By Sam Carchidi
Philadelphia Inquirer

The fog, caused by unseasonably warm mid-March weather, climbed ever so slowly off the ice, and was so heavy, so thick, you could barely see the young hockey players skating through their drills. Their innocent, unbridled laughter echoed off the tin roof of the Kensington rink - a rink that was on the critical list a few months ago.

Ed Snider, the Flyers' founder and chairman, has taken the rink - and two others - off life support.

Because of budget cuts, the city had targeted three city rinks for closure.

The Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation and the city formed a public-private partnership in late November, and the rinks survived the winter. With spring arriving, they are being converted to floor hockey, with programs probably starting next week.

The rinks that were saved were Scanlon, in Kensington; the Laura Sims Skatehouse, in Cobbs Creek Park; and Simons, in West Oak Lane. They are often filled with inner-city youngsters playing in organized hockey leagues.

Most of the youngsters didn't know how to skate before the Snider foundation stepped in five months ago. The three facilities hosted 700 young skaters, ages 6 to 18, during the winter.

On a recent Saturday, several of the players' parents approached the silver-haired Snider at the Scanlon rink to thank him and ask him to pose for pictures. Some parents were black and some white. Some were Asian and some Hispanic. Those who couldn't speak English still got their point across to Snider. They hugged him.

"You don't know how much this means to our kids," one woman said, starting a common refrain.

After all these years, Snider has found something he finds as rewarding as the consecutive Stanley Cups his Flyers won in 1974 and 1975.

Asked to compare winning those titles to the joy he sees on the children's faces as they play hockey at the rinks, Snider smiled.

"I can't compare," he said. "It would be like trying to compare your children. It's all good stuff."

He paused.

"But at my age," said Snider, who is 76, "I want to leave something behind as my legacy, because I think this will grow and will continue to grow and will be a regular thing."

The foundation, which started in 2005, has spent nearly $275,000 on the city's rinks in the current fiscal year, with most of the money going toward the three rinks the city had planned to close. The children get the ice time, uniforms, instruction, skates, and sticks for free. The Philadelphia Department of Recreation maintains the rinks.

Susan Slawson, the city's recreation commissioner, said the partnership with the foundation had been "phenomenal" and so successful, "we're hoping other private organizations step up and assist" the city in projects in which funds aren't plentiful.

The partnership also expanded access to the city's two other rinks: Rizzo, in South Philadelphia, and Tarken, in Oxford Circle.

U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), who played hockey at Kings College, spoke yesterday to many of the young players who attended a three-day training camp of sorts at the Wachovia Spectrum. The session was scheduled to coincide with spring break, when working parents often struggle to find child care.

At Snider's request, the foundation has introduced competition among the five rinks, with the foundation paying for the transportation costs.

"The kids' self-esteem has been boosted immeasurably, as they feel they belong to a team that represents their neighborhood," said Scott Tharp, the foundation's president.

The Scanlon rink is in one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods, with Hispanic, African American, Asian, Irish and Polish families. "It's not a great neighborhood economically, so these kids would never, ever, get to do this if it wasn't for the program," said Joe Brogan, a Scanlon recreation leader.

Brogan noted that the foundation managed a free public-skating program at the rinks ($2 to rent skates). A recent ice show had 70 children participate and attracted 300 spectators.

After Snider's foundation took over, the rink was available six days a week instead of three, Brogan said.

For every dollar raised by the foundation, Snider puts in two dollars.

"Even before we took over the three rinks, we did programs each year, and it's been a big thrill for me because for years, we wanted to do something for inner-city kids," Snider said.

He said that many of the young players had "never been out of the neighborhood" until they took bus trips to ex-Flyer Keith Primeau's camp in Ontario, the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, and Niagara Falls at the foundation's expense.

"I feel sad for what they have to go through in life. . . . The ice time helps them improve skills and keeps them off the street," Snider said.

To assure themselves of ice time, the players have to demonstrate that they are doing work in the classroom. Coaches monitor their grades.

Chris Lawrence, a 27-year-old coach for the Snider foundation who captained Michigan State to the national championship in 2007, monitors the grades at Scanlon.

Outside the rink, on the Scanlon recreation playgrounds, dozens of children play pickup basketball and football games. But hockey - a foreign sport to many in the neighborhood until recently - is thriving among the youngsters as well.

"It's unbelievable. You can see their enthusiasm daily," said Lawrence, a Havertown resident who played hockey at Malvern Prep before playing junior hockey and then going to Michigan State. "A majority of these kids had never played hockey before. A majority of my kids actually walk to the rink with bags and sticks in their hand - and I don't think that's ever happened around here before.

"There are kids that live across the street and didn't even know this was an ice rink and didn't know they could come and play hockey."

The first month was "getting them on the ice and getting them to feel comfortable, but since then, they've actually gotten a lot better as players and they've really developed," Lawrence said. "They're really enthusiastic about it. Every day, they come to the rink with a smile on their face. You can tell it's made a difference in their lives."

Lawrence gives them homework assignments designed to build character.

"That's probably the most important aspect of this - our ability to affect them and be a positive influence in their lives off the ice," he said. "We use hockey as that channel that we're able to talk them through."

Life-skills programs have been set up for those 11 and under, and 12 and over.

The younger children have a word of the week, such as respect, celebration or service.

"We talk about that word throughout the week and try to push them to do certain things," Lawrence said. "They have assignments to take home. It might just be a simple version of 'Who are two important people in your life that you respect and show respect?', and for the older guys, we get more into details."

Lawrence recently talked to his older players about goal-setting and why it was important.

"The first week, we talked about how to make a proper introduction and how to shake someone's hand correctly," Lawrence said. "That way, when these guys go for interviews for jobs or college or whatnot, they have some semblance of an idea how to create a proper introduction, things along those lines.

"Hockey is the icing on the cake for them. The stuff we're able to teach them off the ice and about life, that's what we build on."

Pedro Castro, a Northeast Philadelphia resident, has three sons - Pedro Jr., 13; Joel, 11; and Nathaniel, 10 - and a daughter, Rosita, 9, who play hockey at Scanlon. Rosita aspires to play professional hockey. None knew how to skate before the program started, but the youngsters picked it up in two or three weeks.

"They're having fun with it, especially my daughter," Castro said. "She gets home from school and rushes home to get to this. It keeps them occupied and keeps them busy."

And it keeps their grades in line.

"They have to bring in their report cards, and anybody who isn't doing that good doesn't get skating time," Castro said. "That's a good thing. They've done better in school since coming here."

The foundation also supplies tutors - some are paid, others are college interns or hockey-community workers who volunteer their time - if the children need homework help.

Tharp, the foundation president, said that more than 96 percent of the foundation's high school players were on track to graduate on time - and that they attended schools in which graduation rates were below 50 percent.

Jim Britt, the foundation's vice president and chief operating officer, said the foundation had attracted many youngsters who didn't even know the rinks were open until the group handed out fliers at schools and talked to local organizations to let them know skating was available.

Snider cherishes the feedback he has received since the program started in 2005.

"They say if you can help one person, you're doing a lot," he said. "And the letters I've received are pretty amazing. One woman said she was hopeless and she's now going to college because her grades improved. Some of the letters bring tears to your eyes."

The Scanlon rink, which has graffiti on its mostly gray outside walls, fits into the Kensington neighborhood. It is run-down and in need of a face-lift. So are the other rinks the foundation is overseeing.

"These rinks have been neglected for years and years, even with the city running them," Snider said. "Some roofs leak, and they're put together with spit and chewing gum. We're trying to work with the city to see if we can come up with something. We need to provide better facilities. That's our next goal."

Snider hopes to present city officials with a plan to enclose the rinks for ice skating year-round.

Tharp said the foundation and the city were considering development of a facility that would include multiple ice surfaces, a library, a computer laboratory, classrooms, offices, and meeting rooms.

Inside the Scanlon rink, the young players didn't seem to care that they weren't in a grade-A facility. They weren't fazed by the rink's condition. They laughed and hollered as they skated through the fog and went through a drill in which they dived under a hockey stick placed across two folding chairs about five feet apart.

"Hockey is a game of sometimes falling down," said Britt, the foundation's vice president and chief operating officer, explaining the usefulness of the drill. "You get knocked down or you fall down, you have to get up. It's all part of the athletic ability."

It's also part of life.

Friday, April 10, 2009