BOSTON.  As he contemplates a second run for president in 2008, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry faces charges that he embellished his hockey accomplishments as a prep school forward in the 1960's.

A new group, Prep School Defensemen for Truth, issued a statement today alleging that Kerry never achieved a "hat trick", the accolade earned by an individual player who scores three goals in a single game.  Kerry's campaign biography has listed this accomplishment since he first lobbied for membership in Yale's secretive Skull and Bones society.

Prep School Defensemen for Truth is composed of former Independent School League hockey players who competed against Kerry.  The Independent School League is made up of exclusive New England prep schools such as Groton School,  Middlesex School, and a passle of saints; St. George's, St. Mark's, St. Sebastian's and Kerry's alma mater, St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire.

Nils Beckwith, a spokesman for Prep School Defensemen for Truth who played for Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Mass., was blunt in his assessment of Kerry's hockey skills.  "He was on the third line, a real lightweight.  He never scored off of me."

Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley countered the group's charges, saying he had been given extensive access to Kerry's youth sports memorabilia, and that the hat trick claim was substantiated by a trophy that bore the inscription "Mini-Mites".

USA Hockey  Recording Secretary Jim Lopresti could not confirm the significance of that award.  "Sounds more like a self-esteem kind of thing.  You know, everybody who shows up for the last game gets one.  For a hat trick it's different--you get a little patch.  Kids put them on their jackets."

Republican party officials seized on the controversy and vowed to examine Kerry's other hockey statistics such as his plus/minus rating, the measure of a team's overall effectiveness while a player is on the ice. 

In a statement that he read from the steps of his Beacon Hill townhouse, Kerry denounced the charges as politically motivated.  "Who among us hasn't been thrilled by the sight of Bobby Esposito stopping a slap shot with his goalie mitt?  To turn hockey, a game of speed and beauty, into a partisan football is reprehensible."

One fact Kerry's supporters and detractors agree on: in four years of prep school hockey he never recorded an assist.   In response to a reporter's question, Edward "Bink" Hollings, St. Paul's hockey coach during the 60's, conceded that "if John ever passed the puck, I didn't see it."

Copyright 2005, Con Chapman