The Wheeling Lightningbirds women’s hockey team celebrates one of several home wins in a staggeringly successful inaugural season. The team went 12-0, clinching the Summit Cup Championship of the East Coast Women’s Hockey League on March 19.

By NORA EDINGER

For the

Sunday News-Register

WHEELING — The whopper trophy the Wheeling Lightningbirds brought home on March 19 — after winning the East Coast Women’s Hockey League championship in their inaugural season — has been there and done all that in recent weeks.

“On the ice, in the Stanley Cup tradition, you skate around with the cup and drink champagne out of it,” said Emily Goodman Shortall, a center and team spokesperson. Photos of those earliest moments of cup possession show as much bubbly spraying about the locker room as being ingested.

Since then, the Summit Cup has been buckled into car seats, tucked into beds alongside team members’ children, displayed at players’ workplaces and at the downtown branch of team sponsor Main Street Bank, and hauled around to family events such as children’s baseball practices.

The Lightningbirds and One JB Digital Media post photos of such moments like mad — garnering the year-old team’s Facebook page more than 4,000 likes so far. Likes aside, Shortall said the trophy’s busy schedule simply reflects the vibe of a group made up of mostly working mothers whose ages range from 20 to 56.

“It’s great to see our husbands wearing our jerseys, our kids wearing our jerseys,” she said of a built-in fan base that generally lines up to high five the women as they leave the ice. (And, whose younger members tend to giggle when penalties leave their moms in “time out.”)

Will the traveling trophy eventually finish out its year with a longish display at WesBanco Arena, home ice more commonly associated with the Wheeling Nailers, the city’s minor-league affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins?

Shortall sure hopes so, noting that sports is creating a new narrative in terms of women’s place in society. “Wheeling is making history in this area by introducing … the state’s first competitive women’s hockey team,” she said.

PLAY DATES

Spokesperson Shortall and members such as Lightningbirds founder Rachel Adams realize the odds were long for pretty much everything that has happened since 2022.

Shortall had been playing competitive hockey since early childhood — only taking breaks for two pregnancies and after returning to the Ohio Valley about eight years ago and finding no venue in which to continue her sport. But, Adams was game to make a way.

“We were thinking we were going to get six or seven people out on the ice,” Shortall said of the early days. Instead, they rapidly assembled a competitive team that included everyone from hardcore adult players such as Shortall — she lost two teeth to a puck while playing at the club-level in college — to women who hadn’t played since childhood to women who had merely watched their children play the sport.

“For us, winning the cup was the icing on the cake of an incredible experience,” Shortall said. “Most of our team, myself included, are working moms with kids in many extracurricular activities. Weekdays consist of packing lunches, helping with homework and acting as a taxi cab taking kids from activity to activity.”

She likens practices and games to the me-time some women seek at a spa. “I don’t need that sweet-smelling lavender spa mask to feel relaxed,” Shortall said. “I prefer the stench of sweaty hockey gear and the banter in the locker room just before taking the ice to feel at peace.”

SHARED STRENGTH

Shortall noted the team had an original mission to increase regional hockey play for girls and women. Much has been done to that end in a brief time, she said.

In addition to fielding a winning team, the Lightningbirds have brought diverse groups of girls onto the ice — ranging from Girl Scout troops to children who participate in programming at the House of the Carpenter and Laughlin Memorial Chapel. They have also sponsored an inclusive, sled-based skate for children associated with Easter Seals.

Two all-girl hockey leagues are a new option to co-ed teams, thanks to the Lightningbirds. The women are also committed to remaining open to newcomers to the sport. If interest is high enough, Shortall said the group may field more than one team so that players can compete at various skill levels.

“It’s a welcoming environment. We practice at Wheeling Park on Sunday nights,” Shortall noted. In the summer, they play roller hockey at Tunnel Green.

Adding to all of this, an unusual morphing of that awareness and participation mission has arisen recently, Shortall added. The Lightningbirds seem to have become a symbol of female empowerment.

“A local domestic violence help center contacted us about a case where a woman must escape a dangerous situation immediately. She left her home with nothing but the clothes on her back,” Shortall said of a sudden need for strong arms as well as the stuff of daily life.

The teammates loaded up their “mommy minivans” with furniture and housewares and moved the woman into a safe apartment secured by the organization within 24 hours.

“She was still recovering from her injuries when she moved to her new home, so team members took turns cooking her dinner, grocery shopping and whatever else she needed, including some long, heartfelt chats,” she said.

It was a moment for reflection, noted Shortall, who is the wife of a husband with a long hockey history of his own and the mother of two daughters, ages 8 and 9.

“It’s important for women to feel strong and women can empower other women,” Shortall said. “We want the Lightningbirds to be a good example.”