Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Monday finally provided Jackson and Max Dorrington a chance to slow down just a bit – something they haven’t been able to do recently.
Max, a 23-year-old newly signed forward with the Bridgeport Islanders, played his first two pro games last week. Skating at nearby Sacred Heart University following a transfer from St. Lawrence University, he posted career-bests in goals (12), assists (10) and points (22) in 38 games this season before joining the Islanders on an amateur tryout agreement on Mar. 20.
A three-time member of the ECAC All-Academic Team while at St. Lawrence, Max is also in the middle of pursuing his Master of Business Administration degree in finance at Sacred Heart.
“It’s definitely a jump in hockey,” Max said. “I was just glad that it got done with Bridgeport because it’s such a good spot for me and a place I’m already familiar with. It was kind of a no-brainer.”
Max’s younger brother, 20-year-old defenseman Jackson, was acquired by the New York Rangers as part of the J.T. Miller trade on Jan. 31. A sixth-round draft pick by the Canucks in 2022, Jackson completed his junior season at Northeastern University, where he recorded two goals and 13 assists in 37 games, and then signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Rangers on Mar. 23, joining the Hartford Wolf Pack on his own ATO.
“The opportunity arose and I just felt like it was a great time to do it,” Jackson said of turning pro. “I think I’m a two-way puck-moving ‘D’ but my bread-and-butter is how I defend, my physicality, good stick. I think the biggest parts of my game that I can get better at is my skating and the offensive side of the puck, [making] good plays with transition. But my bread-and-butter is defending hard, and that’s what I kind of am going to lean on in this next month.”
The hockey ties run deep in the Dorrington family. In 1950, their distant cousin, Art Dorrington, became the first Black player to sign an NHL contract when he joined the New York Rangers organization. Art never made it to the NHL, but he played in the Eastern Hockey League and International Hockey League and later founded the Art Dorrington Ice Hockey Foundation to provide playing opportunities for children in Atlantic City, N.J.
Art passed away in 2017, but Jackson and Max grew up well aware of their family connection to hockey history.
“I think you just pick up on the perseverance,” Max recounted. “Perseverance is what I take away from it. You can’t really imagine the sort of environments Black players back in that time were experiencing and the sort of things that they had to play through.”
“As I got older and started learning more about him, he’s an inspiring guy, and he’s a pioneer of the game,” Jackson said. “I just hope to carry on and do what he did, keep on going with the family name. He was a resilient, brave, fearless guy. And then after his playing career, he did a lot of selfless work in New Jersey. He was a great all-around guy.”
Max and Jackson never faced off in college, but now they find themselves on opposite sides of a long-time AHL rivalry between the league’s two Connecticut clubs. The Islanders and Wolf Pack square off three times over the final weeks of the season, with the first of those meetings set for Apr. 9 in Bridgeport.
Having each other go through that same process simultaneously has helped ease the adjustment to the pro game a bit. Jackson has a two-way NHL contract that kicks in next fall. For Max, this time in Bridgeport is an audition for a future role at the AHL level. Being able to play a fifth collegiate season as a graduate student helped, Max says, as he had a chance to play in all situations, including in late-game roles. At 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, he can be a formidable net-front presence, a skill that can transfer well even at a higher level.
Growing up together in North Reading, Mass., the Dorrington brothers had a tight bond playing the game.
“He’s definitely had the biggest impact on my career,” Max said, “and I’m sure he would say the same for me. Training, skating, shooting pucks on the lawn, we did it all together. It’s cool to take the next step at the same time as him. I can learn a lot from him, and I’d say he learned a lot from me as well along the way.”
Said Jackson, “It’s been a cool week for my family. I’m super proud of him. He’s come a long way. It’s kind of funny… We both went into high school (Cushing Academy in Boston) together, played together, and now we’re both turning pro together. And we’re both close to home, so it’s good for our parents.”
The hockey map can be vast, but sometimes it can also be very compact. Bridgeport and Hartford are only about an hour apart. And with technology, the brothers can stay in regular contact. And maybe they’ll bump into each other on the ice at Total Mortgage Arena next Wednesday.
“We talk pretty much every day,” Max said, “and having pretty similar experiences right now, it’s good to have someone in the same boat as you. But it’ll be good to compete against him – that’s something we’ve done our entire lives. I’m looking forward to doing more of that here.”
Whenever that on-ice meeting happens, they’ll both be able to think back to when Art Dorrington made critical in-roads 75 years ago.
Said Max, “He paved the way for a bunch of players now to enter the game in a much better spot than it was before.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
