Super Mario and the Cups Turned a Football City Towards the Ice

In this five-part series, Adam Gretz looks at the growth of USA Hockey and the number of "non-traditional" cities and regions that are now producing players in the wake of NHL expansion. This week, we'll run a new installment every day.

Southwestern Pennsylvania has always been known as a football hot-spot, not only due to the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but because of the vast number of NFL players who have come from the area. The list is seemingly endless, and reads like its own wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It includes names like Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Jim Kelly, George Blanda, Joe Namath, Tony Dorsett and Mike Ditka, as well as potential future members in Ty Law and Curtis Martin. The area is still producing pro players today, including more recent names Darrelle Revis, Paul Posluszny and Larod-Stephens Howling.

The area will always consider football its first love, but in recent years it's started to produce a growing number of NHL players and prospects. Since the start of the 2003 NHL season, Ryan Malone, Bill Thomas, R.J. Umberger, Nate Guenin, Mike Weber, Grant Lewis, John Zeiler and Dylan Reese, all players born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, have made their NHL debuts. Fifteen years earlier it would have been unheard of to see that many players make it to that level.

Why the sudden spike? Well, almost all of the credit has to go to Mario Lemieux and a couple of Stanley Cups.

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Even though it wasn't until 1967 when the NHL expanded to Pittsburgh (well, technically, that's not entirely true, as the Pittsburgh Pirates played from 1925-1930) the city actually has a deep hockey history, including successful minor league teams like the Hornets and Yellow Jackets, as well as being the city that saw American hockey legend Hobey Baker play his final game before his untimely death in 1918.

Despite the history, it wasn't until 1984 that hockey started to became a major factor. That, of course, is when the Pittsburgh Penguins, coming off the worst season in franchise history, selected Lemiuex with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, a move that would ultimately save the NHL in Pittsburgh, while also igniting a new interest in the sport. During his peak, Lemieux helped lead the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups in the early 1990s, and what followed was a number of kids that might have ordinarily picked up a football helmet, instead deciding to learn how to ice skate.

"It's funny," said Reese, currently a defenseman with the New York Islanders. "Because I usually reference that in any interview about hockey as the reason I play, and the reason a lot of the guys around my age are playing. A lot of people just decided to pick up a hockey stick and not play football. The Cups in the early 90s definitely got us playing, even if it was just roller skating to emulate the Penguins, and then ice skating, and before you know it, you have a hobby and you're playing. I was just talking to (former Penguin) Phil Bourque a couple of weeks ago, and all of us, we owe those guys everything, because they really got us interested in hockey. They're the ones that kind of converted basketball courts to deck hockey rinks and got people interested in the sport. The Penguins in the early 90s are 100 percent the reason I started playing."

Before playing college hockey at Harvard, Reese spent two seasons playing for the now-defunct Pittsburgh Forge of the NAHL, a Junior A Tier II league. The Forge were founded by former NHL head coach Kevin Constantine, and gave kids in the Pittsburgh area an opportunity to play Junior hockey without having to move away from home.

"There was a lot of talent in the area at that time," said Reese. "But everybody had to leave home to play. It was Kevin's vision to keep them in Pittsburgh. "

The Forge were an instant success on the ice, winning the 2002-03 National Championship with a team that included Pittsburgh natives Reese and Lewis, as well as goaltender Peter Mannino, a Michigan native who has also played in the NHL, most recently with the Islanders. Unfortunately, even with all of their on-ice success, the Forge folded following the 2002-03 season, ending Pittsburgh's brief run with Junior hockey.

It was around that time that Pittsburgh received its first Division I NCAA hockey program thanks to Robert Morris University. Currently, it's one of just two Division I programs in the entire state, with Mercyhurst College, located in Erie, being the other. Derek Schooley has been the only head coach the program has ever known in its seven-year existence, and recognizes the emerging talent in the area.

"You can't put a price tag on what those Stanley Cups did for youth hockey in Pittsburgh."
-- Robert Morris coach Derek Schooley "You're seeing players come from all over the place," said Schooley. "Right now I think the Mario Lemieux years are kicking in around here, and those players that followed the Penguins for their first couple of Cups are starting to get to the college recruitable age and beyond, and that's why you're seeing more Pittsburgh players play professional hockey. You can't put a price tag on what those Stanley Cups did for youth hockey in Pittsburgh."

He continued: "We want to keep the best local kids at home in Pittsburgh. We don't want them to leave to go to a different college or university, and the more success the Penguins have, the more people get involved in hockey, and the more that helps our program. It gives us a bigger talent pool to choose from, and then we have a chance to keep more players at home and it helps our local recognition. There are players coming from all different types of non-traditional areas now, and it forces us to recruit from the East Coast to the West Coast and all of North America; not just certain parts of the U.S. and Canada. We're all over North America now."

A quick look at the Robert Morris roster for the 2010-11 season shows five players from the Pittsburgh area, as well as players from Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and West Virginia. The program has produced a number of players in recent years that have signed on with NHL clubs and made appearances in various prospect camps, as well as the minor leagues. Ryan Cruthers, a New York native, is probably the most notable, leading the ECHL in postseason scoring this past season with 24 points in 16 games for the Reading Royals.

Of course, there's always a heated debate in hockey circles as to which route is better for young players to take: the NCAA, or the Canadian Major Junior Leagues. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and simply depend on the interests of the individual player. As Schooley pointed out, players that choose college have an opportunity to not only earn a degree, but also have more time to practice, weight train (allowing players to get bigger and stronger) and mature both physically and mentally.

(On the other hand, players that play Junior hockey are playing more games, traveling more -- which can be a learning experience in itself -- and playing playoffs that feature best-of-seven series like the ones used in the NHL.)

Pittsburgh was recently awarded the 2013 NCAA Frozen Four, with Robert Morris serving as the host team. It's an event that can only help the program.

"It's going to showcase our new state of the art building here in Pittsburgh, it's going to showcase Robert Morris University, it's going to showcase our hockey program, and those are things that are very exciting for our program," said Schooley. "The youth hockey in Pittsburgh is going to see a great brand of college hockey, and it's going to be a National Championship decided in Pittsburgh, which hasn't happened in the NCAA in a long time."

Even with all of the progress that's been made, hockey still tends to take a backseat to other sports at the high school level, much like it does in other parts of the country. Players are responsible for providing nearly everything, and the costs add up. It's the type of challenge that players like Reese had to overcome in their efforts to make the NHL. And as he points out, if there's enough motivation in the form of a competitive NHL team, a lot of kids are going to find their way to the ice.

"When we were playing (in high school at Upper St. Clair) it was a club team," said Reese. "I can't remember specifically what we paid, but it definitely wasn't treated like the football team or baseball team. We definitely went through a little hardship, but that's the way it was in the late 90s with hockey. It's funny, you look back, and you look at the way sports are with cities, any city, and they're really tied in with how good the team is at a certain time. I remember talking with the owner of the hockey shop I used to go in the summer. When the Penguins were winning through the late 90s he said business was really good, then when they hit they that three- or four-year funk before (Sidney) Crosby came along, business dropped a little. Then they get Crosby and they get good and kids start playing hockey again. I think some of it just has to do with how good a given team is."