Less than three weeks before what would have been J.P. Medeiros’ 43rd birthday, the scholarship fund named in his memory awarded its 100th scholarship to Mt. Hope High School senior Tommy Godbout.
Godbout played on Mt. Hope’s ice hockey team until his sophomore year, when he received a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia.
“The community that was around me was amazing. … I think I would get a text every single day from at least one person on my team,” Godbout said. “I don’t know much about the communities in other sports but I do know that the way the hockey community has rallied behind us has been incredible, and I’m sure J.P.’s parents know that, so that’s why this scholarship means a lot to me.”
For Godbout, ice hockey has reminded him of the sportsmanship within the sport, beyond just his teammates.
“We had these shirts that we were selling — they said ‘Fight for five’ on them. My coach would send me pictures. There would be teams in Maine that would be wearing my shirt.
“It’s just such a big community and such a supportive community, and so to me, the sportsmanship really extends beyond the game, and I think that that’s one of the biggest things I love about the sport.”
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The J.P. Medeiros Jr. Scholarship Fund awards local student-athletes pursuing postgraduate education. Godbout received the scholarship at Mt. Hope’s Senior Class Night on June 5, alongside fellow senior Kayden Carney. This year, two Barrington students, Adam Gorman and Arden Wilkes, also received the scholarship, bringing the total scholarships awarded to 102.
J.P. Medeiros, a Mt. Hope graduate, died in April 2002 while attending Quinnipiac University, and the scholarship fund began soon afterward. The first award was given out just two months later from donations received at his memorial service, when J.P. was buried wearing the now-retired No. 17 Mt. Hope hockey jersey.
“What we chose to do to manage the grief of our loss [was to] turn it into the celebration of the other young people because it becomes medicinal,” said J.P.’s mother, Maryem Medeiros. “When you can do something in your child’s name for another child, a little bit of them comes through the door and you see what you can give back without expecting anything back.”
The scholarship fund aims to honor J.P.’s love of hockey — he played on a club team while at Quinnipiac and would cheer for the varsity team at its games — as well as his personality. His yearbook quote stated: “Every day of my life, I try to make somebody smile,” and his mother remembers that this was a personal philosophy of sorts for J.P.
“It’s a celebration of his life,” Maryem Medeiros said. “It’s about the good stuff because everybody’s carrying some kind of pain. They have to deal with things at their own pace. There’s no handbook.”
His mother remembers J.P.’s dedication to ice hockey beginning as early as middle school and recalled the time he, his middle school teammates, their parents and their coaches sat in a school committee meeting when the continuation of the high school hockey program was in question due to financial cuts. The team “opted to fight for a program that they hadn’t even participated in yet,” as they’d join once they entered high school.
The chemistry that this group of players built as early as middle school in addition to their dedication to the sport ultimately led to Mt. Hope’s first divisional win in J.P.’s senior season, a season he cocaptained alongside Jeff Day and Thomas Ferrara.
“They were all sorts of young people from different walks, but when they put those helmets on, they really were a band of brothers on that ice,” Maryem Medeiros said. “And they were determined.”
The Mt. Hope and Barrington football teams have maintained a rivalry dating back to the 1940s and played in an annual Thanksgiving Day game. J.P. and his fellow captains wanted that same challenge on the ice as well.
In the 20 years following J.P.’s death in 2002, his wish came true through an annual “Thanksgiving on Ice” hockey game between the Mt. Hope and Barrington schools. Cocaptain Day looked to do something in J.P.’s memory and putting together this tradition seemed the perfect way to remember him.
Thanksgiving on Ice, played in January of each year, became the primary place at which donations were made to the J.P. Medeiros Scholarship Fund, which has been designed to award seniors based on “what they do on the ice, what they do in the classroom and what they do in the community, not so much as specifics, but how they handled themselves,” Maryem Medeiros said.
Thanksgiving on Ice represented community to J.P.’s family and friends, and it stood for the sportsmanship and camaraderie needed in ice hockey and in life in his mother’s eyes.
“It was pretty much an explanation of no one could win alone,” Maryem Medeiros said. “It brought out the sportsmanship and the character, primarily of my son, but we tried to share it and blend it with the young people that came after him, that were playing in his memory.”
In the first few years of the scholarship, the fund rewarded ice hockey players rom Mt. Hope only, but the Medeiros family was asked to consider the Barrington players as well. They began awarding scholarships to Barrington students in 2006 as the Barrington players “were a very strong participant” in the Thanksgiving on Ice games.
At its peak, the J.P. Medeiros Jr. Scholarship Fund distributed seven scholarships. Following a medical event on the eve of the Thanksgiving on Ice game in 2022, J.P. Sr. and Maryem no longer promote the annual game as much as they had nor do they take on the roles they had held in the past.
In its place, there has been a skills competition for the past two years, but nothing beats the “hype,” as Maryem Medeiros says, of the competition in the annual rivalry game.
Donations have slowed as the Thanksgiving on Ice game transitioned to the skills competition, but Medeiros is not worried about her son’s legacy.
“We’re going to see what next year brings, and we’re hoping people will remember us and they know what we do,” she said. “If not, we will probably have to say goodbye to this particular memorial to him, but in the meantime, we will do things quietly in his memory.”
In terms of Godbout’s future, he will begin his studies in biomedical sciences and be a premed student at Quinnipiac in the fall.
Outside of the classroom, Godbout is excited to cheer on Quinnipiac’s ice hockey team — whose men’s team won the NCAA National Championship in 2023 — and is interested in playing on the school’s intramural team.
“My whole life, all of my closest friends I’ve always met through hockey, I’ve always made through hockey and I wouldn’t expect that to be any different in college,” Godbout said. “I expect to be at every home game. … I’m hoping to go make some friends, some memories.”
