University of New Haven men's hockey captain Ryan O'Shea has died at just 21 years old after a crash involving a wrong-way driver.
WTNH News 8 reporter Caroline LeCour reported Saturday that law enforcement had confirmed his passing.
He was driving southbound on Friday when a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction collided head-on with his car, according to HockeyFeed.
Four other people were injured in the crash.
There's no hockey angle that matters here. A 21-year-old with his whole life in front of him is gone, and that's the entire story.
A team losing its captain is like a family losing the person who always set the table. Everyone still shows up for dinner, but the room never feels quite the same.
“Ryan was an avid sports fan, and he was always ready to have a sports-related conversation,” academic adviser Lorenzo Boyd told The Charger Bulletin.
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Ryan O'Shea was one semester away from graduating
“Ryan wanted to go into public service in order to help others. He was engaging in the classroom and will be missed greatly,” Boyd added.
He was studying criminal justice and had interned with the NYPD over the summer.
He was just one semester away from graduation.
As captain, he wore the letter for a program that now has to find a way forward without him.
How does a locker room even begin to process something like this so early in a season?
Teammates, classmates and the wider hockey community are left trying to make sense of a loss that came out of nowhere.
By every account, he wanted to spend his life helping other people.
The Charger Bulletin has published a remembrance piece honoring him.
State police confirmed the details over the weekend, according to HockeyFeed.
Our thoughts are with his family, his friends and everyone connected to the University of New Haven program.
The games will go on, because they always do. Somewhere in that room, though, there will be an empty stall that nobody fills for a long time.
Should the University of New Haven retire Ryan O'Shea's number?
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