Leading off today: A Massapequa High School senior hockey player collapsed and died during a hockey game Saturday night, downstate media outlets reported.
Nassau County police said Connor Kasin, 17, lost consciousness on the ice during an intermission at about 9 p.m. at the Town of Oyster Bay Ice Skating Center in Bethpage, Newsday reported. Medics arrived and transported Kasin to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Massapequa and Half Hollow Hills were playing a charity game in honor of Sabrina Navaretta, a 19-year-old Syosset graduate who died in a car crash last year.
The contest was part of the New York Islanders High School Hockey League. That organization operates an AAU-style club structure for multiple Long Island schools, which do not participate in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. The NYIHSHL announced that it had canceled a slate of games scheduled for Sunday.
Massapequa schools Superintendent William Brennan described what happened as a "sudden medical event" in a letter to the community, the paper reported.
The NCSA College Recruiting website lists Kasin as a 6-foot-2, 195-pound defenseman for the Long Island Sharks, a club hockey team. Kasin split time between the Massapequa junior varsity and varsity in 2022-23 and then appeared in 16 varsity games last season.
Football has seen multiple fatalities this century
Connor Kasin's death is the first hockey-related fatality in memory involving a New York high school athlete and the first in more than a year.
On July 3, 2023, 17-year-old football player Robert Bush of Long Island's Newfield High collapsed on the field in a "cardiac event" during conditioning drills at the Selden school and was removed from life support several days later.
In September 2021, Carthage freshman Tyler Christman, a 14-year player on the junior varsity, died after sustaining a head injury during a game against West Genesee.
Joshua Mileto, a 16-year-old Sachem East player entering his junior year, was participating in an August strength and conditioning camp drill when a log that athletes were carrying overhead fell and struck him.
In October 2014, Shoreham-Wading River player Tom Cutinella, 16, died during a game after he collided with an opponent. Authorities said Cutinella died from his head injury after undergoing surgery.
On Sept. 1, 2014, Curtis High junior lineman Miles Kirkland-Thomas collapsed after wind sprints during a Labor Day practice and later died at a Staten Island hospital.
In September 2013, Brocton junior Damon Janes, 16, died three days after collapsing during a Section 6 game. His death was the sixth ever in Western New York high school football and the first there since Mike Dwyer of Olean Archbishop Walsh in 1977.
In July 2012, Nicholas Dellaventura, 15, died after being overcome by heat during an offseason workout at St. Joseph-by-the-Sea.
Spackenkill junior football player Mark Milano died on Oct. 7, 2006, from complications involving pain medication at his home a day after dislocating an ankle during a game at Millbrook.
Torrance Wright Jr., a 17-year-old lineman for Rochester's Franklin High, collapsed and died during a four-team scrimmage in Livonia the week before the start of the 1999 regular season.
In 1983, Yonkers football player Fernando Guedes, 17, died after collapsing during the season-opening game vs. Scarsdale. The death prompted the district to briefly suspend all sports while it investigated how an athlete with a serious heart ailment was allowed to participate.
Newburgh Free Academy tri-captain James Arline, a 17-year-old senior linebacker, fell ill shortly after an October 1992 road game and died of a stroke. It was uncertain whether it was related to a blow suffered in the game.
Other tragedies involving N.Y. scholastic athletes
Basketball player
Lenny Pierre, 16, died during practice in December 2018 at John Bowne High School, where he was a 6-foot-6 junior.
Loyola School sophomore Thomas Jakelich, 16, died following a collision with another player during a boys varsity soccer game Oct. 26, 2015, on Randall's Island.
In March 2014, New Paltz sophomore Kyle Brewer, 16, died following two heart attacks triggered by an undetected heart condition. He was initially stricken and collapsed during track and field practice at the school.
Ronan Guyer, a 14-year-old Southold freshman, died in November 2012 five days after being placed in a medically induced coma. While scouting the course to be used the following day at the NYSPHSAA cross country championships at Elma Meadows, Guyer slipped on a muddy area and fell on his chest, triggering cardiac arrest.
In April 2007, runner Arielle Newman, 17, of Staten Island's Notre Dame Academy died when her body absorbed lethal levels of methyl salicylate, an ingredient found in sore muscle treatments. Newman was using a cream, adhesive pads containing the anti-inflammatory and another product with the chemical, the medical examiner determined.
In April 2007, Pittsford freshman lacrosse player Jeff Milano-Johnson, 14, died after he was struck in the back of his head just below the helmet by a ball during warmups before a game at Spencerport.
Binghamton High lacrosse player John Mack died Nov. 30, 2006, two days after suffering cardiac arrest when checked across the chest during a pickup lacrosse game in the offseason.
Another freshman lacrosse player died in March 2000. Louis Acompora, a Northport goalie, was struck in the chest by a ball during a freshman game. Acompora, 14, suffered commotio cordis, a rare form of cardiac arrest considered reversible with the assistance of an automated external defibrillator, which typically was not available at sports contests at that time.
His parents became active in raising awareness through the Louis Acompora Foundation, and then-Gov. George Pataki signed into law a bill in June 2002 requiring that a portable defibrillator be placed in each high school. "Louis' Law" was the nation's first to require AEDs, which are now commonplace at schools, public buildings and sporting events in many states.
New York City-area runners Stephanie Companioni (St. Thomas Aquinas) and Tanya Lovelace (St. Francis Prep), collapsed and died in February and April 1991, respectively, after competing. Both were reported to be instances of sudden heart failure.
Track athletes injured in bus crash
Nine North Babylon students were taken to hospitals with minor injuries after a bus was involved in a crash leaving the high school parking lot on Sunday en route to a track meet,
Newsday reported.
The school district bus struck a pole in the parking lot around 10:45 a.m., Suffolk police said. The team was traveling to a meet at Suffolk County Community College, district Superintendent Kenneth Graham said.
