The $2,700 grant that went to establish a beginner ice hockey program for Baltimore children at Patterson Park’s Mimi Dome in 1999 might have been, dollar for dollar, the most fruitful philanthropic investment the Abell Foundation ever made.
Hundreds of kids, many from some of the poorest households in the city, have learned to skate and play hockey through the program over the past 26 years.
The Patterson Park Stars are still skating under the dome each winter Sunday morning at 9:30. This year, some 80 children are registered for the program and each week between 40 and 50 of them show up for skating lessons and hockey skills training. Mallory Richards, a longtime skating instructor and hockey mom, is now in her 20th year as director of the Patterson Park Stars.
Wait! There’s more.
Add to that another 55 teenagers and young adults who skate as the Baltimore Banners. That’s a separate but kindred hockey program that volunteers established several years ago to give underprivileged teens who aged out of the Patterson Park Stars a place to play.
In all, that’s a lot of urban hockey from a seed planted in 1999 with a modest grant from Abell and contributions from a few other donors.
It was two hockey dads, Ed Donnellan and Dave Antol, who worked with Bob Wall, manager of the seasonal rink at the time, to get the Patterson Park Stars started.
Both Donnellan and Antol were associated with the Baltimore Youth Hockey Club — Antol was president at the time — and both knew that hockey was primarily played by children from families, mainly white and suburban, that could afford the annual fees plus equipment plus the costs of travel.
Donnellan and Antol wanted to do something for city kids whose families could not afford to place them on one of the full-season BYH teams, known as the Baltimore Stars. Once they raised enough money for ice time and collected enough hand-me-down and donated equipment, the Patterson Stars were born. Donnellan, Antol and a few volunteers got the kids suited up and on the ice.
As the years went by, more and more kids started to show up to play hockey under the dome, built by the city in 1968, rebuilt after a winter storm took it down in 1996, and named after the late City Councilman, Dominic “Mimi” DiPietro.
A man named Noel Acton started bringing several kids to the Sunday clinics. In 2003, Acton had established a nonprofit, the Tender Bridge, that provided mentorship and enriching activities for dozens of at-risk boys from profoundly poor households.
The Tender Bridge mission is “to guide marginalized youth in high-violence areas of East Baltimore on the path to become productive citizens. While sports are the hook that keep our often difficult-to-engage kids involved, building trusted relationships with their coach-mentors produces profound growth on their journey to adulthood.”
Week after winter week, year after year, Acton got the boys to the rink to play hockey. The sport was foreign to them, but they jumped right in. “These boys are fearless,” Acton said. “They just skate hard and don’t care if they fall down. They fall down, they get up again.”
Some of them loved it, some of them dropped off and never came back.
Too many of them — Acton gave the number as 47 in an interview with The Baltimore Sun in 2022 — were killed, victims of violence.
But Acton, the Tender Bridge and volunteer coaches remained a force for good through the years.
Two members of the Baltimore Banners pause to remember one of their teammates lost to violence. Credit: Zach Osborne 
Baltimore Banners, in dark uniforms, and Charm City Crush players set up for a face off. Credit: Dan Rodricks 
Banners players and a Crush player chase after a rolling puck. Credit: Madison Short 
Banners and Crush battled to a 3-3 tie in a fundraiser game at the Patterson Park rink that went to a tiebreaker shootout. Banners won, 4-3. Credit: Zach Osborne 
A quintet from Charm City Sings performed the National Anthem during pre-game ceremonies. Credit: Madison Short A game official prepares to drop the puck for a faceoff between the Banners and Crush. Credit: Madison Short
When the first cohort of Patterson Park Stars grew out of their skates, they transitioned into a free program for teenagers called Hockey In The Hood, with Mark Conner leading the volunteer coaches. Ten years later, the players voted to rename their team the Baltimore Banners.
In 2022, the National Hockey League honored Acton for his efforts as the league’s “community hero” of the year and awarded his charity $25,000. But the cost of the program — ice time, equipment, travel and meal costs — now puts the annual budget for hockey at about $60,000, and around $160,000 in total for Tender Bridge’s year-round activities.
The Banners have 55 players of various ages, says Jack Burton, an accomplished collegiate hockey player who serves as executive director, and almost all of them started as children in the Patterson Park Stars program.
There’s an adult team and a team for teens, and the Banners travel around the state and the Mid-Atlantic to play games.
Having once been up to my eyeballs in Baltimore youth hockey, I can say from experience that sustaining interest and support for this sport was always a challenge. Anyone who donated money or volunteered time to the Patterson Park Stars, Hockey In The Hood or the Baltimore Banners should be pleased to know that hockey with a social mission continues under the Mimi Dome. It appears to be thriving.
And the focus, particularly for the Banners, is still on the most vulnerable children and young adults in the city.
Several of them have been homeless, Burton says. Some do not get enough food or money and reach out at night for help finding a meal. Some do not have adequate clothing for the winter. “We’ve got [players] who are in their teens and 20s that are struggling to read,” Burton says. “And so we try to help them with whatever it is that could change the trajectory of their lives because that’s what’s really important about the program and why it exists.”
Last Sunday morning, the Patterson Park Stars had their usual time slot, with Richards on the ice and Mary Carol Celesky, her co-director, managing equipment and helping kids dress in the rink lobby.
The Stars session was followed, at 11 am, with a game between the Baltimore Banners and the Charm City Crush women’s team. It was the Banners’ annual fundraiser, with a big crowd, merch for both teams on sale in the lobby, the teams formally introduced over the PA, a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem by a quintet from Charm City Sings, a ceremonial puck drop, and then, best of all, a highly entertaining game.
The Banners got out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Crush came back. The third period ended with the score tied 3-3. After a five-minute overtime period, the tie remained, so officials called for a shootout tie-breaker. That took a while, but ended with the Banners scoring the winning goal and raising the trophy.
Afterwards, there was a big, smiling photo opp, with both teams meeting at center ice for a group shot. That was followed by a key part of the Banners program at the Mimi Dome — warm pizza in the lobby.
