Pierce – we kinda just came up with that just because we know we’re not the most skilled guys, but we were like the Fed players, like the type of Fed players on our team, kinda like the grit and grime that we have,” Michalski explained. “So we just called ourselves the coneheads. We were the only set line at the time when we came up with the name. We played literally almost the whole year together, and we scored a lot of goals and we made a lot of big plays. And even though we weren’t the first line, we were the energy line, and that’s what we liked.”
The Fed season ended earlier than Michalski and his teammates wanted and expected, but they created memories and bonded together for a brotherhood that carried over into baseball season and beyond.
Michalski and a few teammates pose after a St. Francis Baseball 2018 season preview.
Michalski never took much of a break from baseball. He was on the varsity team as a freshman. The shortstop batted low in the order, but his glove was ahead of his bat and earned him the opportunity to be there when St. Francis won the Georgetown Cup in 2015.
That season taught him more about making sacrifices and giving his all for the good of the team and the benefit of his “brothers” at St. Francis.
“Winning the Georgetown Cup was just something that gave me a little taste of what I should be expecting,” Michalski said. “It just gave me a taste of what it’s like to be in the moment of being not the biggest guy on the team, in terms of what’s expected. I batted low in the lineup, but having the glove that I had freshman year at short helped the team, and that’s all I was doing throughout the four years. Playing any sport, actually, I just want to represent St. Francis as best as I can.”
Michalski’s role grew each year, and this year he was one of the players his teammates looked to to lead the team, along with the other Red Raiders who plan to play college baseball next year.
“I’m one of the guys who’s going to play again next year, so people kind of look up to me and Justin and Ty [Syta] and Cole [O’Connor] and Ben [Heilig] and anyone playing at the next level,” Michalski said. “Playing these four years here has meant a lot to me, just helping me grow as a man through sports.”
Michalski’s brother Matt just finished his collegiate baseball career at Cortland, at least as a player. Next year, Matt will be coaching while Andrew plays. And it was Matt’s influence that helped pave the way and desire for Andrew to play at Cortland, despite interest from Le Moyne, Mercyhurst, and Medaille.
“My brother threw my name out there,” Michalski explained. “The coach would ask him, ‘What’s up with your brother? Is he good enough to be here?’ Cortland just kinda stuck out for me. My brother went there and I already knew the coach and he knew me through watching me through high school and seeing stats and stuff on Twitter. So he kind of knew where I was, and then I actually had a tournament in Cortland, so I got to play in front of him, which really showed him what kind of player I am. That made him get pretty interested in me, so I’m pretty excited to go to Cortland.”
Michalski and a few teammates after a regular season win.
Cortland’s 2018 season ended with a loss in regionals, but Michalski’s competitiveness already has him excited for next year with a team he hasn’t played for yet.
“Next year, we got ’em,” Michalski said with a grin. “I’m pretty excited.”
St. Francis Baseball’s 2018 season ended a little differently — with a celebration at Coca-Cola Field as the Red Raiders swept St. Joe’s to win the 2018 Georgetown Cup. The stands contained several of Michalski’s “brothers” from hockey season, as did the dugout. Michalski, Syta, O’Connor, and Luke Farinacci celebrated their second Georgetown Cup in four years, and they were more than happy to share the victory with a team that had become another family for them.
“The Georgetown Cup just kind of solidified the four years athletically for me and my teammates and classmates,” Michalski said. “There was just something special this year with the guys that I’ve been playing with and all my friends that I have on the team. We were like a family on the team this year, so winning was just getting that goal that you planned to get and were hoping to get, and it’s just something awesome to come back on after the upset last year.”
Michalski was named First Team All-Catholic following the season; several of his teammates received honors as well, including O’Connor’s selection as the All-Catholic Offensive Player of the Year.
“It’s definitely awesome to get recognized like that,” Michalski said. “I owe it to the school, my teammates and coaches — just everyone who’s helped me for everything they did throughout the year to help me get to where I am now.”
Michalski and his parents after receiving the St. Francis Class of 2018 Sportsmanship Award at graduation.
His cross-country, hockey, and baseball accolades weren’t the only honor Michalski received this year. At St. Francis graduation on May 25, 2018, Michalski’s name was announced as the winner of the St. Francis Class of 2018 Sportsmanship Award. The award is one of two athletic awards presented at St. Francis graduation each year and includes a $250 scholarship. It is given to a three-sport athlete who demonstrates excellent sportsmanship, teamwork, and leadership.
The scholarship and award are presented by Gerald and Dawn Gorczyca in memory of Victoria Gorczyca.
“First, I’d just like to say thank you to Gerald and Dawn Gorczyca for their contribution and donation of 250 dollars for the award,” Michalski said. “I’m very thankful to be the one to accept such a high honor like that for a class of as many kids as it was, and it was just awesome to represent my class as the sportsmanship award. Some people say it’s like the second place for athlete of the year, but I’m perfectly fine with that. They talked about being a team player and always leading the team, and I definitely see through all these years of sports at St. Francis that I have done that. It was just awesome to hear my name called for that award.”
The next day, St. Francis Baseball picked up its first 2018 playoff win with a 5-1 victory over Nichols. The game ended with a pick-off at second base, a play called by Michalski, and it was he who made the tag to send the Red Raiders to the semifinals against Canisius.
Knowing that, win or lose, he had just a few games left with his St. Francis family, Michalski took some time after the game to reflect.
“St. Francis has helped me grow into the man I am,” Michalski said. “I can remember coming in as a freshman and being kind of scared and things like that, and I think back on it to where I am now, and wow, I’ve changed so much. Now I’m technically an adult, and I consider myself an adult maturity wise. Being at this school for four years with all the kids that I was with, along with coaches and teachers, it’s always just been such a blessing to be able to be with these guys. I met so many great people, and I give it all back to St. Francis, and I can’t wait to represent this place when I’m gone. I’m pretty excited to represent Frannies.”
The baseball team went on to take two out of three from Canisius, with 10-run differentials in both wins, before sweeping St. Joe’s in the Georgetown Finals. The deciding game was a 1-0 St. Francis walk-off win to end a story and high school athletic career that couldn’t have been written any better.
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