Q & A with Mel[issa] Clark 
 

1. How/when did you start playing ball hockey as you played for the Capitals at Barcroft for a long time?  Any ice/roller/field hockey background? 

I started playing ball hockey at Barcroft in 2012. Will had already been playing on the Capitals for a season or two and they needed female players and so they asked if I wanted to give it a shot. I had no experience with ice, roller, or ball hockey, but played field hockey in high school. Given my love for competition and sports in general, I figured “why not”. I was quickly hooked and stopped playing co-ed soccer to spend more time playing ball hockey.  

2. What brought you to DCSH? What league did you start in and how were your first games? 

After playing at Barcroft and some travel tournaments, I was interested in playing on a larger rink with better competition so I inquired about Sunday D2. Will and I both joined Top Shelf in Spring 2017. I ended up scoring my first game and the team was rightfully surprised by which Clark scored first; though I’m pretty sure I didn’t score again the rest of that season. 

3. When did you start playing on the Stanley Cupcakes travel team? How many tourneys have you played with them? 

Beach Bash 2014 was my first travel tournament with Cupcakes. During the first pre-game talk Bitler rolled in super hyped (maybe still enjoying the vibes of the previous nights festivities) and I remember thinking “what did I sign myself up for?” – Now 6 years later and those teammates have become some of my best friends. Since then I’ve played every Beach Bash, Holiday Bash, and North Americans tournament with the Cupcakes… so I’ve lost count on the total. 

4. Your game is strong at both D and C. Do you prefer one over the other? Is it different answer for D2, Coed, Womens? 

Yes, in Women’s I prefer playing C, but on Coed I’d much rather be on D. I’m generally stronger at D, but love the opportunity to create offensive plays when I play C with Cupcakes. 

5. How can the Stingrays win another D2 Cup this season? 

Playing every game like we played our D1 playoff game against Gladiators. Everyone was hustling, in the right spot at the right time, and playing as a team. We need to repeat that game x10. 

6. Top DCSH memory/moment(s)? 

Top moment was when the Cupcakes won the Women’s A division at Holiday Bash. There have been great moments locally as well (see above), but still chasing the feeling that comes with a victory that many of us worked hard for.

7. Favorite thing(s) about playing tourneys? 

My favorite part of tournaments on the rink is the competition; the intensity level is kicked up a notch compared to local play. Off the rink at tournaments there is a great opportunity to get to know other DCSH players and have fun; particularly when the tournaments are in locations other than lovely Feasterville, PA. Some of my best memories from tournaments are off the rink such as party buses in Vegas, riding scooters around Austin, and winning a highly contested Nashville tourney.    

8. What will it take for the Stanley Cupcakes to win the A pool at North Americans next year? 

It’s always a challenge to win in Women’s, but that’s particularly true for North Americans which draws top talent. Continuing to build skills at Saturday practices and in game situations has definitely improved the Cupcakes game over the years as well as recruiting fresh talent. We’ll have to keep our foot on the gas to remain in contention.

9. Thoughts on the growth of women's ball hockey in the DMV? 

It has been awesome to be a part of the growth in women’s ball hockey in our area over the last decade. So much credit is owed to the various coaches who have dedicated countless hours to recruiting, running practices, coaching games and tournaments, and the thousands of emails behind the scenes. I hope the growth continues in the years to come - Here’s a shameless plug for any athletic female friends/significant others who are interested in joining women’s ball hockey!  

10. Any Cupcakes/First Ladies rivalry? 

Not to my knowledge – both teams are very supportive of each other at tournaments (assuming we’re not playing one another). 

11. Favorite DCSH player (or 2) to play with? Against? 

Favorite to play with: 

Bitler – Bit is typically a wing when I play C for Cupcakes and we’ve built good chemistry over the years.

Tyler – Playing as a D pair with Ty on Stars & Stripes is always amazing given his reliability and how well he communicates and controls play.

Against: 

Kate – As one of the toughest Cupcakes out there K8 is quite difficult to defend; she battles hard on every play which makes those games a gauntlet.

Miccile – Is also challenging to defend because of his tenacious playstyle. He constantly forechecks and never stops running which makes defending him a pain in the ass.

12. How have you been staying in shape during this long layoff from hockey? Practicing/playing at all during the break? 

The lack of hockey was tough because it meant I had to mentally motivate myself to do a lot more running and strength training at home. Thanks to some friendly motivation, I developed a tailored version of the “Murph” workout and participated in the Cupcake daily workout challenge. 

We’ve also played a bit during the quarantine; went to an empty rink in Myrtle Beach, visited the Missile Silo practice facility, and recently started playing pickup. Definitely looking forward to returning to Seminary!  

13. Do you play any other sports besides ball hockey? 

I love to play almost every sport – golf, snowboarding, soccer, mountain biking, etc. but ball hockey is definitely #1. The competition and community built around DCSH is something that just doesn’t compare to other adult sports.

How did Hitmen come about as team? DCSH team? 

Let me take you back in time. Way, way, back to the 20th century, pre-Y2K, or whatever the history buffs are calling that era.

The Hitmen founders who consisted of Troy Kreiser, Drew Reilly, and Pat Malley were sitting around Troy’s house listening to Prince’s newest hit song, Party like its 1999, and talking about something athletic-like they could do as a group.

It just so happened that Troy had a flyer (a printed version of an email usually delivered by regular mail or posted on a bulletin board (old school social media, a physical board on a wall…man I should stop, this rabbit hole could just keep going)) about a local deck hockey league. They called over Troy’s neighbour Chuck Duzenski who, being from Chicago, was well versed in all things hockey, and the Hitmen brain trust was formed. Drew signed a number of hockey enthusiasts from his work at Ventera and the Hitmen were born. 

The team started playing in a number of leagues prior to DCSH, getting its start in some elementary school league nobody could remember the name of, and then moving on to other leagues like the Square Deal hockey league in Woodbridge run by George McCray, and the Bill Goldman run leagues at the JCC and Edsall Road Sportsplex.

It was in those early leagues that the Hitmen GM, Chuck, went about refining the team by recruiting a number of players. Some were newbies to those leagues, like me, and others were players we developed great respect and camaraderie with by playing against. 

The Hitmen then joined the DCSH's Seminary league in the fall of 2001.

Was there another team(s) name before the current name? 

The team has always been known as the Hitmen at Seminary but the inaugural version of the team, back at that unknown elementary school, was known as The Big Swinging Sticks! After the merge with the Ventera folk, a new team name was explored. The Beltway Brawlers was a team name that was briefly considered, but Troy settled on the Hitmen and I think we can all agree that the right choice was made.  

Any original team members left? 

Pat Malley is the longest serving member of the Hitmen from the team’s inception through to the current season. Edwin Lee and I are original members from before the very first season at Seminary. Rich Ross began his tenure prior to the Seminary league as well but has moved out and then back to the area a couple times. He is currently out of the area but I am not ruling out a return!

How many captains has there been? What years did these turnover?

For the team’s life at Seminary I have been the only captain. Chuck was the initial captain from the teams origin, turning over the captain’s mantle to me when we joined this league.

Best all time player for your teams? Could do an all time team or even a 2nd team as well so one for each position and a 2nd set if you guys choose. 

Narrowing things down to a best all time player is a tough one because there have been so many great players to don the red, white, and black of the Hitmen over our 19 years of existence in this league. 

The player who comes to most people’s minds is Felice D’Agnillo. He is a pure goal scorer and our offence has run through him for many years. He has consistently had one of the hardest (and accurate) shots in the league and in my opinion, is the best player at getting away his hard shot on the run. He is also the only Hitman that we have ever had a set play run for and a great person and teammate to boot!

As for an all-time team, I would have to break that up in to three different eras to do everyone justice.

The Early years: this group includes the original team members up to about the first five years when the team started to turn over…

LW - Dave Shegogue: had some of the best hands I have ever seen and our offence used to run through him pre-Felice!

C - Edwin Lee: Yeah that’s right, Edwin started as a center. If you think it’s annoying to play against him when he is on D imagine what it was like when he was at both ends of the rink and 15 years younger.

RW - Eric Page/ Eddie Desabetino: These two guys never crossed paths with Page only lasting the first few seasons in the league but both had a very similar style. Impossible to stop coming off the wall and driving to the net and if they got the ball in front, it usually ended up in the back of the net.

LD - Tom Houston: Yup, I started out on D in this league. I even had speed once upon a time!

RD - Sebastian Byers: Nobody screened the goalie when Sebastian was out there and his big shot made him dangerous at both ends of the rink. We even used him on the PP to screen their goalie, way ahead of those Chara experiments in the NHL!

G - Dave Zavitz: The Hitmen’s first goalie who patterned his style after Denis Lemieux and guided us to our first championship.

Mid Range years: From 2007-ish to 2017-ish the team has been made up of relatively the same guys…

LW - Ryan Contreras: The catalyst on the Hitmen. His speed and tenacity made things happen every shift he was out there.

C - Tom Houston: Made the move to center so I could work on my face-off skills.

RW - Felice D’Agnillo: As mentioned above, the main offensive threat on the Hitmen. Just get that guy the ball.

LD - Todd Wozny: A rock on defence and shot blocker extraordinaire. This is a man who perfected the lob so well the league had a rule to outlaw it for many years.

RD - Edwin Lee: Took his game to the defensive zone and has used his speed and knack for being in the right place to run the breakout for many seasons.

G - Josh Brush: The longest serving Hitmen goalie and author of our most recent championship.

The Future: it looks very bright with some of the new players on the Hitmen right now.

LW - Dave Leadston: Has this guy found the fountain of youth! Extremely hard to get the ball off him and he has one fantastic shot. The last full season he played was the recent Wednesday league and he set the record for goals and points in a season!

C - Eddie McDonough: The sample size is small but have you seen this guy play? A rare mix of skill, speed, big shot, and advanced hockey sense. Looking forward to seeing what he can do when the league gets back up and running.

RW - Kevin Altmann: Another newbie to the team with great hands, a great shot, and knows where to be. Can’t wait to see what this trio can do for the Hitmen!

LD - Grant Dressler: This young man has speed to burn and a ton of raw skill. As he continues to hone his craft on D his ceiling is sky high!

RD - Edwin Lee: The man just doesn’t age. Dependable as ever back there.

How many Cups does your team have? When was the last one? 

The Hitmen have won a total of 4 championships. The first came in our second season in the league, way back in the spring of 2002, so long ago that commemorative t-shirts weren’t yet a thing! 

Our most “recent” championship was won in the Spring 2012 season so that puts us in the lead for the longest D1 cup drought. We have certainly had more than our fair share of heart-breaking losses and unofficially lead the league in playoff OT losses.

4 CUPS = SPRING '02, FALL '06, SPRING '07 and FALL '10 

3 Finals appearances = SPRING '05, SPRING '10 and SPRING '11 

Odd of winning D1 Cup this season and what needs to happen? 

Odds of winning are 50-50, or so statisticians would tell you. The games need to be played and one thing we have learned is that anything can happen so long as you make the playoffs! We do need to be at the top of our game to win this league since the competition has become much stronger over the past few years and will be leaning on our new Hitmen to get us there.

Are your respective teams staying in contact during this unfortunate break from hockey? if so, how? emails, videos. GIF's, Virtual happy hours, etc?

The Hitmen have pretty much been spending time with their respective families so not a lot of contact with one another during this break. We did get the old school Hitmen together for a Zoom call to talk about the good old days and gather info for this write-up and it was fantastic to see some faces I haven’t seen in like 10-12 years. Looking forward to getting back out to the rink to see everyone again.

Memories/Highlights

Our first game in this league was against the Phantoms in 2001. Pat Malley scored on his first shot on his first shift of his first game in the league. Well, I can’t remember exactly if it was his first shift but he is a quality over quantity shooter and it sounds like a Pittsburgh guys debut. It gave us a 1-0 lead then we settled down after that to close out the game 1-0. And a rivalry was born!

Our first finals game was against the Flights in 2002. Another Hitmen founder, Drew Reilly, provided the big moment with a booming point shot past their goalie (Brian Dyke perhaps!) to give us a 1-0 lead. An empty net goal in the third sealed the deal and the Hitmen celebrated their first championship in their second season.

We have certainly had our share of characters on the team. From the short stints of Jamie Cooke and Sid at the tail end of their distinguished careers to the flashy Czech with the bright pink gloves named Jiri who’s goal celebration consisted of him running in a circle around the opposing goalie bobbing his head  with a grin. We also had Dave McBride, the pride of South Jersey, for a couple seasons. That dude could play!

Our shortest stint belonged to the only player to ever be cut from the Hitmen at Seminary. I can’t remember his name but Jamie referred him to me saying he was a travel team guy who was new to the area. His first and only game was against the Haze. The guy certainly had skill but managed to get in to arguments with half their team, which I guess when you look at it isn’t all that surprising, but it included Hank who never said a word during game play. He took three slashing penalties before the end of the second period and his Hitmen career was over. Fish came to me after the game asking where we got this guy and that he was not a Hitmen calibre player. I certainly agreed, had to tell him that he was done with the Hitmen, and never saw or heard from him again.

There were a few games that illustrated the never say die attitude of this team over the years. One that stands out was a regular season game against the Haze. We always had low scoring tightly played games against them but in one game, they got away from us going up 4-1 early on. We managed to score five in the third from five different players, capped off by the winner from Felice to take the game 6-5 and provoke an unhappy response from at least one of them.

Perhaps my favorite game memory was a finals game against the Phantoms. We only had seven players show up and the odds were stacked against us to win. Ryan Contreras put the team on his back and scored a hat trick, the third being on a penalty shot and then high fiving his kids who were watching from the sideboards. Coupled with stifling defense that game the Hitmen pulled off a 4-0 win for the championship. Don’t worry Phantoms fans, they had our number many more times over the years.

 We have definitely had a lot of great memories on and off the rink as a team, too numerous to share.

It has been a pleasure to play with everyone who has been a part of the Hitmen over these many years and the camaraderie is a big part of what keeps the core group coming back to play season after season.

The competitiveness and skill level of so many of the people in this league is what makes it such a great league to play in. While we enjoy it more when we win, it’s still fun coming out and playing in a great game regardless of the result. Can’t wait to get back out there.

Team pic from 2003 or so. 

Notes: All answers from captain Tom Houston