Hockey Community Rallies Around North Quincy After 'Scary' Injury

QUINCY, MA — North Quincy athletic director J.J. Niamkey said the school and family of Connor Kulig are thankful for the outpouring of support and well-wishes after the senior suffered what was described as a "scary and unfortunate" injury during North Quincy's game against Scituate Wednesday night at Hockomock Arena in Pembroke. Niamkey said Kulig is "doing better day-by-day" as he recovers from the injury.

Niamkey said he did not want to go into details about the extent of the injury because he did not know what the family wanted publicized, but said the family very much appreciated all the prayers coming their way via social media over the past two days. A television report said Kulig lost feeling in his arms and legs after a check into the boards, but had returned as of Sunday.

"It's been very overwhelming," he told Patch on Friday. "Not only from teams in our league, but from throughout the high school hockey community. It's always great to see people react like that when something like this happens. These kids see each other and play against each other on teams day in and day out throughout the year. When you see this type of reaction you realize how close each kid is to one another."

Niamkey said the injury came as a result of a play on the ice that ended unfortunately.

"It wasn't malicious in any way," he said. "It was just a hockey play that happened to end poorly. It wasn't anything that was over the top or anything like that."

The game was completed with Scituate prevailing in a 4-3 victory. The Skippers reached out to the Red Raiders over the contest was over.

We would like to send our prayers and thoughts to the @NQRaiders and @NQHockey community after last night’s scary and unfortunate incident during our hockey game. It is bigger than the sport and you have a “2nd family” behind you in Scituate! #StayStrongConnor
— SHS Athletics (@ScitAthletics) January 10, 2020

Niamkey said Saturday’s game against Duxbury has been postponed to give the rest of the players a few extra days to recover from seeing their friend and teammate suffer the scary injury.