The Worcester Railers began their last homestand of the 2025-26 season Saturday night with the first of two matchups this weekend against the Adirondack Thunder, and with nothing to play for but being spoilers, the Railers played hard for 60 minutes and into overtime, where Drew Callin teamed up with brother Anthony to give Worcester the 3-2 win.
With Trois-Rivières winning before the Railers/Thunder tilt even began, Worcester knew that all they could do was help spoil Adirondack’s playoff seeding, and that seemed like more than enough for the boys in orange as they played every minute of their game as if a playoff spot was up for grabs.
It was MacAuley Carson that gave Worcester a quick 1-0 lead just 4:41 into the contest when he buried a Riley Piercey feed past Thunder goaltender Tyler Brennan.
At 18:26, Max Dorrington made it a 2-0 Worcester lead when he fought for a loose puck to the left of Brennan and banged it home. Gleb Veremyev and Adam Samuelsson had the assists, giving Veremyev six helpers in as many games and extending Samuelsson’s point streak to four games.
Dylan Wendt would cut the Railers’ lead to 2-1 at 10:41 into the middle period when he had a nice redirect of a Conner Hutchison pass from the point. Railers netminder Parker Gahagen had no chance as the puck deflected high to the glove side.
It stayed 2-1 until late in the third period when Samuelsson took an absolutely needless delay of game minor. While Grant Loven’s goal isn’t officially a power play strike, Samuelsson wasn’t back into the play before the puck was in the Worcester net.
Into overtime the teams went, where the Railers would have all four shots, the final one by the elder Callin, which gave the Railers a 3-2 victory.
The primary assist goes to Callin’s younger brother, Anthony. Still, in one of those weird scoring situations that seem to pop up in overtime, the secondary assist goes to Cam McDonald, who doesn’t get a “plus” rating on the goal because he went for a line change before the goal was scored. The “plus” goes to Case McCarthy.
But no matter how you score it, the two points go to Worcester. They will finish off the 2025-26 season Sunday afternoon with another meeting with the Thunder.
GAME NOTES
Scratches for the Railers were Gabe Blanchard (14-day IR/Upper body), Connor Federkow (14-day IR/Lower body), Riley Ginnell (14-day IR/Lower body), Anthony Hora (14-day IR/Lower body), Jordan Kaplan, Tristan Lennox (Unavailable/Unknown reason), Declan McDonnell (14-day IR/Lower body), Ryan Miotto (14-day IR/Lower body), and Max Ruoho. Thomas Gale was the backup goaltender.
A brief thought about Wednesday night’s drama of the Railers forgetting their jerseys. Sure, it was kind of a bonehead thing to do, and obviously it should never have happened, but let’s be real here. The idiotic comments of some make it sound like the Railers’ equipment staff killed someone. I guess we all should be used to massive internet overreactions, but if your reaction to this amounted to anything more than an eye-roll or a chuckle, you might need to go touch grass. And, as it all turned out fine in the end, all we ended up with is another in the almost infinitely long list of great hockey stories that get told over and over again.
Wednesday’s game also saw the first pro goal for defenseman Cam McDonald, who had gone 121 professional games with Bridgeport and Worcester before lighting the lamp. It was his first goal since January 27, 2024, when McDonald played for Providence College, where he had nine goals in 162 collegiate games. His 96 Railers games while having zero career pro goals are both a franchise and Worcester pro city record for skaters. No current pro goalless Railers player is within a full season of that mark. The current leader for goalless games in a Railers jersey is Anthony Hora’s 42, but he has five SPHL goals, so he’s not in the running for McDonald’s record.
We’ve got some scoring changes from Greensboro, starting with Saturday’s game that saw an assist change from Ross Mitton to Michael Suda on Max Dorrington’s second-period opening goal. That goal now reads “1, Worcester, Dorrington 5 (Veremyev, Suda), 10:55.” Anthony Repaci’s empty-net goal was originally unassisted, but now has a couple of helpers added. That goal now reads “4, Worcester, Repaci 22 (McDonald, Samuelsson), 19:11 (EN).” Sunday saw the goal that Gleb Veremyev thought he scored officially changed to him. So Case McCarthy goes from goal scorer to an assist, and Anthony Callin loses a point. That goal now reads “4, Worcester, Veremyev 4 (McCarthy, Callin), 15:55 (PP).” We’ll mention again that this writer is not convinced he actually hits the puck; instead, he hits Mason Beaupit’s pad and forces the puck into the net.
More from Sunday’s 8-1 win; the Railers set franchise marks for fastest five, six, and seven goals in a game. The five fastest goals is now 9:01, breaking the old record set December 3, 2022 at Newfoundland by 2:02. The new fastest six goal record is 12:09, breaking that record from the same game by 1:23. Worcester smashed the fastest seven goal record by 7:16 as the Railers scored seven goals in 23:27. That old record was set November 26, 2021 at Adirondack.
And one more thing about the game, it was the first time since December 11, 2021, that all the Railers skaters had at least one shot on goal. In that game, a 4-2 win over Maine at the DCU Center, Worcester outshot Maine 20-1 in the opening period. At the time, teams were limited to 16 skaters, and both the Railers and Mariners were using just 15.
The ECHL has begun releasing some of its seasonal awards, and as usual, there aren’t any Railers on any of the All-Star or All-Rookie teams. Anthony Repaci was a nominee for the 2025-26 ECHL Community Service Award, won by South Carolina’s Romain Rodzinski. Former Railers forward Joey Cipollone, now with Atlanta, was also nominated. During the 2019-20 season, then-Worcester defender Connor Doherty was the league-wide winner.
Just tossing this out there, but what exactly was the thought process that former DCU Center General Manager Sandy Dunn was using when scheduling an event that required the ice to be melted to be hosted a week before a potential Railers playoff series? As it is, a new sheet had to be installed for this weekend’s rescheduled games, but imagine the players having to deal with a brand new sheet of ice while hosting playoff games. I guess Dunn didn’t have much confidence in the Railers making it to the second season. We won’t bother to ask why the rescheduled game was the first time since February 28th that the building was available for the team to use on a Saturday night. Here’s to hoping that new DCU Center General Manager Amy Peterson is a better partner for the building’s anchor tenant.
For those that don’t follow this writer on Twitter…err….X, some personal news, as it was the first time in 80 days I was able to sit at my usual perch between Railers Booster Club president Rich Lundin and the unofficial mayor of Marlboro, Big Tony. Those 80 days were full of giant steps forward, followed by the occasional small step backward, but in the end, the bonus weekend of hockey allowed me a couple of extra weeks to get in good enough health to make it back to my seats. Thanks go out to all the well-wishers; your kind thoughts helped me get through a tough time, and to the Railers for allowing me to move up to the ADA row when I needed to.
Unless something odd happens in Sunday’s game, this will be my last recap of the season. I’ll have my usual “210 Awards” out in the near future, keeping with the new trend of cutting them in half to make two posts. There will also likely be an end-of-season recap. I’ve got some stuff to say, and with the season over, I’m going to say it. It’s probably going to ruffle some feathers.
The three stars of the game were
1. WOR – #77 Drew Callin
2. WOR – #7 Matt Dorrington
3. WOR – #74 MacAuley Carson
The 210Sports Player of the Game is Parker Gahagen.
Even Strength Lines
Repaci / A.Callin / D.Callin
Donhauser / DeMelis / Hatten
Piercey / Carson / Duhart
Veremyev / Dorrington / Mitton
McDonald / McCarthy
Samuelsson / Jean-Louis
Suda / Corcoran
Press Releases
RAILERS: Railers strike in overtime beat Thunder 3-2
THUNDER: Thunder fall to Railers 3-2 in overtime
Our affiliates last night
Bridgeport 2, Hershey 1
In the ECHL’s North Division last night
Trois-Rivières 6, Maine 0
Indy 4, Wheeling 3
Florida 3, Reading 2
BOX SCORE
Adirondack 0 1 1 0 – 2
Worcester 2 0 0 1 – 3
1st Period-1, Worcester, Carson 7 (Piercey), 4:41. 2, Worcester, Dorrington 7 (Veremyev, Samuelsson), 18:26. Penalties-Becker Adk (high-sticking), 11:02.
2nd Period-3, Adirondack, Wendt 9 (Hutchison, Fawcett), 10:41. Penalties-Edwards Adk (roughing), 7:40; Dorrington Wor (roughing), 7:40; Samuelsson Wor (tripping), 18:40.
3rd Period-4, Adirondack, Loven 10 (O’Neil, Carrabes), 17:51. Penalties-Piercey Wor (tripping), 2:21; Edwards Adk (hooking), 5:53; Samuelsson Wor (delay of game), 15:45.
1st OT Period-5, Worcester, Callin 25 (Callin, McDonald), 4:05. Penalties-No Penalties
Shots on Goal-Adirondack 11-7-7-0-25. Worcester 13-6-5-4-28.
Power Play Opportunities-Adirondack 0 / 3; Worcester 0 / 2.
Goalies-Adirondack, Brennan 13-11-3-1 (28 shots-25 saves). Worcester, Gahagen 20-11-4-1 (25 shots-23 saves).
A-6,018
Referees-Evan Reddick (21), Alex Berard (36).
Linesmen-Michael Tarquinio (45), Conor Foley (86).
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