Providence Bruins Recondition Skates, Welcome High-School Teams After Pawtucket Shooting

Providence Bruins equipment manager Anthony Pelleccione and the P-Bruins staff reconditioned skate blades and performed small repairs for high-school players who fled the March 2 deadly shooting at Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, then welcomed both co-op teams onto the ice at Amica Mutual Pavilion as a show of support.

Pelleccione said he watched video of players running off the rink in skates, which created an immediate equipment problem: stepping on concrete dulls blades. “I saw videos of the kids running on concrete with their skates, and that's obviously a big issue with hockey skates,” Pelleccione explained. High-school programs, he noted, do not always have blade-sharpening machinery and would normally send skates to a hockey store for reconditioning.

The P-Bruins reached out to the Coventry-Johnston and Blackstone Valley co-ops and coordinated skate drop-offs so Pelleccione and his staff could sharpen blades and fix “little repairs” that the players needed. “We coordinated with the teams to drop their skates off...Taking that burden away and sharpening them for them, and even little repairs that needed to get done too, we took care of,” Pelleccione said. The work was practical and immediate: sharpen, tighten, repair — enough to let players return to ice time without the added logistics of equipment trips after a traumatic event.

Pelleccione has personal ties to the site of the shooting: “We practice there, I played there growing up. You never expect anything to happen. And then just seeing the kids running, it's heartbreaking.” The emotional tone showed in the shop work; reconditioning blades is “a daily part of his job,” Pelleccione said, but handling skates from students who had witnessed a deadly shooting was jarring. “Seeing the condition of the blades, I wasn't expecting it and knowing what they went through, it was tough.”

The effort extended beyond the bench. The P-Bruins brought Coventry-Johnston and Blackstone Valley out on the Amica Mutual Pavilion ice pregame to give the teams visible support inside a professional facility. A WJAR photo captured Pelleccione at a sharpening bench, credited in imagery as “Providence Bruins equipment manager Anthony Pelleccione sharpening blades.” The organization also posted on social media about reconditioning skates for players who fled during the Pawtucket rink shooting, using the hashtags #providencebruins and #pbruins.

Pelleccione framed the response as taking practical burdens off young players so they could regroup with teammates. “Take as much of that burden away and let them be together as a team, and kind of get through this together as a team and as a family,” he said. For now the work is measured in sharpened edges and pregame moments on the Providence ice; questions about numbers of skates serviced and further support remain to be confirmed with the teams and club.