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Women prepare to face off in new league

Thursday, August 22, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Women's ice hockey continues to grow in Pittsburgh to the point that you can find some action just about any day of the week.

	Pittsburgh Piranha Cheri Turney exhibits growth of a braided sort during practice Tuesday at Airport Ice Arena in Moon. The 24-year-old Beaver Falls woman is part of a female ice hockey boom that USA Hockey says raised the number of registered adult women players from 1,268 to 8,109 over the past decade. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

And that's just the personal playing schedule of Lynn Belliotti.

The Bethel Park resident regularly plays four times a week and frequently more than that, since she plays on co-ed and men's teams, too. During one three-week stretch last year, she played 20 games, a couple of them on the same night.

Not bad for a goaltender who is a grandma.

"I'm not one to sit around too much," says Belliotti, 48, who has six step-granddaughters. When the oldest came to a recent game at the Mt. Lebanon rink, Belliotti was behind the mask for a mostly male team. Others in the audience got a kick out of this girl calling hello to "Grandma" in goal.

Sometimes other women tease her, and sometimes men still give her a hard time. But mostly, teams give her a call to play for them because she's good.

She is to play at least two games this weekend for the Pittsburgh Puffins, this area's first women's recreational team. It is one of 18 teams coming from far and wide to play in the second annual BladeRunners Invitational Women's Ice Hockey Tournament.

The three-day tourney, at Blade-Runners Ice Complex in Bethel Park tomorrow night through Sunday afternoon, pits teams of various age and skill levels from as far away as Tampa Bay, Fla., with several teams from Toronto and cities in Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio, plus a few other local teams.

Organizer Marianne Graham says the games are free for spectators. Raffle proceeds will benefit Hockey in the Hood, a program that teaches hockey to underprivileged youths.

"It's going to be good," says Graham, who works as an assistant coach for Chatham College's NCAA Division III women's team. She's also a goalie and this weekend will be filling in for the Bridgewater (N.J.) Wings. But usually, she plays for the Pittsburgh Piranhas, the other local women's recreational team that started about a year ago. Without a league of their own, the Airport Ice Arena-based Piranhas have been playing in local men's leagues. But that looks to change this fall.

This summer the team became one of the founding members of the Pennsylvania-Ohio Women's Hockey Association. Piranhas captain Corinne Cafasso says POWHA was officially formed July 13 at a meeting attended by representatives of her team as well as of teams from the Ohio cities of Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland Heights, Kent and North Olmsted. Other interested teams include the Puffins, who are based at the Iceoplex at Southpointe, as well as two teams from Erie.

	The Pittsburgh Piranhas are hungry to win at this weekend's invitational tournament in Bethel Park. Suiting up for a hard workout Tuesday are, from left, Donna Snow, 43, of New Castle; Jean Zelt, 25, of Mt. Lebanon; and Leigh Crawford, 24, of Oakdale. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette)

Cafasso says teams have until Aug. 31 to register for the league, which aims to provide a competitive atmosphere for women who want to play hockey at a post-collegiate level. The next meeting is to be held Sept. 8 to work out a possible 20-game season and other details.

Belliotti, who plays for the Piranhas as well as the Puffins, is up for it, but she nearly always is.

In addition to the women's teams' weekly practices and games, she plays year 'round in the mostly men's senior leagues at Mt. Lebanon and at Neville Island's Island Sports Center, where it's known as the Iron Lung League. She'll gladly play for other teams in need of a goaltender, almost always.

"I try not to play hockey on Sundays in the summer," she says. That's when she and her husband, Chuck, hit the Monongahela River for some slalom water skiing.

Summer Thursdays are set aside for sand volleyball at the house of the couple, who met at his Chuck's Complete Auto Service when she was working as a tow-truck driver.

Now she works there as office manager and stays busy in the summer with regular golf outings.

But hockey is her No. 1 passion, even though she didn't know how to skate until she took lessons about six years ago.

She's had to work hard and she's had to take some abuse, including a punch in the face from a guy who swore he didn't know she was a "girl."

But the payoffs are moments such as the Steel City Summer Shoot-out tournament earlier this year, where she played goal for a team of women in the region who didn't belong to a regular team.

They made it to the championship game, which ended in a tie that had to be settled by a shoot-out, where single players take turns trying to score on the opposing goalie.

It was excruciating, as both goalies kept stopping shots. After her team scored on the 14th shot, the opposing team got one more shot at tying it up. Belliotti blocked the skater's shot with a pad save, won the championship and was named MVP.

"She is better than most of the men, she really is," says Joanne DeFazio, Iceoplex's hockey director.

Belliotti is not the oldest player on the Puffins, who range in age from the 20s to the 50s, and she's inspired by the men in Iceoplex's co-ed league still playing in their 60s. She'd like to keep at it "as long as my joints hold up and the reflexes stay sharp enough."

That's 45 pounds of equipment she has to strap on, either to herself or to her Honda Silver Wing 500 motorcycle, which she sometimes rides to the rink (she runs the stick through the front fairing and along the side).

Hockey has been as much fun as it initially looked to her, she says. "It was a challenge and it was just something I had to try."

If you're a woman who wants to try it, you could check out the weekday morning "Mothers of Hockey" beginners program as well as the Puffins at Iceoplex, which also is looking for people to play in its fall co-ed league.

Likewise, the Piranhas are always open to new women of all abilities. As Graham puts it, "It's definitely the more the merrier."

Belliotti can't fill every slot.

This past Monday night was a typically late one, as she finished practice after 10 p.m. As she schlepped out of the Iceoplex with her equipment bag slung over one shoulder, she ran into a woman half her age or less. Belliotti asked if the women and others were going to still put together a team at Slippery Rock University, and the woman said yes.

Belliotti smiled and said, "Let me know if you need me to fill in."

The BladeRunners Invitational Women's Ice Hockey Tournament starts with four games tomorrow, starting at 7:30 p.m.; on Saturday, game times range from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Games start at 7 a.m. again on Sunday, when the three finals will be played starting at 10:15 a.m. There may still be slots open for the "BladeRunners Bruins," a team made up of independent players. The rink is at 305 Church Road, next to Bethel Park High School. For directions and more, go to the Web site www.bladerunnersice.com or call is 412-833-8500.

Bob Batz Jr. can be reached at bbatz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1930.