Sylvia Wasylyk Was A True Pioneer Of The Women's Game In America's Mid-Atlantic Region

The Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League is the longest continually operating loop in the United States, founded in 1975. In the inaugural 1975-1976 season the league featured three teams, the Delaware Bobcats, Boulevard Hookers (now the Philadelphia Freeze), University of Pennsylvania club team. That first season, the league was known as the Delaware Valley Women's Hockey League, but things would soon change.

Delaware won the first two titles in the league. Sylvia Wasylyk was the founder of the Bobcats and of the league. It was a first for Wasylyk in playing women's hockey, as she'd played for the University of Delaware Hens men's team as a goalie for two seasons before founding the Bobcats. That included winning the 1976 Delaware Valley Collegiate Hockey League title with the men's team. Wasylyk also played men's hockey for the Russell Flames in the New Castle County Recreation Ice Hockey League, and other men's teams in the area.

"Men's leagues were kind of desperate for goalies," she recalled of playing men's hockey in an October 2, 1979 interview with Beth Miller of The News Journal. "I stopped the puck and that's what they needed, so they didn't mind....Guys would shoot for my head. They figured if I can't take it I shouldn't be there, so I took it."

"When the other teams first find out I'm a girl, it was really funny to them," she said of playing in the men's league. Then they say, 'we'll show her'. It darn sure inspires me, too. I want to show them I can play with them. I've spent my whole life meeting challenges."

"But Sylvia Wasylyk is a girl, for Heaven's sake!" wrote Ray Fincchiaro, for The News Journal on March 22, 1974. "Girls aren't supposed to be goalies. When was the last time Nancy Drew cracked some nefarious scheme in an ice hockey rink? Do the Girl Scouts give out merit badges for blocking flying pucks? Okay, so Sylvia Wasylyk isn't a Nancy Drew fan and the Girl Scouts don't turn her on. Ice hockey does."

While many were positive about Wasylyk's barrier breaking play, others questioned it. As Chuck Lewis wrote on February 15, 1975 about Wasylyk's participation in men's hockey, "It seems women's liberation has pervaded what many men regard as the center of masculinity."

Some of the men on the ice made it known as well.

"Some people think I'm a hot dog -- one team even calls me that," she said in 1975. "I get a lot of remarks, relentless ribbing. For a lot of the guys, it would probably kill them to give me a compliment. I guess if they didn't kid me though, I would think something was wrong."

It was while studying physical education at the University of Delaware that Wasylyk discovered hockey, taking a class on the sport. While she was often a goaltender, Wasylyk also played forward leading the Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League in scoring during the inaugural season recording 21 goals and 26 points.

As Rod Beaton wrote for Wilmington, Delaware's The Morning News on November 2, 1978, "Players like Sylvia Wasylyk and Louie Strano and their colleagues on the Delaware Bobcats ice hockey team have proven that the rugged, often violent world of hockey is not exclusively male domain."

For Wasylyk, the opportunity to play more regularly was a crucial aspect of her life, and in launching new opportunities for women.

"It's indescribable how I feel about hockey," Wasylyk told The Morning News. "I just can't get enough. For other girls it's fun. For me, it's my life."

Many of the women who joined the Delaware Bobcats had become Philadelphia Flyers' fans after the team won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975. The team which started with figure skates and street hockey sticks rapidly rose, and drew women from all corners of life into the game.

"We always played street hockey and followed the Flyers, but there was never a women's team," said BC (Karen) Biesinger of life before she saw a poster Wasylyk had posted at her high school.

While the Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League rapidly expanded reaching nine teams by the 1977-1978 season, including the Philadelphia Ice-Centennials, Pittsburgh Pennies, Bergen Blades, and Ironbound Bandits, it was the founding Delaware Bobcats who remained a top team in the league's foundational years. The league was soon joined by the Washington Redcoats, and Long Island's Green Machine Eagles. Louie Strano, described by Wasylyk as "a playmaker, but also the top goal-getter on her line," was another important member of the Bobcats, as she served as the president of the then nine team Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League. Her husband Al was coach of the Bobcats.

Wasylyk left the Delaware Bobcats for two seasons between 1976 and 1978 to play for the Massport Jets in Boston. Like women for decades before, she was training with a group of women who believed women's hockey would be on the docket at the Olympic Games, specifically for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

"We were training for women's hockey for the Olympics in 1980," she said. "We were sure they (the International Olympic Committee) would vote it in, but they didn't. I can't understand it, they (the Olympics) have women's bobsledding, skiing and so on. Slowly but surely, things are improving. I might waste my whole life trying for the Olympics. I'll probably retire the year they go with it."

As the decade came to a close, Delaware was at their peak. The team won three straight championships from 1979-1980 to 1981-1982, with Lynn Gathercole leading the league in scoring twice, and BC Biesinger once in that stretch. The team earned their way to the national championship tournament, which had only been running for women since 1978. In 1981 the Bobcats were national runners up beating the Detroit Miniwings in the semi-finals 4-3 before falling to the Cape Cod Aces 4-0 in the final.

Sylvia Wasylyk continued playing with the Delaware Bobcats for more than 25 years, well into her 40s. In fact she served as player/coach for the Bobcats in 1999-2000 when the team again won a Mid-Atlantic Women's Hockey League title.

A long time firefighter, Wasylyk's contributions to the growth and sustainability of women's hockey across Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania is unquestioned. Wasylyk passed away in 2014.

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