By Michael Letendre
BRISTOL – After the tragic events of the past couple weeks in Bristol, getting back to scholastic sports has been a very good distraction for our local student athletes in the city.
That was the case for the Bristol Eastern football team this week as the Lancers battled Lewis Mills on a special Thursday edition of Friday Night Lights.
The game was pushed back a day for the funeral for Bristol police officers Lieutenant Dustin DeMonte and Sergeant Alex Hamzy who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty on Thursday, October 13.
Their funeral took place at Rentschler Field in East Hartford on Friday in a service attended by several thousand people.
The night before the funeral, Hamzy’s high school football team defeated Lewis Mills by twenty points (41-21) as Eastern won for the first time this season.
And the Eastern program did its part to honor the duo that evening.
Playing with inspiration, every Eastern player’s helmet had the initials DD and AH in silver on them while the program held a moment of silence for the duo before the game.
“Obviously, when a community gets hit with a tragedy like we were hit with last week, I think our kids kind of gelled together like our community has,” said Eastern coach Anthony Julius. “I think to play a complete football game tonight was a good sign of that.”
DeMonte, 35, and Hamzy, 34, who were gunned down while responding to a 911 call over on Redstone Hill Road, were active scholastic student athletes in their youth.
And over the following week, in a tremendous show of support by the community here and abroad, the duo got a hero’s sendoff.
That was especially true in Bristol with multiple tributes and memorials around the Mum City.
Both officers were tremendous role models to the youth in Bristol as DeMonte worked as a school resource officer for Greene-Hills and West Bristol schools.
After the Eastern/Mills game, anyone driving down Pine Streets towards Greene-Hills saw the blue lights emanating from the building while in front of the school, a number of candles – in the shape of a heart – glowed warmly in honor of the two heroes from the Bristol Police Department.
As we’ve seen over the years after a tragedy, sports have helped people, especially our youth, cope with loss.
And this past Thursday night, it was no different on the campus of Bristol Eastern as the football team helped the community heal a bit over two exciting hours of competition.
“We talked a lot this week about what’s been going on,” said Julius of the tragic incident. “The kids have been really great. We’re fortunate to be able to play this great game. That’s something we talked about before the game started tonight.”
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