Dan Capuano’s funeral was standing room only at Cassia Santa Rita High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Hundreds of firefighters from Chicago and across the country participate in the event. Members of the St. Jude Knights Youth Hockey Club were also in attendance wearing their jerseys.
Capuano’s sons, Andrew and Nick, play for the Knights, a Northern Illinois Hockey League program that feeds many of Chicago’s strong Catholic schools. Nick’s team won the 2012-13 Squirt A state championship.
Dan was killed in the line of duty while fighting a warehouse fire on the South Side on December 14, 2015, after dedicating much of his time to the Order.
That championship-winning Cavaliers team wanted to reunite to honor Capuano and his family, so a new team was formed in March 2016. “Capuano” will compete in the Shamrock Shuffle weekend at the University of Notre Dame. Their jerseys are red and white and feature Dan’s badge number: 1676.
There was a hiccup early on. “The guy who was running the game didn’t want us in,” said former St. Jude coach Ralph Lawrence. “He said the competition was too fierce.”
The Capuano team just wants to play together again. It comes in. During one game, center Luke Lawrence, Ralph’s son, was hit from behind and hit the backboard hard.
“Could paralyze him,” said Ralph. “It’s a hard blow.”
Just then, 13-year-old wing JJ McCarthy burst in. He didn’t drop his gloves, but an argument ensued.
“It was a little bit of a cheap hit in the corner,” Luke said. “JJ was the first one to come to me. He walked to the corner and said a few words to the kid.”
“JJ got mad at the kid and got kicked out of the game,” Ralph said.
The whole scene is different from McCarthy. He’s usually a calmer presence on the ice — his father, Jim, one of Capuano’s primary playmakers, doesn’t appreciate such outbursts — but Luke is a close friend of JJ’s and this game was an emotional one experience. In hockey, leadership often involves the corners.
“Those kids played more than just hockey that weekend,” Ralph said.
At the end of the game, Capuano – a team some felt didn’t belong in South Bend – won the game. A year later, they came back and won again.
McCarthy’s blood was cold. His mother, Megan, was a competitive figure skater. He started playing hockey in kindergarten. Organized football came later.
McCarthy calls hockey his first love. His experience on the ice will ultimately help him become a better quarterback — and now he’s about to be drafted in the first round.
He was 10 years old in March 2013 when the Knights defeated Winnetka in the Tier II Squirt A state championship game. He and Luke Lawrence assisted on the only goal of the game. It was a special season for a special group, one that ultimately fractured as players changed teams and levels.
McCarthy (far right) got used to winning early as a member of the St. Jude Knights’ championship team. (Courtesy of Ralph Lawrence)
McCarthy and Lawrence were inseparable for years. They were competitive in every way and played so well on the same line that they earned a nickname referring to the Vancouver Canucks’ twin stars Henrik and Daniel Sedin.
Lawrence and McCarthy stop at Dunkin’ Donuts before a practice or game. Dads drink coffee. Luke would buy a bagel or a banana. McCarthy always orders a strawberry frosted donut. Ralph Lawrence recommended against using pre-skating pastry, but this became McCarthy’s first choice. (After McCarthy signed a zero-year deal at Michigan, a medium iced coffee and a strawberry frosted donut became his official Dunkin’ Donuts meal in the Detroit area.)
“We laugh to this day,” Ralph said. “And it didn’t hurt him. He had good speed. He didn’t have an upset stomach.
As a coach, Lawrence emphasizes the importance of strong position play in the neutral zone and front and back checks. But McCarthy plays with great feeling.
“He knows where the puck is going,” Ralph said. “He knows what the other team is going to do.”
When Lawrence watched McCarthy play football, he saw something similar happening on the field.
“He had an instinct,” Lawrence said. “It’s the same thing he does on the ice.”
McCarthy and Lawrence transferred to the Northern Express, another Division II team playing in the Central States Developmental Hockey League, which expanded beyond Illinois. It’s time to take on a new challenge.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited as a coach,” Northern Express coach Brent Dolan said.
Dolan’s team performed well defensively. The team’s defense was ruthless but did not score many goals.
“When JJ and Luke arrived, things immediately changed,” Dolan said. “I would say we’re up two goals a game — that’s huge in hockey.”
Inspections are also now allowed. There will be a lot of contact, a new, different level of physical contact. McCarthy can hit, take hits – and avoid hits. Extra exposure also means extracurricular activities, and McCarthy has no qualms about mixing it up.
“If I need something, or if I get hit in the corner, JJ is always there for me, stepping in and making sure things don’t escalate,” Luke said. “He would always stick up for me.”
By the time McCarthy hung up his skates, he had developed into a fast, physical forward. (Courtesy of Ted Eagle)
Hockey requires quick decisions under duress and contact. For McCarthy, as a forward, that often means receiving the ball when leaving his own area and deciding what to do when the opposing defender rushes towards him.
Quickly passing the puck to a teammate? Speed around defenders? Slice the puck past your opponent and chase it down?
“People who don’t play hockey don’t really understand how fast the game is and how many different components it has,” Dolan said. “You have to make decisions with the puck, you have to know where it’s going and execute it all in a split second. That’s not too much. It might help JJ’s vision in football.
Taking a shift on the ice can feel like standing in a pocket: Chaos everywhere, violence nearby. You have to see it – or more importantly, Feel It – get over it. McCarthy, who was part of the Northern Express power play, had the calmness and spatial awareness to operate in the vortex.
“Hockey really slows football down,” Luke Lawrence said.
In particular, McCarthy developed a Patrick Kane-like technique for avoiding big hits. Dolan later saw him make hockey-like cuts while playing for Michigan.
“He was trying to avoid being coached,” Dolan said. “In hockey, quick, subtle moves you make that might help him in the pocket and then also help him when he’s rushing or scrambling on the edge.”
In the summer between seventh and eighth grade, McCarthy began training with Greg Holcomb, a private QB coach from Next Level Athletix. Holcomb saw a lot of natural ability. He also saw the impact of hockey.
“Probably one of the reasons he’s so good at getting off the platform and moving around and changing direction is because in hockey, if he can’t skate past his opponent or make them miss, he’s absolutely going to get killed,” Holcomb said. “Hockey definitely helped him.”
The first game of McCarthy’s final hockey season happened to be at Yost Ice Arena on the University of Michigan campus.
As a freshman at Nazareth College, he played for the 14-and-under Chicago USA Youth Team, a Division I team. McCarthy had always been talented enough to play youth hockey at the highest level, but there was too much overlap between football and hockey, especially on the weekends.
CYA coach Ted Eagle didn’t mind the conflict because of who McCarthy is.
McCarthy has good hands and a quick release. He plays hard, generates turnovers and scores. “He’s a beast in hockey,” Eagle said. “He throws his body around, he’s not a less skilled, taller guy. He’s fast and has good physicality.
He is the spark—a tone-setter. In hockey, you need this.
“I depend on him, too,” Eagle said. “When one or two guys step up the pace, it sets the tone for the rest of the team.”
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McCarthy missed the first game of the Michigan State Championship due to the Nazareth football game and then appeared in the first quarter of the second game against the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite Youth Team. Eagle considers this one of his favorite hockey memories. “He fought hard, showed up in games and scored a couple goals against one of the top teams in the country,” Eagle said.
There are three hockey practices a week, mostly after football practice, which results in sometimes late nights for a high school freshman. There are also out-of-town games that are missed because of Friday night or Saturday morning football games. According to Eagle, CYA would play nearly 70 games that season, many of which required travel, and McCarthy participated in more than 40 of those games.
The back and forth between football and hockey requires discipline, but not with McCarthy. Eagle described him as a “frontline player” in practice. He pays attention to the smallest details, asks tons of questions, and discusses different scenarios. Eagle said McCarthy was eager to get the information to get better. Teammates were attracted to him.
“I’m sure a lot of people realize this now,” Eagle said, “but he’s like the ultimate leader.”
McCarthy hung up his skates after his freshman year of high school to focus on football. The following year during his sophomore season, just days before the 2018 Illinois Class 7A state championship game, McCarthy was throwing a pass when his thrower collided with the defensive lineman’s helmet.
“As a quarterback, it’s the kiss of death,” said former Nazareth quarterbacks coach Brody Badmeyer.
Everything stopped. McCarthy was in pain—severe, excruciating pain. After some tense moments, the second-year starter with Division I interest wanted to test his touch. He came back to pass the ball and…
“It’s just the pain and the agony of knowing it’s broken,” Badmeier said. “He literally got down on his knees and we were thinking, ‘Wow, this isn’t good.'”
But there’s no way he’d miss Nazareth’s state championship game against St. Charles North. His parents saw an orthopedic surgeon come in over Thanksgiving, and playing became a matter of enduring the pain.
That’s not a problem. McCarthy is a hockey player.
In the state championship game, McCarthy completed 15 of 21 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown as Nazareth held a 31-10 advantage. A legend was born.
“Ultimately, he’s the one who has to get out there,” Budmire said. “He recorded it and led us to a state championship.”
McCarthy’s hockey coaches believe his experience on the ice influenced his performance on the field. (Gregory Shams/Getty Images)
On May 11, 2019, McCarthy announced that he would join Michigan State as coach Jim Harbaugh. During the recruiting process, Nazareth head coach Tim Lackey told the story of McCarthy and his broken thumb.
“When I told him he was a hockey player, (Harbaugh’s) eyes lit up,” Lackey said. “Then when I told him the story, the tenacity and courage of this kid clicked.”
When McCarthy announced his college decision on social mediahe thanked three field hockey coaches — Lawrence, Dolan and Eagle — for allowing him to play both sports together.
“If I hadn’t played hockey in my life, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he wrote.
(Photo: Sean Riley/ Competitor; Photo: Ted Eagle, Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
