Author recounts run to championship by Granby in first state championship tournament

In October 2023, 50 years after Granby Memorial made a run to capture the first CIAC field hockey championship, author Rob Penfield recounted the first state field hockey tournament.

In 1973, Penfield was the editor of the Farmington Valley Herald, a weekly newspaper that covered seven towns in the Farmington Valley including Canton, Avon, Burlington, Simsbury, Granby and East Granby.

He spoke about it to a group of current high school players, Hall of Fame coach Dot Johnson and some players from that 1973 championship team.

Penfield also wrote a book about the 1973 state field hockey tournament. The book, A Life of Obstructions, is a look at that ground-breaking 1973 tournament that included four of the five teams from the area – Granby, Simsbury, Avon and Lewis Mills.

Learn more about Penfield’s book, A Life of Obstructions.