In 1951, Bonnie Shea was the only girl in Duluth, Minnesota playing organized hockey. But when she got to high school, she couldn’t play on the boys’ team. Now, at age 81, Shea is still competing.
DON GONYEA, HOST:
U.S. ice hockey fans are still reveling in the American gold medal wins at this year’s Winter Olympics for both the men’s and women’s teams. One Minnesota senior wonders if she might have joined the women’s team had she been born many years later. Minnesota Public Radio’s Dan Kraker has this profile of Bonnie Shea.
(CROSSTALK)
DAN KRAKER, BYLINE: It’s about an hour before game time, and Bonnie Shea has just suited up.
BONNIE SHEA: My jersey number’s 44 because I was born in 1944.
KRAKER: And the 81-year-old is still playing hockey.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE)
KRAKER: She’s three times the age of some of the other players in the Women’s Hockey Association of Minnesota.
SHEA: I’m a center. So when I face off and I look at these little – I think, honey, you know what? I’m grandma to you. You know (laughter)?
(SOUNDBITE OF HOCKEY GAME)
KRAKER: Ever since she can remember, Bonnie Shea has loved to play hockey. She joined her neighborhood team when she was 7.
SHEA: And we’d happened to live in a neighborhood where there weren’t any girls, so my best friends were boys. And that’s what they did.
I have lots of folders in here.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAPERS RUSTLING)
KRAKER: Shea rummages through a box of keepsakes. She pulls out a black-and-white photo of her neighborhood team from the early ’50s.
SHEA: See, I got Levis on. Those are my dad’s hockey gloves.
KRAKER: Her parents did not want her to play. She eventually got a paper route to buy her own gear.
SHEA: I was determined. I still am (laughter).
KRAKER: When Shea first started playing, she was the only girl.
SHEA: I wore a stocking cap so that no team knew I was a girl. Until I started scoring a lot, and my name was in the paper.
KRAKER: So you were good.
SHEA: I guess so. Yes, I was. Yep. I hate to brag, but I was. I was the top scorer, and I had lots of articles written.
KRAKER: That’s when other teams started targeting her. They called her names, tried to check her.
SHEA: I can just remember they’d try to board me, and I’d make a quick turn and they’d go crashing into the boards or something. And, you know, it was just kind of funny, but it just made me skate harder and play smarter.
KRAKER: When Shea got to high school, the hockey coach invited her to try out for the team.
SHEA: Oh, I was so excited. But I went the next day, and he said, oh, our principal said absolutely no girls playing on our hockey team. So my career ended at 15.
KRAKER: This was decades before the U.S. won the first Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey in 1998. Shea graduated in 1962 and went to the University of Minnesota Duluth. She became an elementary school teacher, had kids. Then, when she was 40, she joined a new women’s club hockey team, and she hasn’t stopped playing since.
SHEA: My friends say, ugh, how can you do this? And I don’t know how I can do it, but I just want to.
KRAKER: She’s never seen herself as a trailblazer, but she’s amazed at the growth of women’s hockey. And she’s proud of her granddaughters, who, unlike her, were able to play in high school.
SHEA: You know, I’m happy for them. But on the other hand, I’m very sad that I didn’t have that opportunity.
KRAKER: She can’t help but wonder – what if she had?
SHEA: What if? I mean, maybe I would never have gone far, but I didn’t have the opportunity. So that’s the way it is.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You got it. You got it. You got it. Go, go, go.
KRAKER: Shea plays more tentatively now, doesn’t skate as fast. Her main goal, she says, is to not get hurt.
SHEA: But I don’t want to not play hard either because then I shouldn’t play. It’s a little frightening because it’s gotten so aggressive. But, you know, if I fall, I fall. I mean, that’s just the way it’s going to be.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)
KRAKER: The buzzer sounds on her latest season, but she’s already looking forward to next year.
SHEA: When people say – how long are you going to play? – I’ll say, till I can’t.
KRAKER: Shea’s had the game she loves taken away from her once before. She’s not about to let it happen again.
For NPR News, I’m Dan Kraker in Duluth.
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