Pawling Youth Hockey: Bellucci receives Tomas J. Sage,l Jr. Sportsmanship Award for 2006-2007 Bantam season

Tom Sage Award honors the man who served for 30 years as coach, treasurer and president of Pawling Youth Hockey

Visit the Pawling Youth Hockey website at www.pawlingyouthhockey.org

For the story of Tom Sage and his family, and their relationship with Pawling Youth Hockey, see the accompanying story and photos

By John M. Benson
April 13, 2007

Pawling Youth Hockey (PYH) has named Johnnie Bellucci the recipient of the 2007 Thomas J. Sage Sportsmanship Award, the award that honors a player for “sportsmanship, leadership and dedication” as a member of the PYH Bantam Team.

Joey Leonaggeo received the award in 2006, after Josh Paugh won the inaugural edition of the award in 2005.

The recipient each year receives a personal plaque, and his/her named is inscribed on the perpetual trophy that is on display at Terrell Ice Rink at Trinity-Pawling School. The trophy bears the name of the award, the name of each Bantam player selected, and the inspiring mission of the Tom Sage Award and of Pawling Youth Hockey:

“Thomas J. Sage Jr. Sportsmanship Award:
This award is named in honor of a man who dedicated over 30 years of his life to Pawling Hockey, having served as a Coach, Member of the Board of Directors, President and Treasurer. Tom’s leadership, dedication and sense of fair play will forever impact the participants of Pawling Hockey. The players named below have demonstrated the highest levels of sportsmanship, leadership and dedication to their team.”

Current PYH President J. P. White made the presentation to Johnnie Bellucci at the ceremony. White played for Tom Sage and with Tom’s son Jim in Pawling Youth Hockey when they were kids.

White said of Tom Sage, “Tom Sage himself was the epitome of what is now the Tom Sage Award. He loved the game because it was a game. He was a true sportsman. Tom really enjoyed being around all of us, all of the hockey players and friends of Jim’s, and we loved being around him. He used to have a van, a big van, and that way if there was anybody who couldn’t get to the games, he would tell everyone, ‘If you can get to my house, I can get you to the game.’ I can remember going to games with him when there would be eight or ten of us in the van. He had two seats in the front of the van, and no other seats. That way, you could pile all of the hockey equipment in the van, and all of us would sit on the floor and on top of the equipment, and he always made sure we could all get there. Tom Sage and all of our families made sure this program was here for us, and we are here to make sure the program is here for our kids today and tomorrow. We have a hard act to follow with Tom Sage and all of them. The bottom line is that it is fun, it is all fun, and that is what it is all about.”

At the ceremony in 2005, PYH President Keith Clarkson said of Tom Sage and the award, “We are here today to recognize the 2005 recipient of the Thomas J. Sage Sportsmanship Award. We invited our Bantam players and parents here because the award that we are presenting today will be presented every year at the end of the season to the Bantam player who is most deserving of it. The Board of Directors of Pawling Youth Hockey established the award for two equal reasons. First, it allows us to perpetually and annually remember a man who gave over 30 years of his life to Pawling Hockey. Second, it gives us the opportunity to recognize a player who most demonstrates the life skills that youth sports are designed to enhance. I’d just like to say that Tom was treasurer during my four years as president of Pawling Youth Hockey and his knowledge, insight and advice were very helpful, not only to me but for everyone involved in Pawling Youth Hockey.”

Longtime Pawling Youth Hockey and Pawling High School varsity coach Bob Reid played for Tom Sage as a youngster, and enjoyed talking hockey with Tom Sage as a coach: “I remember that Tom was never a loud coach but he was direct, and I remember more about him after I started coaching.  He was always, with me, a pleasant person to speak with. He seemed to be full of optimism with regards to the program. He was one of the few people who I enjoyed talking with in regards to the team because he would have an intelligent, un-biased point of view.” 

Bantam coach and PYH President J. P. White presented the award to Johnnie Bellucci at the ceremony this past March, 2007, and said of the outstanding youngster, “You look at the criteria for this award and at Johnnie Bellucci, and that is his true character. In the locker room, he is the one that is always smiling, but anyone who ever says anything or does anything, always asks his opinion. He is a leader by his actions, and he is a great kid. Johnnie Bellucci is the type of a kid where, if I was running a drill from one end of the ice to the other, he would be the first one on line, and if he got down to the other end and saw that there was an odd man, he would skate quickly back to the other end to do the drill again with that man, just to be sure that there were even numbers for everybody, and that everybody was included in everything the team did. He made sure everybody was included, and it didn’t matter who it was or when it was. Not only did he command respect from opponents, he would also bring out the best in his teammates. He would be the first kid on a 2-on-0 break to make the pass and set up his teammate. Johnnie went to the practices for the Squirts, the Mites and the Pee Wees, helping out at all levels of the program. He is the epitome of what the award is about. He is a true sportsman. He plays the game because he loves the game.”

White said the decision for the selection for the Tom Sage Award is always difficult, because the team is loaded with kids of high character year after year.  

“That is why these kids go as far as they do. For being the smallest team in the league, it is their dedication that gets them to where they are, and this year that is the league championship. The award is for a last-year Bantam. We had seven kids eligible for the award this year, and it was a difficult decision,” White said.

When Joey Leonaggeo received the Tom Sage Award in 2006, coach White said of the fine youngster, “Joey is a player I have coached as both a Pee Wee and a Bantam. He has always shown quiet leadership and dedication to his team. His abilities on the ice are characteristics of his personality. He never complains. He is attentive and supportive, more through his actions than his words. His attendance was always impeccable. He hasn’t missed a game. The only practice he missed all season long, and this was actually quite funny, was due to an injury that he sustained in the library. He was horsing around in the library, and something came down, and he ended up getting stitches. He actually came to the practice, but he couldn’t practice, because he had stitches in his head. Other than that, he would have had full attendance to every practice and every game that we had. Joey was your quiet one, but put it this way, if we had a penalty to kill, and I needed four players out on the ice, Joey would be one of them. He is a true quiet leader, and an outstanding young man on and off the ice.”

Josh Paugh received the award from his Bantam coach and then-President Keith Clarkson in 2005. Clarkson has said of Josh, “The most important things about Josh Paugh on our bantam teams were his sportsmanship and his dedication. He was always there, and he was always very positive. On the sportsmanship side of things, I coached Josh for a few years on several age levels of Pawling Youth Hockey, and I don’t think I ever heard him say a negative word about anything, about his teammates, about a game situation, or anything else. He was always positive, another like Tom Sage who was always looking on the bright side of things. He was more or less a silent strength on our teams, a player who always went out and did his job, and never took a shift off. When I presented Josh with the award, I said that Webster’s defines example as follows, “… a model, something worthy of imitation.” Based on that, Josh Paugh is truly an example of what the winner of the Tom Sage should be. He brings all the qualities to the table, and in addition to that, he worked hard and developed himself into an outstaying hockey player. When he was a Bantam, I told everyone, pound for pound, he was the toughest kid on the team. He isn’t physically big, but no matter how big the person was behind him, when they went into the corners, he never backed down. He was unbelievable. He would take a bad hit and just get up and get right back into the game.”

With Tom Sage’s umtimely passing in the fall of 2004, his wife Eileen and children Stephanie and Jim were approached by then-President Keith Clarkson and the Board of Directors, who wanted to define and initiate the Tom Sage Award. The family had asked people to make donations to Pawling Youth Hockey in lieu of flowers and made their own donation to the Tom Sage Award in recognition of Tom’s love for the organization.

Speaking for the family in 2005 when the inaugural award was presented to Josh Paugh, Jim wrote the following message to the people of Pawling Youth Hockey:

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the Board of Directors for the generous and fitting tribute that you have made to my father by establishing the Thomas J. Sage Jr. Sportsmanship Award. 

“As you may know, my father was a lifetime resident of Pawling. He loved his community and during his 63 years in it he devoted himself to over a half dozen organizations, many of which he actively participated in for over 20 years.

“Within that long-standing record of community service, there was no one organization that he cared more about than Pawling Youth Hockey. He genuinely believed in the mission of the organization, to have fun and to teach boys and girls to compete in sports and to better prepare them to do the same in life. He also loved the fact that this could be accomplished at the most reasonable fee in the area, one that would make the experience open to virtually anyone who wanted to be a part of it. 

“I also think that he gravitated to the program because it is so closely aligned with his own values of hard work, determination, family, teamwork, sportsmanship and the notion that you do the best with what you have been given. 

“Finally, I believe that part of my father’s bond to the program was forged through the mutual enjoyment that he and I had participating in it together. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood and of my father are the decade that we spent together as part of Pawling Youth Hockey as father and son, coach and player. 

“It is for these reasons that I believe he put so much into the youth hockey program and thought so much of it. 

“I am honored, as is my family, that he will now be a permanent part of the organization, and I hope that others will continue to see in it all the great things that he did. Best of luck for much continued success.”