Cheers
Jersey’s Strongest and PBA members
have reasons to celebrate at the annual
Mini Convention hockey game
Jennifer Santiago, wife of Pablo Santiago, drops the puck for the honorary faceoff before the Jersey’s Strongest game against FDNY/EMS that paid tribute to
her husband. Lawrence Township Local 119 State Delegate Chris Dimeglio (right) took the faceoff for the PBA team.
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
■ PHOTOS BY ED CARATTINI JR.
A moment of silence followed the honorary faceoff to start the
Jersey’s Strongest PBA hockey team game against FDNY/EMS
played on March 6, midweek of the Mini Convention in Atlantic
City. Lawrence Township Local 119 State Delegate Chris Dime-
glio took the faceoff to commemorate his good friend, Mercer
County Sheriff’s Officers Local 187 President Pablo Santiago,
who took his own life this past December.
His wife, Jennifer, wore a Jersey’s Strongest uniform with the
number 166 – Pablo’s badge number – as she dropped the puck
and then received an embrace from Dimeglio that he would lat-
er say emphasized how the PBA will always be there for her. After
that, the Flyers Skate Zone in AC rocked like a PBA beach bash
or cigar night or combination of both. Which is the way Pablo
would have wanted it.
The game quickly became a fitting tribute to Pablo. Hundreds
of PBA members who attended chanted and cheered from the
time Rutherford Local 300 member Travis Ritter scored the first
goal less than a minute into the game until Dimeglio netted a
shorthanded tally for the 11th goal at the end of the second pe-
riod. Jersey’s Strongest fed off the energy coming from the Mini
Convention cheering section, with 10 players each scoring at
least one goal as part of its greatest showcase maybe ever.
“During the Mini Convention meetings, everyone was asking
about the game and that has made it one of the premiere games
to play in for this team,” Dimeglio stated. “Pablo was one of my
friends, so to give them what they wanted to see – lots of goals
and a lot of reasons to cheer – felt really, really good.”
48
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ MARCH 2019
Playing in front of so many fans is one of the rewards for mem-
bers of Jersey’s Strongest. The other is raising money for charity.
Suicide awareness is one of those causes, and the packed are-
na helped raise nearly $4,000. FDNY/EMS players even made a
$1,000 contribution out of their own pockets.
“Shout-out to FDNY/EMS. They were all about the charity,”
announced Jersey’s Strongest Captain Dan “Taco” Tacopino, a
Monmouth County Sheriff’s Officers Local 314 member. “Sui-
cide really affects all of us because you never know when it can
happen. And if it happens to one of our own, it can happen to
any of us.”
Jersey’s Strongest showcased its prowess on and off the ice
on March 6. During the Mini Convention meeting the morning
before the game, team members came to the podium to pres-
ent a $10,000 donation to Mallory’s Army raised from the game
against the NJ State Police on Dec. 29.
The team obviously came to play on this day. And so did the
fans. When Ritter fired a slapshot into the net at the 14:08 mark
of the first period, PBA fans engaged in one of the great hockey
traditions to celebrate a goal: tossing an octopus onto the ice.
It was the first octopus of the day. A second would be pitched
at the end of the game to cap the celebration. Taco had warned
FDNY/EMS players that they would be “coming into a hornet’s
nest of well-hydrated PBA members.” And when Jersey’s Stron-
gest scored twice within 14 seconds of the first period, the crowd
began one of its chants that the team heard loud and clear.
“Some of them I can’t repeat in this interview,” quipped de-
fenseman Eddie Patterson, a Burlington County Corrections Of-
ficers Local 249 member who scored one of the seven Jersey’s
Strongest first-period goals. “It made it a lot of fun, and it was