Youthful savior
At Lynn English, a sixth-grader steps up to rescue the varsity
Sometimes it's easy to forget Katie Burt is just a sixth-grader at Pickering Middle School in Lynn.
When she plays hockey, her 5-foot-4-inch frame insulated by her goaltender's padding and her cherubic face masked by her headgear, it's hard to tell that she's just a normal 11-year-old girl underneath it all. Just a girl with a mouthful of braces who went trick-or-treating this past Halloween dressed as a gangsta rapper, one who asked for a new pair of hockey pads for Christmas.
And one who likes Hannah Montana.
But maybe not as much as she likes being the starting goaltender for the Lynn English girls' varsity hockey team.
"It's really cool," she said. "It's pretty intense, but it's fun, too."
Considered by many the youngest goaltender ever to play varsity girls' hockey, Burt has backstopped the Lady Bulldogs to a 2-0 start, allowing a total of three goals.
"It's funny, because you definitely don't notice her age, but you notice her playing ability," said first-year English coach Anthony Martucci. "Her first game against Everett, we were down, 2-0, and we went up, 3-2, on a pair of power-play goals in the third period. The pressure was on, but Katie stepped up and made three huge saves. You'd think it'd be asking a lot of a sixth-grader.
"Coming down the stretch in that game, there was a breakaway and a hard wrist shot, point blank, but she ripped it away like it was nothing. To her it might've been nothing, but we were jumping out of our skin because it was unbelievable."
Martucci jokingly pleaded with a reporter, "I don't want to let the secret out that my goalie is a sixth-grader."
But the secret already seems to be out, at least on campus.
"A lot of people at school know that she's my sister and she's pretty good," said Katie's brother Cory, a 16-year-old sophomore who was the kicker on English's 7-3 football team. "It makes me feel proud that she's my sister. She's known around my high school and she's not even in high school yet."
"I've known Katie for quite some time, and my kids have played with her and against her, and if it was anyone else, we might not have looked for that waiver," said Molea, whose 14-year-old daughter, Madison, an eighth-grader at Pickering, played with Burt on the North Shore Vipers and is now her teammate on the English varsity.
"She's very unique. She's played youth hockey. She's played against the girls and she's played against the boys. She can handle herself.
"Hopefully, our senior goaltender is going to make a return, but Katie kind of bailed us out here. And thanks to the MIAA - because they do get trashed every once in a while, but they do have these things in place that nobody really knows about that can help programs."
But Burt wouldn't have been able to come to the rescue without the blessing of her parents, Jim and Kris.
"I was fine with it," Kris said. "I was a little excited, actually. I thought it was a great opportunity for her to play at that level. I didn't have any fears at all. I think she had the ability to step up and I was curious to see how she would do.
"She likes to achieve and she's going to go out and give 110 percent regardless of who she plays against, whether it's 12-year-old girls, 14-year-old girls, or 14-year-old boys."
"You've got 18-year-old girls driving themselves to the game, and we pull up in our car and let our little 11-year-old out," said Jim. "It's pretty hilarious."
When her parents agreed to let her play varsity, Burt said, "I was kind of wondering what it would be like, the competition, and how hard it would be."
The biggest fear in her first game?
"I just didn't want to let in any goals and let them think that I was bad," said Burt, who made 18 saves in that 3-2 win over Everett.
"Everyone was very impressed by her," said Madison Molea. "She was stopping shots. Everyone on the team loves her. She's a great goalie. I actually play defense, so I'm always there protecting Katie. I do whatever I can to help her."
It seems odd that playing with older girls might intimidate Burt, considering that she played Little League baseball against boys, leading her team last year with seven home runs.
Burt also used to pester her older brother and his friends to let her play in their games of street hockey. Cory Burt and his friends finally relented and made her the goalie, only because they didn't want the 6-year-old to get in the way and get hurt. When they peppered her with shots, and she managed to turn a few away, a goalie was born.
"My friends were, like, 'Wow, she's pretty good, where did she get it from?' " said Cory. "Because no one really plays hockey in my family.
"I didn't know how it happened, either. She's just talented."
Burt forged her steely mettle in those rough-and-tumble games.
"Oh, yeah, it toughened me," she said. "A lot of the kids were older, and there was one kid that I always wanted to be better than - Chad Johnson."
Why him?
"He was really good," Burt said of Johnson, now a freshman hockey player at Providence College. "He was the one who played hockey and was really quick and fast when we played with him."
Burt felt challenged by his hard shots and felt particularly proud the first time she turned him away.
"Oh, I was really happy," she said. "I was kind of scared, too. He was kind of mad that a little kid stopped him."
"It's hard to believe that she's just an 11-year-old," said Scott Fusco, the former Harvard standout who coaches Katie's U-12 team, the East Coast Wizards, who are 19-3-2 with her in net this season. "I forget sometimes in practice, I'll jump in a drill and take a shot and she'll make a nice save."
Said Martucci, "I thought I had a really good slap shot until she came out and made it look easy to stop them. She humbled me, that's for sure."
Then there's Rick Mayne, Burt's former coach with the North Suburban Wings, a select Mite B team. As Burt and her father spoke with a reporter following a recent practice, Mayne spotted his prot??g?? and blustered into the room to shower her with praise.
"I'd tell my little kids before the game, 'Katie's in net today, guys, so how many goals do we need?' And they'd go, 'One!' Outstanding little kid. She's a star kid. She's been a star since she was 8."
Although he coached Cory Schneider, the former Boston College netminder who left school early to sign with the Vancouver Canucks, Mayne pointed to Burt as his claim to fame.
"Cory Schneider was my little redheaded goalie, so you think I had something to do with where he is now? His success had nothing to do with me," Mayne said. "But Katie Burt, on the other hand, she's 8 years old. Now, I think I had a hand in that because I was the only guy you know who would boom 'em from the blue line at an 8-year-old girl . . . and she'd kick-save 'em!
"Afterwards, one of the guys on the team goes, 'Hey, Rick, how do you feel about shooting on an 8-year-old girl and not getting goals?' and I said, 'What?' and he goes, 'You could hurt that little kid,' and he was probably right because, after all, when the pads come off, she's still a little kid, and here's stupid me just booming 'em at her."
Mayne's tactics initially angered Katie's mother. But three years later, her tone has changed.
"I do have to say that I need to apologize to Rick Mayne, because I used to get mad at him for shooting on her," Kris said. "I do have to give credit where credit is due. I would think of it as, 'You're firing a puck at my little girl,' but it just made her a better hockey player, because she's not afraid of it."
Kris also credited Ray Hendrickson, owner and president of the North Shore Vipers, for recognizing and nurturing Burt's talent.
"He, first of all, gave Katie a chance to play goal against the older girls in U-12 when she was young," Kris said. "That was the first all-girls team she had played on. And he's always really believed in her and pushed her."
"It's hard to believe she's only 11 and a starting goalie at the high school level," said Madison Molea. "You forget it and don't realize it until she takes off her gear."
Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com 