Almost a month after incompressible personal tragedy, a Rhode Island high school hockey player scored a game-winning goal in double overtime of a semifinal matchup to help his team advance to the state championship next week.
Colin Dorgan scored on a breakaway for the Blackstone Valley Schools on Wednesday night, giving the team a 3-2 victory over Portsmouth and punching their ticket to the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Division II Boys Hockey Championship.
“We have tears in our eyes and goosebumps right now,” one of the NFHS Network announcers said, reacting on air to Colin Dorgan’s goal. “Nothing will ever change what happened to that young man, but there’s a moment for him that he’ll never forget.”
The crowd at Providence College’s Schneider Arena erupted with cheers as Dorgan celebrated on the ice with his teammates.
Blackstone Valley will next play in the championship game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence on Wednesday, March 18, at 4 p.m.
Colin Dorgan is a senior at North Providence High School, one of the five schools that make up the Blackstone Valley hockey co-op. The other four include St. Raphael Academy, Smithfield High School, Johnston High School and Providence Country Day School.
The team has leaned on each other following the Feb. 16 shooting at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket that left Colin Dorgan’s mother, Rhonda Dorgan, his brother, Aidan Dorgan, and his grandfather, Gerald Dorgan, dead.
The shooting at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena left four people dead and two injured.
His grandmother, Linda Dorgan, and a family friend, Pawtucket assistant principal Thomas Geruso, were also critically injured in the ice rink shooting.
Officials have identified the shooter, who died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, as 56-year-old Robert Dorgan, who also went by the names Roberta Esposito and Roberta Dorgano. Robert Dorgan was specifically targeting family members in the shooting, officials determined, killing their ex-wife, adult son, ex-wife’s parents and family friend.