Media Credit: Brandon Moyse The Utah Edge's Shannon White celebrates in West Chester, Pa., after her team scores a goal. The Edge overcame age diversity within their own team - and a two-goal deficit - to bring home the C Division title. [Click to enlarge]

WEST CHESTER, Pa.

A few inches shorter than most of the other players on the ice, but just a little bit sprier, No. 4 seemed to hold the hockey team together.

The Utah Edge defenseman was putting on a bit of a show for the sparse crowd that formed at West Chester's Ice Line rink complex, but something about her was a little unusual.

No, the fact that No. 4 is a woman didn't distinguish Beth McNichol this weekend, as Ice Line was playing host to USA Hockey's Women's National Championships.

What makes McNichol unusual is that she's 44 years old.

"I played when I was eight, my brother broke his leg, [I] took his spot over, and stuck to it," she said.

While she is a ski racer by trade (she raced at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, according to her coach, Jayson Lewandowski), McNichol came down from the mountain for good and traded in her boots for a pair of skates and a frozen pond.

On a team with players ranging from 20 to 44 years old, she's become a big part of a unique dynamic on the ice.

"We look up to the older ladies, and they love our youth and spirit," said 25-year old Jodi Moore. "We kind of keep them young, and they kind of keep us mature."

While it would be convenient to paint McNichol as a seasoned veteran who has been hardened by her years as an athlete, her ear-to-ear grin won't let you do that.

"I think I have an outlook on life that's pretty cheery," she said. "Maybe they look to me for more smiles."

McNichol was the leading goal-scorer for the Edge, a recreation league team that won the Senior Women's C Division on Sunday. While the Senior A and B divisions have players that played in college and, in some cases, the Olympics, most C Division players have probably never played hockey beyond a recreational level.

But the contest of the weekend may have been the semifinal between the Edge and Mission of Michigan.

Despite coming out flat in the first period, the Edge rallied from a two-goal deficit to win in triple-overtime, 3-2.

"I've never been so nervous in my whole life," Lewandowski was overheard saying after the game. "I wanted to throw up in the bucket next to the bench. I burped and a little bit of throw-up came out."

But in the end, he would taste victory - not vomit - as the Edge trumped the Tampa Bay Elite in the final.

After a disappointing showing last year, barely making the quarterfinals, the Edge made sure to come to Philly - the annual site of the Nationals - ready this time.

The team practices only a couple times per week, and because of a lack of high-level women's competition, often has to find men's teams to practice against.

And because the Edge is made up of players plucked from different area teams, the locker room atmosphere may have been a bit more high-strung than your typical rec team.

"We had to put past some old rivalries and learn how to be a team," Moore said. "We all kind of decided we like playing with each other rather than against each other."

It's that kind of unity that makes Lewandowski think that the Edge, more often than not, transcend the age issue.

"We've got college students and single mothers and whatever, but the camaraderie is amazing," he said. "The age goes away when you get on the ice. They're like a bunch of 25-year-olds playing hockey together."

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