Two 11-year-old girls saved their hockey rink from becoming pickleball courts.
Robert Hills/Dreamstime/TNS
PHILADELPHIA — Natalie Van Druff and Lilly Walter became best friends on the hockey rink.
The 11-year-old girls, who live in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, play dek hockey together — a variation of hockey played in sneakers on a flat, dry surface, typically an outdoor rink.
Dek hockey can help make the game more accessible and affordable for players and more convenient for communities. The Flyers regularly run ball hockey and dek hockey programs over the summer for youth across the region.
Walter plays forward and defense, while Van Druff mostly plays center and wing. They’ve been teammates for two years and regularly play at the New Hanover Community Park hockey dek.
“We built a stronger friendship coming to that dek,” Van Druff said.
But a few months ago, Walter and Van Druff found out that their community’s rink was in jeopardy.
Pickleball invasion
This past October, Kate Van Druff, inspired by her daughter’s love of the sport, came up with the idea of starting a pickup dek hockey group for moms and kids at the New Hanover Community Park. Noticing that the dek only had one net, she reached out to the township to offer a second net as a donation, only to be told the town actually was planning to turn the rink into pickleball courts.
It’s not an uncommon story, as pickleball has swept the nation over the past few years. Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the country, with USA Pickleball estimating that the construction of more than 25,000 new courts will be needed in the coming years to keep up with the demand.
USA Pickleball also says the average age for a pickleball player is 38 years old. For the kids who regularly use the New Hanover hockey dek, the planned construction would eliminate a local, free place to play outdoor pickup hockey. Unlike other, farther rinks, the community park doesn’t charge entrance fees.
It isn’t like there’s a lack of pickleball courts nearby — Boyertown Community Park, a 10-minute drive from New Hanover, has three courts.
“This dek can be here for many generations, for kids that want to learn how to play hockey, that have it near them,” Walter said. “And they can learn how to play, make friends, learn how to win and lose. This dek can be around for 50 years if people keep taking good care of it.”
Coincidentally, the first pickup game Kate’s group scheduled turned out to be on the same day that the township was set to meet on the pickleball issue. After the game, Natalie Van Druff and Walter, along with other players and parents, headed to the meeting — still wearing their hockey gear — to speak to the recreation committee.
“I was really happy that so many people cared as much as we did about the rink,” Natalie said.
Their advocacy, plus a petition that racked up more than 900 signatures, helped sway the committee. Kate and Natalie received a letter in the mail from the township manager Jamie Gwynn, saying the dek would stay.
