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Sports

Pine-Richland Stingrays Take Hockey to New Depths

These players drop the puck on unfrozen ponds.

If the ice at a hockey rink melted, players might want to ask Debbie Ramage for some pointers on how to play under water. She's played underwater hockey for 30 years.

Ramage, 60, of Cranberry, attended and taught a class in 1979 at Seneca Valley High School. She was part of a core group of members who started an open community league. They played at several different pools before moving to the l pool in 1999. The Pine-Richland Stingrays of the Pittsburgh Underwater Hockey league practice each Tuesday night.

Underwater hockey is similar to ice hockey in that the players carry sticks and the puck must enter a goal. The underwater version involves less contact and more passing. Instead of pads and ice skates, the players wear snorkels and fins.

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In ideal conditions, teams play a 15-minute half in 8 feet of water and a 15-minute half in 12 feet of water. Usually, there are penalties, advantages and game expulsions, but Ramage's team does not exactly play by the rules.

"Our rules are more sandlot baseball versus regulation baseball," she said.

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The Stingrays split into two teams, and the first to score 10 points wins. They play only in the 12-foot end of the pool. At practice on Dec. 21, six players showed up, so the team played three on three. Throughout the fall, the team was consistently getting 12 players for a game of six on six.

The players at Tuesday's practice collectively have played the game for almost 100 years.  Father and son Dale and John Wagner each have played for almost 20 years. Mike Kernan began playing in 1994. Ben Holtzman has played for six years, and Guillaume Besson, who moved to Pittsburgh from Paris in March, has played for two years.

Ramage is the only female on the team, but she said other women have come and gone over the years -- although none has played for at least five years. The sport is open to women and men of all ages, and the league is always looking for new players.

"If you are comfortable underwater, you can do it," Ramage said. "We love having new players."

And, according to Besson, more players means a better game.

"There is more passing, and it is a more colorful game," he said.

Besson lives in Oakland, but another team member brings him to practice each week. He said he could find only one other team in Pennsylvania -- across the state, near Philadelphia.

The sport is relatively new – the first tournament was held in the 1950s – and Ramage said new players either love it or hate it. But underwater hockey leagues have been formed throughout the United States and the world.

Alan Blake is considered to be the inventor of underwater hockey. The secretary of the Southsea British Sub-Aqua Club, he sought a way to improve his students' stamina and snorkeling skills. The inaugural game was held at the Eastney Swimming Pool in Portsmouth, England in 1954. Within a quarter-century, Canada – the birthplace of ice hockey – was holding men's and women's championships.

Today, the sport is played in 20 countries ranging from Australia to South Africa. It is governed by the Confederation Mondiale des Activites Subaquatique.

Holtzman has played in leagues in five different countries, including Canada, Italy and the Netherlands. He found the sport when studying for a bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois. Now he is teaching the team "the proper way to play," Ramage said.

"If you know where to look, [underwater hockey leagues] are easy to find," Holtzman said. "People play all across the world and all across the U.S."

John Wagner also played the sport internationally. While studying abroad in Germany, he made friends by playing in underwater hockey and rugby leagues. He learned the game from his father, Dale, who began playing in 1991 and brought him along.

"I was brought along to practice before I could even swim, and started playing as soon as I could," John said.

The team members enjoy playing together, and they agree it is good exercise. Ramage said she does not plan to quit playing any time soon.

"When I swim laps at the YMCA, I always swim a lap underwater," she said. "And if I can still do that, I will still play underwater hockey."

The team practices at 8:30 on Tuesday nights in the pool at Pine-Richland High School. The cost is $3 per night per player. 

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