Remembering The Pittsburgh Polar Maids and Pennies Before The PWHL Takes Over The Steel City

The Pittsburgh Pennies played in the 1970s, and in 1917, the Pittsburgh Polar Maids made headlines. The city has a long history of women's hockey, and will welcome the PWHL Takeover Weekend this week.

Founded in 1972, the Pittsburgh Pennies were the first organized women's hockey team of the modern era to lace up their skates in the Steel City. This week the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will visit the city as part of the PWHL Takeover Weekend.

It's not the first time professional women's hockey has visited Pittsburgh as the PWHPA has played in the city, and the PHF's Montreal Force and Connecticut Whale played in Pittsburgh last season with Connecticut donning commemorative Pittsburgh Pennies jerseys.

"We don't consider ourselves trailblazers, but when you think about it, I'm sure Lewis and Clark didn't either," said Kathleen Berg, a member of the Pennies.

"Really all we wanted to do then is play hockey … We were a club team. Just a bunch of women who wanted to play hockey, so we did," Berg said.

The Pittsburgh Pennies organization played for eight seasons with players ranging in age from 9-50.  As with many women's hockey teams in the era, finding ice time was always a challenge, as were the costs of equipment and travel. The team played games across the Northeast and Canada.

But the Pennies were't Pittsburgh's first organized team. 

45 years before the Pittsburgh Pennies took to the ice, the Pittsburgh Polar Maids were on the ice in the Pennsylvania city. Records of this team exist as they faced the famed Ottawa Alerts in a series in 1917. 

Ottawa won both games beating the Polar Maids 4-0 and 5-1, and also played another Pennsylvania team known as the Winter Garden Girls. 

The catalyst for the launch of many American teams at this time including Pittsburgh, and in nearby Cleveland, came from word of the Eastern Ladies Hockey League which had teams in Montreal, Ottawa, and Cornwall. IN 1916, a year before the Polar Maids played Ottawa, Alerts and Cornwall Victorias travelled to Cleveland and played a three-game exhibition at Cleveland’s Elysium Arena. This series is often credited with helping to jumpstart the formation of women's hockey teams in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh at the time.

Robert Morris made a triumphant return to NCAA Division I women's hockey this year in Pittsburgh after multiple seasons away. The program has provided women and girls in Pittsburgh a regular location to see elite women's hockey, but for many, the process of climbing through the women's hockey ranks in the city begins with the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite program.

Among the alumni of the program include Team USA's Lacey Eden and Laila Edwards, NCAA goaltender of the year Gwyneth Philips, and former professional hockey player Reagan Rust. Other NCAA stars like Lauren Bernard, Chayla Edwards, Kaitlyn O'Donohoe, and Laney Potter are also Pens Elite alumni.