Street Hockey

At Keith Valley Middle School in Horsham, the street-hockey-a-thon this year benefits St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

About 13 teenage boys showed up at the Rockledge Borough Council's monthly meeting this week to ask permission to use borough tennis, volleyball and basketball courts for street-hockey games. But the council on Monday denied their request to use the courts at the Rockledge Community Center, saying that the asphalt tennis courts were not appropriate for roller-skating and that the courts and nets would be damaged. The council also denied the boys' request to convert the tennis and basketball courts into hockey courts.

A controversy over whether children should be allowed to play street hockey on Jonathan Drive in Caln Township is still not resolved, as far as one resident is concerned. Clara Bessick told the Township Board of Commissioners on Thursday night that children playing on Jonathan Drive are interfering with her smooth passage to her home on the road, in the northwestern section of the township. Bessick said the children playing in the street "don't move when they see me coming or they move slowly.

Joan Roskow of Middletown calls herself a "product of the 60s. " As such, Roskow believes equal rights includes kids, as well as adults. Last month, Roskow wrote a letter to the editor about a rights problem in her subdivision, Tareyton Estates. She talked about "an epidemic" that was sweeping the country. "Yes, it's worse than teen alcohol abuse, more addicitve than crack," she wrote. Pretty heady stuff. The problem that's plaguing Roskow's neighbhood, however, isn't crime.

The nine members of the Snipers street-hockey team had to warm up a little more than usual on a recent Saturday before they could face off against the Owls from Lumberton. The seven-team league doesn't have a grounds crew - which is why the Snipers had to come to their home rink on an abandoned tennis court two hours before the scheduled 1:30 p.m. game time to shovel snow and ice. But the effort, said Andy Dick, was worth it, since the Snipers won 6-4 against the Owls from the Sunnybrook development in Lumberton.

Ice time at hockey rinks in Delaware County is limited and expensive, so droves of Eric Lindros or John LeClair wanna-bes often just drag a portable net out onto a local roadway and play on pavement, instead. Some youth recreation organizations are harnessing that energy, taking the "street" out of street hockey by transferring it to an enclosed playing surface with organized games played under adult supervision. The new sport, which also takes advantage of the growing popularity of in-line skating, is called roller hockey.

Associate Pastor Lloyd Parks of the Faith Bible Church in Medford said he has fond memories of when he was growing up and he used to play street hockey in the township. "It was just a bunch of us guys who got together and played pickup games on a rink the township had behind the municipal building," Parks recalled. Over the years, as larger rinks were constructed in other municipalities such as Cherry Hill, area youths started losing interest in playing street hockey locally, he said.

You know them. You've seen them. They are the ones standing at the end of your car hood unaware of anyone or anything around them except the game. They are street hockey players whose court is the suburban street and whose passion for the game makes the playing season all year long. "I like street hockey because it is competitive," said George Kopishke, 15, who plays outside his Upper Providence Township home. "I play ice hockey when I get the chance, but mostly I play street hockey with my friends all year, whenever I get a chance.

It's a sweltering 90-plus degrees under a relentless sun that is beaming off the asphalt of the hockey rink, and four teams of children are squaring off. The youngsters, ages 5 through 8, are playing on a new street hockey rink, the only one in Middletown Township. It lies at the center of the new Forsythia Crossing Park, a 12-acre park in the Forsythia Gate section of the township on the site of an old public pool. It is the new home of the Middletown Athletic Association's street-hockey division, much to the delight of president Tom Byrne, who said he had worked a long time to get a permanent home for his teams.

Leave behind the neon lights of Main Street, Manayunk. Duck down the narrow road that juts behind the old stone factories, past the old sodden men in the shadows watching the young ladies strut and slide to new nightspots. Rattle across the nondescript bridge, across the weedy old railroad track and deep into the dark of the island. Bound almost blindly over rocks and pocks and mounds of dirt as the trees and brush grow thicker, and the blanket of crickets wraps tighter. Here in the midst of metropolitan Philadelphia is a slice of seclusion.

THE WINTER CLASSIC is hockey on steroids - arctic-chilled, hot chocolate-warmed, maybe with a touch of brandy. It is faces red from the cold, noses even redder. Mother Nature must be a hockey fan because she brought ideal hockey weather - 41.1 degrees at faceoff (and dropping) with brisk, very brisk, winds. And in the second period, yes, snow flurries. Flyers fans poured into Citizens Bank Park yesterday, worshiping a makeshift rink that lay on top of a baseball diamond. They were there for their Flyers and the hockey, of course, but they shared equal love for the surroundings and the event taking place.

Wafiq is very gifted musically. The enterprising 13-year-old taught himself to play both drums and bass guitar. And his talents are not limited to music. He has an abundance of energy, which he channels into a variety of sports - football, soccer, street hockey, and lacrosse. Wafiq is fascinated by any mode of transportation, including bike, scooter, and Rollerblades. In addition, like many of his peers, he spends many hours testing his skills at video games. Wafiq does well in school and benefits from the support and direction he receives.

   "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?" - from "Stand by Me " Chris Gibbons is a writer from Philadelphia My friend Vinnie and I would often sit on the red brick wall in front of my house on warm summer nights in 1975. We would talk into the night about our coming freshman year at Roman Catholic High School, the long SEPTA bus ride into Center City, and the changes that would soon be upon us. The little world we knew was about to get a lot bigger, and we both sensed the innocence of our adolescence fading as the long shadows of the summer twilight crept across our street each evening to merge with the inevitable darkness.

Broad Street Bully spent last night embedded in the orange-blooded flood of his fellow Flyers fans at Chickie's & Pete's in South Philly, watching the Flyers lose a 2-1 heartbreaker in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, floating on a sea of $2 drafts, still passionately pining for a parade. HEAR NO EVIL: Cliff Brenner, 57, and Scott Beinstein, 49, Flyered-up friends from Northeast Philadelphia, watched the game on the big-screen TV with earphones in both ears, listening to the play-by-play on radio.

STREET hockey was once the stick ball of suburbia. In the Philly suburbs in the early 1970s, it was an after-school sport that lots of kids played. The Flyers were the rage, and we each had orange and black jerseys emblazoned with our favorite players' names and numbers. We'd imitate Bernie Parent and Bobby Clarke. And every class bully became the team's Dave Schultz. A guy in my neighborhood took metal from a swing set and made two goals, using sewn-together burlap bags for netting.

We're bringing you a new item on the South Jersey sports scene, called "5 Minutes With. " We will take a little time to learn some things about the high school athletes that you wouldn't normally find in a game story. The first subject is Triton senior quarterback Rocco Colucci. FAVORITE PRO SPORTS TEAM: The Flyers. I never played ice hockey, but I've always played street hockey. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH ON TV: College football. My favorite team is Penn State. FAVORITE REALITY SHOW: I don't watch any of the reality shows, so I can't say I have a favorite.

IKNOW that what I'm about to say will earn me a Philly razzing. Wimp, you'll call me. Maybe use the word Vince Fumo used to describe Sen. Jubelirer a few years back. Or even the moniker of the Soprano mobster killed on Tony's boat a few seasons ago. But I'm going to say it anyway: There's way too much fighting in professional hockey. It's a brawl dressed up as a hockey game. If I wanted to see a fight, I'd go the Blue Horizon or Atlantic City - not the Wachovia Center.

The New York Rangers wanted to end seven seasons of playoff absences. All they needed was a point. The Flyers wanted to move ahead of them atop the Atlantic Division with a victory in regulation. Those were the stakes last night at Madison Square Garden. When it was over, the Rangers had a 3-2 shoot-out victory, giving them 96 points - three more than the Flyers with seven games to play. "I felt we played a good game," said Flyers goalie Robert Esche, who continued to make a case for himself as the playoff starter with 38 saves.

Lenape's Lauren Pfeiffer was camped out in front of her television set for two weeks in August. Flipping between cable channels, the field hockey fanatic couldn't get enough Olympic coverage of the sport from the games in Athens. She watched both the men's and women's competitions. Even though the United States wasn't represented, the senior was riveted by what she saw, amazed by the speed and talent level of the elite players. "Watching the games, I just kept wishing someday I'll be able to play for the Olympic team," she said.

Senior Lindsey-Kate McCool doesn't really know where it comes from. The attack wing for the Cherokee girls' lacrosse team whizzes through opposing defenses and has a knack for finding open teammates on the field. It is something she has done in basketball, soccer and lacrosse during her high school athletic career. McCool is one of the most dangerous players in South Jersey with the ball on her lacrosse stick. The 5-foot-4 senior leads the Chiefs with 25 assists - and six goals - in six games.