Julia O’Brien stood in the freezing cold by Wollman Rink in snow-covered Central Park one night last week, watching her two daughters slide around on the ice. The girls were keeping warm by running hockey drills, but the spectators had to bounce up and down to stave off the bitter cold. There probably isn’t much relief in sight for O’Brien and her hockey-obsessed brood, either.
“My youngest was saying last night she wants to get a gold in the Olympics playing hockey,” says O’Brien, an Upper West Side resident. “I think we might be in this for a while.”
Her two girls — Mary, 9, and Megan, 11 — were more into figure skating until four years ago, when the family turned on the 2010 Olympics and watched the US women’s team take the silver in hockey. (They took the silver medal again in Sochi.)
“My older daughter realized at that time that women play hockey,” says O’Brien. “The next day, my husband had hockey skates for them.”
The other kids at school sometimes gawk when she shows up with a bag of hockey equipment.
“It feels good,” says Mary. “They say, ‘Cool, you’re a girl playing hockey.’ ”
The team on the ice that night was in the city’s only all-girls hockey league, which travels to New Jersey and Pennsylvania for games. But they’re far from the only enthusiasts who have taken to the ice in recent years.
While skeptics doubt that New York City can foster as robust a hockey community as, say, Minnesota or New England, Big Apple ice fanatics say the city is brimming with places to take some slap shots.
Those fanatics include people like Grant May, 25, who was peeling off his equipment Monday after an intense pickup game at Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers.
“I’m a student, so I come around noon Monday through Friday,” says May, who lives in Chelsea. He jumped into the rink’s daily lunchtime pickup games, which are usually packed with guys who pop by on lunch break to get in some hockey time. May comes between classes at Columbia Law School, and he also plays on a league team that starts at 11:30 pm at the 24-hour rink.
“It helps with studying,” he says. “You’re getting exercise rather than spending all day reading.”
Glenn Lucci, 33, of Greenpoint, has been playing for 20 years, since his days rocking the stick in outdoor hockey in his home state of Wisconsin. He likes the Sky Rink because of its location: He can hop in the shower after a game and head over to the Tippler, where he works as a bartender.
“It combines grace and violence in a very unique way,” he says of the sport.
The City Ice Pavilion in Long Island City has noticed an uptick in interest in the sport in the past few years. Some of this, says Sean Prince, director of youth hockey development, can be attributed to the past two Winter Olympics, during which the American teams have stood out (and while the women won silver in Sochi, the men were about to play for the bronze at press time.)
In the spring, City Ice Pavilion will be rolling out a new youth hockey program that will split the rink into three rinks, which makes it more kid-appropriate.
“For their sizes, [a full rink] would be like an adult trying to play hockey on a soccer field,” Prince says. At Central Park’s Lasker Rink, 10-year-old Charlotte Ariyan is leaving the locker room after evening practice. She’s wearing a Rangers hat — favorite player: goalie Henrik Lundqvist — and already has a favorite college team, Yale. Her twin brother used to be the only one in the family to play hockey, but she got tired of skating on the other side of the rink while he played. “I guess I kind of got jealous,” she says. She’s been following the Olympic games closely on TV, and her team spirit isn’t in doubt. “Beat Russia!” she yells, as she and her father walk away.
Here’s where to play in NYC:
City Ice Pavilion
47-32 32nd Place, Long Island City, Queens; 718-706-6667 cityicepavilion.com
The only rooftop skating rink in the city, City Ice Pavilion is open year-round, sheltered by an inflatable air-dome. Its NHL-size rink offers learn-to-play hockey programs for youngsters and house leagues for kids and adults. Drop-in open hockey sessions are held Monday through Friday, except Wednesday, from noon to 1:20 p.m., and throughout the week at night, too.
Lasker Rink
830 Fifth Ave.; 917-492-3856 laskerrink.com
The northern tip of Central Park is home to the city’s only all-girls youth hockey league at the side-by-side outdoor Lasker Rinks. The Lady Hawks, as they’re known, are divided by age groups ranging from 8 and under to 14 and under, and they practice on the ice several nights a week. The rinks also host boys and coed adult leagues, and “stick and puck” drop-in sessions (where players can work on specific skills) throughout the week.
Sky Rink
Pier 61 at Chelsea Piers at West 21st Street; 212-336-6100 chelseapiers.com/sr/
The Sky Rink probably has the coolest name and the best view of any hockey rink in the city. Located atop Chelsea Piers, it overlooks the Hudson River on both sides of its high-ceilinged perch. The rink is also open 24 hours a day year-round, with some league games that start in the middle of the night. But regulars also flock to the daily lunchtime, dropin, pickup games, which run from noon to 1:20 p.m. every day and feature a range of styles, from college players to relative newbies. The rink hosts both adult and child hockey leagues throughout the year, and boasts a state-of-the-art training space for competitive youth and adult players.