No Sleep 'til Brooklyn! By Paula Hunt For Hipcheck Magazine: Volume 2, Issue 1 January/February 1999 New York City's borough of Brooklyn inspires loyalty and legend. It has been the stomping grounds for a variety of famous residents, from the poet Walt Whitman to baseball's Dodgers and it was even stomped on by Godzilla last summer! Today, it's home to the Brooklyn Blades, the city's largest women's ice hockey program. They've appropriated the borough's namesake bridge -- the one rumored to have been sold a few times -- for their jerseys and have also adopted the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn" as their rallying cry. But playing ice hockey in New York City demands concessions and compromises that non-Gotham dwellers would never dream about. Traffic can be so bad that the typical Blade has to set aside an hour and a half to drive from her home to get to a rink just five miles away, equipment can't be left in cars for fear of thieves and as most New York City apartments seem to be the size of walk-in closets, players end up drying their equipment on their fire escapes. All this, and the cost of a sheet of ice can be 10 times what others pay in U.S. or Canadian hockey hotbeds. Still, despite the woes, the Blades continue to grow. The hockey club comprises youth travel teams, women's travel teams, and men's, women's and children's clinics. The Blades women's program sprung from a simple clinic with about a dozen participants in the fall of 1994. Most of the inaugural participants had never played hockey and some had never even skated before. Today, over fifty women belong to their ranks, including two travel teams and those who attend regular program clinics. The Blades' founder and coach, Aaron Foeste, is a former high school science teacher who gave up the academic classroom for one on the ice. "I'll never teach something that people don't like again. That's why I teach hockey," he says of his career change. The Blades recruit players through word of mouth, through their website and "any girl we see in hockey skates or who rollerblades well" says Foeste. Media attention has also helped boost the numbers. The Photo Caption: Blades Laurie Dugan and Kari Danlen start their journey to the rink Photo Caption: Navigating the subway turnstiles no easy task Page 2: Blades have appeared in very major New York city newspaper and magazine, Nike produced a film about the team that ran during an Olympic Winter Games broadcast and the program has also been featured on both Japanese television and on the Lifetime Television Network. Because the demand for women's ice hockey in New York was so great and the players' skill level as improved so much over the past several years, the Blades doubled in size to create both A and B teams during the 1997-98 season. The two teams practice separately and attendance and effort are just as critical as fancy stickwork for every player -- there is no "riding the pine" for less-skilled skaters. With players ranging in age from 16-40, the Blades draw members from New Jersey Long Island and four of New York City's five boroughs (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx). The team's diversity also reflects that of the city itself, with the program including lawyers, students, an Episcopalian priest, a social worker and a doctor, among others. Due to the lengthy travel time associated with being part of an organized league, the Blades have remained independent from being a part of the Senior Women's Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, which stretches from Connecticut to Delaware. And while their non-alliance renders them ineligible to participate in playoffs and championship competitions, it also allows them the freedom to play other Senior women's teams, high level Midget teams and college club teams in the Tri-State area on a flexible schedule. A major season highlight for the Blades is their subway series against the crosstown rival, Chelsea Comets, while each Blade travel squad also ends their annual 20-25 game campaign with a trip to the Canada's Brampton Canadettes Tournament in April. Claudia Manley Ruards the slot in an exhibition test For the past three years, the Blades have raised money for their trip to Canada by hosting a comedy showcase organized by defenseman Lynn Harris, a stand up comedian and co-creator of the hit website "Breakup Girl." Team fees pay for ice time and games (about 15 home dates per season), and the Blades also receive support from Brooklyn Bridge Magazine and the 3rd Street Skate Co., as well as a website provided by Panix, which is maintained by Blades forward Ali Lemer. Home ice for the Blades is Riverbank State Park, a covered outdoor rink located above a sewage treatment plant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, while practices are held in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Since owning a car in New York is the exception rather than the rule, public transportation via bus and subway are popular means of travel for players. As any Blade will tell you, navigating subway turnstiles with hockey equipment is as much a learned skill as skating and stickhandling. But despite the stories one may have heard about the New York City subway system, riding the rails past midnight hasn't been a major concern for players carrying bags and sticks (although one Blade does say that her friends are reluctant to come watch her play because they're afraid they're going to be mugged). In the end, playing hockey in the Big Apple is like doing anything else in the giant city. It is expensive, stressful, requires extensive planning and usually demands standing in line somewhere. But as any Brooklyn Blade will tell you, the sport is well worth it. Paula Hunt is a freelance writer who plays hockey for the Brooklyn Blades (visit the team s web site at www.brooklynblades.org).