YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A former hockey player at St. Joseph’s Regional High School in Montvale is the Massachusetts college sophomore arrested and charged with attacking three fellow students at random — seriously injuring two of them — in what police said was the knockout game.
The man charged, 19-year-old Dillon DeStefano of River Vale, was 12 years old when he met hockey legend Wayne Gretzky as part of a televised ESPN make-a-wish special.
DeStefano, who was listed on Endicott College’s hockey team roster last season, punched three fellow students in the face in separate attacks, all within an hour, authorities in Beverly, Mass. allege.
Each victim said he was walking alone early Sunday when he was approached by two men, one of whom doubled-back and punched him with a closed fist after he passed them.
Two of the victims were injured seriously, including a freshman baseball player who had his jaw broken, authorities said. The second had five bones in his face broken, they said. The third reportedly sustained minor injuries.
DeStefano was charged with assault and battery and ordered held on $20,000 bail.
“He didn’t even know (the students),” Endicott College President Richard Wylie told CBS Boston. “It was just a random act of violence.”
Other students at the school turned in DeStefano after hearing him bragging about the attacks, Wylie said. Two other students who were with him later surrendered, authorities said. All three were suspended and could all face expulsion.
DeStefano had a court appearance scheduled earlier today.
Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease 10 years ago, DeStefano got to play hockey with Gretzky at The Great One’s childhood home in Brantford, Ontario, in 2006.
The lifelong New Jersey Devils fan, who was born 10 weeks premature and has played hockey since kindergarten, was flown with his parents and brother to Canada thanks to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
There he got to skate, pass and shoot with his idol before Gretzky took the family to his annual charity golf tournament in Brantford.
DeStefano’s parents later talked to reporters about their son’s battles with his illness — a chronic, inflammatory disease of the intestines — and how it made him a fighter since the day he was born.