The Pa. women who broke hockey's glass ceiling

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Making history was the last thing on Barbara DeShong’s mind when she and a few other girls decided to create Pittsburgh’s first women’s hockey team.

“I was 16 when I started playing and loved the sport,” she recalled. “We weren’t thinking about being pioneers or anything like that.”

Alpine Arena, a former ice rink in Swissvale, on the eastern edge of the city, was the hotspot for ice skating then. Many girls who had a passion for ice hockey took advantage of the stick time offered there. DeShong certainly noticed.

“We said, ‘Let’s see if we can get a team together,’’' she added. “We put flyers with the advertisements and we put them in every rink we could find.”

The ads attracted enough people for the group to meet in late 1972, the same year the federal gender equity law known as Title IX expanded opportunities in sports for women nationwide. 

Soon after, the Pittsburgh Pennies were born, solidifying a new era in contact sports in a city some consider to be the birthplace of professional hockey.

It had been a long time coming. 

Almost a decade earlier, Nancy Schieffelin had joined a Brown University men’s hockey practice in disguise, a move that paved the way for the first women’s college ice hockey program in the U.S., according to the Rhode Island Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Pittsburgh Pennies ranged in age from 10 to 40. The team limited the youngest players to scrimmages, but there were some notable exceptions (see the last sentence of the news clipping below).

After a couple years, the roster grew to 30 players.

The Pennies spent late nights practicing at various rinks. Without any other established women’s hockey teams to face, they scrimmaged against each other or played against high school boys teams. 

“The high school boys teams always got preference, or the college teams,” said Patti Gaab, another former Pennies player. “We always got the weird times for practice. There weren’t that many rinks around either … We went wherever we could get ice time.”

Maintaining an amateur competitive women’s hockey team proved challenging financially. The Pennies held skate-a-thons, bake sales, and flea markets to raise money to afford equipment, travel, and monthly dues. They arranged their transportation for each game, using whatever was available.

“We never got paid. We called ourselves the Mini Penguins or Girl Penguins,” Jean Lombardi said. “We were just out there having fun.”

In a 2021 interview with the Steel City clothing line, Lombardi said one of her college professors at Pitt suggested she join a men’s ice hockey team but she declined because she didn’t want to be the “token girl.” She wanted a team of her own.

To challenge themselves, the Pennies began to travel to tournaments in Canada, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and beyond. The team gots its formal start when it joined the Mid-Atlantic Women’s Hockey League around 1977. 

“Being able to play this sport predominantly for boys, it gave me increased confidence. It empowered me,” Shelley Starkey said. “It made me feel equal to my friends. It really was a life-changing experience.” Starkey joined the squad in 1973 at the age of 12.

The team disbanded in 1979, but the Pennies saw their trailblazing come full circle in January. Six original players reunited at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Butler County to be honored at a professional women’s hockey game between the Montreal Force and the Connecticut Whale. Players on the Connecticut Whale donned throwback Pennies jerseys.

“It just showed how women have so much opportunity to participate [now],” DeShong said.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald declared January 14, 2023 Pittsburgh Pennies Women’s Ice Hockey Day. The recognition brought an overflow of emotions for the women, now in their 60s, who were seeing each other for the first time in 50 years.

“We were just a group of girls who loved hockey. We truly loved it. It didn't seem like a trailblazing thing,” said Stephanie Strauch St. Leger, who joined the team in 1974.

Jim Hughes, the team’s coach and the father of the goalie mentioned in the news clip above, found out about the tribute event the night before. He was happy to see some of his players after all those years: “They were the pioneers. They started it all.”

Anne Madarasz, director of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, curates the “A Great Day for Hockey!” exhibit and said the Pennies story is important to tell.

Lombardi’s original jersey is one of the many items of memorabilia on display. 

“It shows how far women’s hockey has come and how much further it has to go,” she said. “This is a great foundation for the Title IX story about women’s sports and gives you a sense of the journey of the pioneers and the history today.”

—Tanisha Thomas for PA Local

"It just hit me one day while in the woods and I thought 'I bet no one has done this.'"

—Van Wagner, a Danville Area High School teacher, who is determined to climb the tallest tree in all 67 Pennsylvania counties (paywall)

Taken at the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster with migrating snow geese in the background, via Patricia C. Send us your photos, use #PAGems on Instagram, or tag us @spotlightpennsylvania.