Hockey Wagner’s sport of choice
It’s Saturday morning, around 5 a.m. Night is having it’s last say, waiting for Day to start its shift. Somewhere, a rooster is warming up his vocal cords for that first “Cock-a-doodle” and Courtney Wagner is doing the best she can at this hour to approach coherence.
Going through a checklist in her mind, Wagner – still trying to fight her way out of slumber – makes sure her goods are in order: Skates, check. Blade, check. Helmet, shoulder pads and shin guards. Check, check, check.
There are other essentials as well. Shorts, elbow pads, gloves and neck guard.
Something’s still missing though.
By now an old pro at this routine, it doesn’t take Wagner long to remember one last, but very important piece of equipment that will come in handy in a few hours.
Her mouthpiece.
Wagner has been playing ice hockey since she was 10, and, if things go as planned, she will be donning skates for several years to come.
Amateur hockey has yet to ingrain itself into Fayette County, but the sport is alive and thriving in Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas. Ice time is at a premium, hence, Wagner’s early-morning awakening.
“I don’t go to a lot of sleepovers,” Wagner said.
The 17-year-old, who will be a senior at Connellsville Area High School this fall, did get her introduction to the sport locally, playing in the Fayette Youth Hockey League at Divito Park. And when it came time, Wagner didn’t hesitate to join her classmates on the Falcons’ high school squad.
Problem was, Wagner was in unique company at Connellsville, where she was the only girl on the team.
She became thick-skinned in a hurry.
“They picked on me a lot,” she said of her teammates. “It was rough. In games, though, they would stick up for me. If I got into a fight, they would be there for me. Some of the times they were actually alright.
“For the most part, I just tried to ignore them because I knew I could compete with them.”
Wagner played for Connellsville through the 10th grade, but decided to hone her skills in an all-girls league in Pittsburgh mainly because she wants to take part in the sport in college and didn’t want to risk any further injuries in the full-contact high school league.
She still remembers the game where she was chasing down a loose puck and was hit from behind. The check sent Wagner crashing head first into the boards and kept her out of the lineup for a few weeks.
“I couldn’t move my upper body,” Wagner said. “I was kind of nervous playing in high school because it was full contact, but I tried not to think about it. But when you have to dig the puck out of the corners with your back towards everybody, you still think about it.”
Wagner thinks about hockey year-round. She plays for the Mon Valley Lady Thunder in the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League where the regular season runs from August to February. Then there are tournaments and summer camps.
Recently, Wagner played in the Keystone State games, where girls ice hockey was held for the first time.
Unlike most sports, where college scouts flock to high school games to eye up prospective recruits, girls who play ice hockey don’t’ get as many looks. They often have to take matters into their own hands, taking their games to the scouts.
“My team plays in a lot of tournaments, and we try to pick the ones where scouts will be,” Wagner said. “We’ve already went to a couple in Canada and next year, our league is going to have an All-Star tournament.”
Although she played both offense and defense this past season, Wagner prefers the latter, and is proud of it.
“Defense is just as important,” she said. “We help keep the goals out of our net.”
Wagner, the daughter of Judge John and Chris Wagner, has two older sisters, Diana and Katie, and a younger brother, John. Her dad has been to all of her games, and for the most part, both of her parents have always supported her.
“My parents didn’t want me to continue playing high school hockey because then knew I wanted to play in college, especially after I got hurt,” Wagner said. “They worry sometimes, but they just tell me to be more careful.”
The bumps and bruises, biased attitudes and sleepless weekends sometimes make things rough, but once the puck drops, Wagner knows she was meant to be on the ice.
“A lot of people respect you for what you do,” she said. “And I’m with my team throughout much of the year and I’ve made a lot of good friends because of that.