• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About Us
  • Videos
    • Featured Video
    • Foodie Friday
    • Monthly ReCap
  • Online E-Editions
    • This Week’s E-Editions
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
  • Social Media
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
  • Advertising
  • Local Jobs
  • Puzzles & Games
  • Circulation Request

The Laker/Lutz News

  • Home
  • News
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills/East Pasco
    • Business Digest
    • Senior Parks
    • Nature Notes
    • Featured Stories
    • Photos of the Week
    • Reasons To Smile
  • Sports
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills and East Pasco
    • Check This Out
  • Education
  • Pets/Wildlife
  • Health
    • Health Events
    • Health News
  • What’s Happening
  • Sponsored Content
    • Closer Look
  • Homes
  • Obits
  • Public Notices

USA Hockey

New year in sports offers plenty to enjoy, experience

January 8, 2020 By Kevin Weiss

As we embark on a new year, the sports world within The Laker/Lutz News coverage area promises to deliver plenty to watch and experience.

Here is a sampling of what’s ahead in 2020:

Sports and recreation in East Pasco
The year 2020 may become widely known as ‘the year’ of new sports and recreational facilities in East Pasco. Three significant sporting venues are expected to open: The Sarah Vande Berg Tennis & Wellness Center, in Zephyrhills; the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex, in Wesley Chapel; and Snowcat Ridge, in Dade City.

Each offers its own unique twist.

  • The Zephyrhills tennis center will offer 11 USTA-quality tennis courts, eight pickleball courts and four padel courts, plus an indoor fitness and rehabilitation center.
  • The 100,000-square-foot Wiregrass Ranch Sports Complex figures to be a national draw for basketball, volleyball and cheerleading events, and competitions.
  • Snowcat Ridge — being marketed as Florida’s first snow park — features a 60-foot-tall and 400-foot-long real snow-covered tubing hill with a magic carpet lift, an Alpine Village, and a 10,000-square-foot snow dome.

Major sporting events coming to Pasco, Tampa Bay
Pasco County and the Tampa Bay region, as a whole, are poised to host some major sporting events in the new year.

Among the most notable in Pasco: Skydive City in Zephyrhills will host the 2020 USPA (United States Parachute Association) National Parachuting and Skydiving Championships, from Oct. 30 through Nov. 24. While the event doesn’t begin until the fall, competitors will actually be training in Zephyrhills all summer long.

Zephyrhills’ Skydive City will host the 2020 National Parachuting and Skydiving Championships in the fall. (File)

Before that, Skydive City also will host the first annual Pasco Sports Fair on Feb. 16. The free, family friendly event will feature a meet-and-greet with renowned professional athletes, plus an introduction to various sport and game offerings in Zephyrhills and Pasco County, including tennis, soccer, football, basketball, skating, skydiving, boxing, mini-golf and more. Some noted pros scheduled to be in attendance include former English Premier forward Gary Blissett, former NFL defensive end Melvin Williams, former NBA shooting guard/small forward Anthony Parker, and former Tampa Bay Rowdies head coach Stuart Campbell.

Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice will be the venue for a slew of prominent events, including the Sunshine State Figure Skating Games (May 15 to May 17), USA Hockey Adult National Championships (April 19 to April 26), and Torhs2Hot4Ice roller derby national championships (June 28 to July 9), among others.

Meantime, Pasco and north Hillsborough residents may find some interest in these big draw events throughout the Tampa Bay region:

  • 2020 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament first and second rounds on March 19 and March 21, at Amalie Arena, Tampa
  • PGA Tour Valspar Golf Championship, March 19 to March 22, at Innisbrook Resort, Palm Harbor
  • WWE Wrestlemania 36 on April 5, at Raymond James Stadium, Tampa

Saint Leo’s new sport
Saint Leo University’s new acrobatic & tumbling program will begin its inaugural season in February, which will include seven regular season matchups and three home meets.

Acrobatics & Tumbling, a discipline of USA Gymnastics, is the evolution of different forms of gymnastics and involves tumbling, tosses, and acrobatic lifts and pyramids. Teams participate in head-to-head competition and are scored in six events, including Compulsory, Acro, Pyramid, Toss, Tumbling, and Team.

Acrobatics & tumbling marks the 21st intercollegiate sport offered at Saint Leo and the school’s 12th offering in women’s sports.

The athletics department last added women’s beach volleyball to its sports offerings in 2017.

The acrobatics & tumbling team’s 18-member roster includes five athletes from The Laker/Lutz News coverage area, with the remainder representing other areas of Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina. The team is coached by Allie Williams and Joely Smith.

The Pasco-Hernando State College men’s baseball team is coming off a third-place finish at the 2019 National Junior College Athletic Association Division II College World Series. (Courtesy of Pasco-Hernando State College athletics)

These teams look to repeat success
The 2019 season — and last several years, for that matter — yielded banner campaigns for many prep and college teams in our coverage area. Here are some programs that may be worth watching to see if they maintain or build off past successes:

  • Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High varsity volleyball
  • Gaither High varsity football
  • Land O’ Lakes varsity girls soccer
  • Pasco-Hernando State College men’s baseball
  • Steinbrenner High varsity football
  • Steinbrenner High varsity boys cross-country
  • Saint Leo University men’s golf
  • Sunlake High varsity girls weightlifting
  • Wesley Chapel High varsity girls basketball
  • Wiregrass Ranch High varsity boys tennis

Plenty to do
There’s no shortage of recreational activities and outdoor destinations in The Laker/Lutz News coverage area. Here are a few options our readers may enjoy trying sometime in the new year:

  • Bike, run or walk the Upper Tampa Bay Trail or Withlacoochee State Trail
  • Hit the links at Trinity’s Fox Hollow Golf Club, Wesley Chapel’s Saddlebrook Resort & Spa, or Lutz’s TPC Tampa Bay, or one of the many other golf courses
  • Learn to ice skate at Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice
  • Take the family to Lutz’s Lake Park for hiking, biking, BMX racing, equestrian riding, kayaking, fishing, boating and more
  • Test your skeet shooting skills at Tampa Bay Sporting Clays in Land O’ Lakes, or Silver Dollar Shooters Club in Odessa
  • Gather your friends and coworkers and join a senior, men’s or coed softball league at Land O’ Lakes Heritage Park or the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex
  • Learn to skydive, parachute and tandem jump at Zephyrhills’ Skydive City
  • Visit Dade City’s Treehoppers to try out the largest zip line aerial adventure park in Central Florida

Published January 08, 2020

Wesley Chapel plays host to disabled hockey festival

May 1, 2019 By Kevin Weiss

More than 1,000 athletes representing more than 100 teams from dozens of states recently converged on Wesley Chapel, testing their mettle in the world’s largest indoor disabled ice sporting event.

Two-time Paralympic gold medalist and world champion Brody Roybal, No. 8 on the USA Hockey team, the Chicago Blackhawks, is seen during a game with New Hampshire’s NE Passage Wildcats. Roybal, a congenital bilateral amputee, was born without legs. (Christine Holtzman)

AdventHealth Center Ice played host to the 15th annual USA Hockey Disabled Hockey Festival, marking the second straight year the event has called home the multi-rink Wesley Chapel hockey complex.

The festival took place the last weekend in March and first weekend in April.

It featured divisions for players who are wounded military veterans, blind or visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, and for special needs such as Down syndrome and autism. The festival concluded with the adult sled hockey national championship.

In total, 14 programs were crowned champions within the sled and warrior hockey disciplines, including the Chicago Blackhawks Warriors capturing the sled championship title.

Wendy Major, a team leader on the Tampa Bay Lightning USA Hockey sled hockey team, center, gives pointers to 11-year-old Tyler Smith, of Riverview, left, and 12-year-old Christopher Avis, of Wisconsin, during a sled hockey demo on April 6. Major is a disabled U.S. Army veteran facing leg amputation later this year. She was wounded during a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

The mission of the festival is to provide fun and exciting games, and promote and expand disabled hockey throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the event kicked off with a Friday night welcome social for participants, and a friendly game between the Tampa Bay Lightning Alumni team and the National Standing/Amputee team.

The Lightning Alumni team featured hockey Hall of Famer and 2004 Stanley Cup team captain Dave Andreychuk, alongside other well-known former Bolts players, including Brian Bradley, Jassen Cullimore and Stan Neckar.

Attendees were welcomed to the event by Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore, along with Andreychuk, USA Hockey President Jim Smith and USA Hockey Disabled Section Chair J.J. O’ Connor.

Moore later dropped the festival’s ceremonial puck in front of Andreychuk and David Levesque, captain of the National Standing/Amputee team.

“Pasco County is Florida’s Sports Coast, and we are thrilled to be the first in the state to host the Disabled Hockey Festival,” Moore said at the event. “I am honored to participate in an event that shows anybody can participate and be included. I thank USA Hockey for their commitment to the disabled community and coming to Wesley Chapel.”

Published May 01, 2019

Two-time Paralympic gold medalist Declan Farmer, a sled hockey player for Connecticut’s Gaylord Wolfpack, closes in on the puck during a game with the St. Louis Blues. Farmer, a Tampa native, was born with bilateral congenital limb deficiencies, which resulted in amputation.

Pasco’s tourism boosts county’s economy

April 3, 2019 By B.C. Manion

An analysis by Downs & St. Germain Research Inc., consultants to Pasco County, reveals that 965,000 tourists visited Pasco County during 2018, with a $615 million impact on the county’s economy.

Downs & St. Germain Research conducted the county’s first-ever visitor tracking study. They completed face-to-face, phone and online surveys with Pasco County visitors. As a result, the researchers were able to profile visitors coming to Pasco, and to quantify economic impacts of tourism in Pasco.

Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore drops the puck during a ceremonial face-off between Tampa Bay Lightning Alumni captain Dave Andreychuk and National Standing/Amputee team captain David Levesque during the 15th annual Toyota-USA Hockey Disabled Hockey Festival, held this year at AdventHealth Center Ice in Wesley Chapel. (Courtesy of Andy Taylor/Pasco County)

Nearly three-quarters of Pasco’s visitors in 2018 came from Florida, New York, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Canada, the researcher’s report says.

Of  those,  57 percent  stayed  at  hotels or motels; 23  percent stayed with relatives or friends; 14 percent stayed in a personal second home; 4 percent stayed at campgrounds/RV; and, 2 percent at vacation rental homes.

The typical travel party was made up of 2.4 people, and among those visiting, nearly a quarter reported they were accompanied by at least one person 18 or younger.

The vast majority of those visiting Pasco County drove in: Nearly 91 percent reported that’s how they arrived. Seven percent said they flew into Tampa International Airport.

Top reasons for visiting Pasco County were: Visiting friends or family, special events, attractions, relaxation, vacation and outdoor activities.

Ninety-eight percent of visitors said they will return to Pasco County.

Adam Thomas, Pasco County’s tourism director, briefed the Pasco County Commission on some of the report’s findings during a recent meeting.

“We’re a job generator,” Thomas said. “In 2018, we generated over 7,480 jobs that are supported by tourism that created wages of over $156 million on an annual basis.”

Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano was impressed by the report’s findings.

“I think you’ve got some awesome information in there,” Mariano said.

“The average vacationer is 44,” Mariano said. “The median household is $75,000. Twenty-six percent travel with children.”

When visitors are asked to identify additional activities that they would like to see, they  identified more outdoor activities, more family friendly activities, a water park, a music festival, more shopping options and more restaurants, Mariano said.

Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore said the impact from tourism is already impressive, but he said it will increase, as the county’s new tourism brand — Florida’s Sports Coast — takes hold.

“When the Wiregrass Sports Complex is finished, you can imagine how those numbers are going to increase,” he said.

Moore noted that AdventHealth Center Ice — which was used as a practice facility by the U.S. Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey Team — already attracts big events.

This is Pasco County’s tourism brand logo.

Over the weekend, the ice arena hosted the 2019 Disabled Hockey Festival, and will host more games this coming weekend.

The ice arena is the first in Florida to host the hockey festival, Moore said, via comments shared with The Laker/Lutz News by his aide, Andy Taylor.

“I am honored to participate in an event that shows anybody can participate and be included. I thank USA Hockey for their commitment to the disabled community and coming to Wesley Chapel,” Moore added.

Thomas said the event is generating nearly 1,200 room nights.

The tourism director told commissioners the county is working on a different event that’s expected to generate close to 1,400 room nights.

Moore told his board colleagues, “The focus is the room nights because if they’re spending a night in a hotel, they’re going out to dinner, they’re buying their gas here, they’re going to the shops. They’re doing everything in Pasco County.”

Now, as the county negotiates future events, Moore said, “the stipulations are, they stay in Pasco County.”

Thomas described the county’s tourism approach this way:  “We’re going after the active family, the active couple, the active traveler that’s looking for outdoor adventure, but also looking for the youth tournaments.”

Tourism’s impact on Pasco County
Overall economic impact: $615 million
Visitors to Pasco: 965,000
Room nights generated by visitors: 1,132,926
Jobs: 7,480
Wages: $156 million
Source: 2018 Economic Impact Study of Tourism in Pasco County

Published April 03, 2019

Women’s sports museum opens in Wesley Chapel

March 13, 2019 By Kevin Weiss

Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice is widely known as the training grounds of the gold-medal winning 2018 U.S. Olympic women’s ice hockey team.

The Women’s Sports Herstory Museum is a virtual museum dedicated to female pioneers in hockey. Located on the second floor of the AdventHealth Center Ice hockey complex, it features interactive wall panel displays where visitors scan QR codes from their phones to view content online; the museum is also decorated with various female hockey memorabilia and equipment. (Kevin Weiss)

Now, the 150,500-square-foot ice sports complex houses what is believed to be the first virtual museum dedicated to women’s hockey trailblazers.

The museum, called the Women’s Sports Herstory Museum, is the brainchild of female hockey coaching legend Digit Murphy and her friend, Jeff Novotny, a Wesley Chapel resident.

Situated in a second-floor viewing room of the ice hockey complex, 3173 Cypress Ridge Blvd., the museum features interactive wall panel displays where visitors scan QR codes to view content online in the form of videos and in-depth stories.

The poster-sized displays highlight several of hockey’s female pioneers, including Katey Stone,  the first-ever female head coach of a USA Hockey team in the Olympics and current head coach at Harvard University; Katie Guay, the first to officiate an NCAA Division I men’s hockey game; Sara DeCosta Hayes, a two-time USA Hockey Women’s Player of the Year; Amanda Pelkey, a 2018 gold medalist and all-time scoring leader at the University of Vermont; and, of course, Murphy, who became the winningest coach in Division I women’s hockey at Brown University.

The room is also decorated with various sports memorabilia and equipment, including a signed jersey and signed pictures of all 23 members of the U.S. Olympic women’s ice hockey team.

At some point, the museum will highlight a “local hero” for women’s sports in the Tampa Bay area.

Women’s Sports Herstory Museum co-curator Digit Murphy speaks at a March 6 VIP event at AdventHealth Center Ice in Wesley Chapel.

“Girls and women need to hear the stories of the women that played before them,” Murphy said, during a March 6 VIP event for the museum. “When girls and women walk through this museum, I want them to see themselves sitting in the seats of the women that came before them. We need our little girls looking in this room going, ‘Oh, I could be a gold medalist…’”

She continued, “It’s really important that people see their heroes and leaders and role models in pictures and stories, because, especially in sports, you see men all the time and you don’t see it for girls.”

The museum — which opened to the public on March 9 — will be housed at Center Ice for the next three years, through a room sponsorship from Murphy’s Play it Forward Sport and United Women’s Sports organizations, which also will award $1,000 scholarships to local female high school seniors.

The concept was born last year after Murphy took a visit to Canton, Ohio, where she discovered — and became irked — that a $100 million expansion was being made in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Murphy recalled the moment: “I’m like, ‘$100 million for football? Unbelievable.’”

Digit Murphy is the winningest coach in Division I women’s hockey at Brown University.

From that, the hockey legend got in touch with Novotny, an engineer, who figured they could develop a platform where museums about women’s sports could be brought to already existing venues.

“I recognize the importance of how it’s important that we celebrate the women in our lives that do special things, so this was an opportunity to kind of do something unique,” said Novotny, who met Murphy years ago at a hockey clinic for one of his daughters.

Novotny then reached out to AdventHealth Center Ice general manager Gordie Zimmermann, who signed off on a virtual museum in his facility.

Zimmermann is pleased with how it turned out.

“This is an inspiring room, for sure,” Zimmermann said, during the VIP event. “We walk by this room constantly and there’s little kids in here hanging on the walls and now they’re going to be looking at the walls instead.

“We’ve always talked about girls hockey and what can we do with girls hockey. There is a place, for sure, in this sport for girls and the future’s so bright for them.”

Meanwhile, the Wesley Chapel location could be just the tip of the iceberg for Murphy and Novotny’s virtual women’s sports museum initiative.

The co-curators hope to expand the project to highlighting women in various other sports in other cities.

Novotny said they’ve even been approached by some universities to create a virtual museum for their alumni female athletes. “It’s scalable to any sport,” he said.

And, Murphy wants to see the virtual museums “everywhere.”

“We want this to be something that goes viral,” she said. “We want more of women’s stories out there, so that Herstory can happen.”

For more information about the museum, visit GetHerStory.com.

Published March 13, 2019

Primary Sidebar

A Conversation with Lutz Filmmaker, Alexis Yahre

Search

Sponsored Content

A Guide for Summer Camps in Pasco County 

May 23, 2022 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Summer break is quickly approaching and organizations throughout Pasco County are offering camps for children of all … [Read More...] about A Guide for Summer Camps in Pasco County 

Avalon Applauds Kids Helping Kids Pasco County 

May 10, 2022 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Congratulations to Kids Helping Kids Pasco County for being applauded by Avalon Park Wesley Chapel. The nonprofit … [Read More...] about Avalon Applauds Kids Helping Kids Pasco County 

More Posts from this Category

What’s Happening

05/26/2022 – Food distribution

Farm Share, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office, Pasco Sheriff Charities, the Pasco County NAACP, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay will partner for a free food distribution on May 26 starting at 9 a.m., at the Boys & Girls Club of Lacoochee, 38724 Mudcat Grant Blvd., in Dade City. Food will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. The event is a drive-thru, rain or shine. … [Read More...] about 05/26/2022 – Food distribution

05/28/2022 – Memorial Day Concert

The “Let’s Do Good Memorial Day Concert” is scheduled for May 28 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., at Land O’ Lakes Heritage Park, 5401 Land O’ Lakes Blvd., to benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Tunnel to Towers provides mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children, and builds custom-designed smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. The foundation is committed to eradicating veteran homelessness and aiding the victims of major U.S. disasters. The event will include vendors, gifts, a Forget-Me-Not Garden, and more. Entertainment will be provided by Fred Chandler, Charles Goodwin, Cruz Er Mac, Mike Henderson, and Travis White. Special guests include Congressman Gus Bilirakis and State Sen. Danny Burgess. Rain date is Sept. 10. … [Read More...] about 05/28/2022 – Memorial Day Concert

05/28/2022 – Seafood Festival-CANCELLED

The North Tampa Bay Chamber’s Summer Seafood Festival is scheduled for May 28 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., at the Tampa Premium Outlets, 2300 Grand Cypress Drive in Lutz, between the outlets and At Home. There will be seafood, crab races, a kids zone, live bands, craft beer, a local market, a Nautical Art Show, and a crab claw-eating contest. For information, call 727-674-1464. … [Read More...] about 05/28/2022 – Seafood Festival-CANCELLED

06/04/2022 – D-Day reenactment

The Zephyrhills Museum of Military History, 39444 South Ave., in Zephyrhills, will present “D-Day, Invasion of Normandy” on June 4 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be an opening ceremony at 11 a.m. The event will include skydivers, reenactors, World War II veterans, and WWII vehicles/aircraft on display. Visit zmmh.org/events, for additional information. … [Read More...] about 06/04/2022 – D-Day reenactment

06/11/2022 – Community cleanup

Save the date: A Dade City Community Cleanup is scheduled for June 11 from 8 a.m. to noon. The city will provide two garbage trucks and one roll-off to dispose of household waste. Residents will be able to drop off unwanted items at three locations. Volunteers also are needed and can register online at DadeCityFl.com. More information will be forthcoming. … [Read More...] about 06/11/2022 – Community cleanup

06/13/2022 – Vacation Bible School

The Church at Myrtle Lake, 2017 Riegler Road in Land O’ Lakes, will host the Spark Studios Vacation Bible School from June 13 to June 17 from 9 a.m. to noon. The event is free for children of age who have completed kindergarten through sixth grade. Registration is open online at MyrtleLake.org. For information, call 813-949-5516. … [Read More...] about 06/13/2022 – Vacation Bible School

More of What's Happening

Follow us on Twitter

The Laker/Lutz NewsFollow

Home for all your local news in Land O' Lakes, Lutz, New Tampa, Wesley Chapel, Zephyrhills and Dade City.

The Laker/Lutz News
LakerLutzNewsThe Laker/Lutz News@LakerLutzNews·
22 May

SUNDAY MORNING SPORTS: Wyatt Deaton, 11, of Wesley Chapel, swam 2 miles and raised $5,900 for charity at the Swim Across America fundraising event. Great picture @MikeCamunas! Full story ---> https://buff.ly/3lktCIv

Reply on Twitter 1528367595258265600Retweet on Twitter 15283675952582656001Like on Twitter 15283675952582656001Twitter 1528367595258265600
LakerLutzNewsThe Laker/Lutz News@LakerLutzNews·
21 May

Go Pasco — Pasco County’s public bus service — is planning to use technology to enable riders to get up-to-date information to track buses in real time https://buff.ly/3aafXS6

Reply on Twitter 1528073180073574404Retweet on Twitter 1528073180073574404Like on Twitter 15280731800735744042Twitter 1528073180073574404
LakerLutzNewsThe Laker/Lutz News@LakerLutzNews·
21 May

What an AMAZING transformation! 💫 The Block is housed in a historic building that was an auto dealership in the 1920s. Now, its a venue space, a brewhouse, a restaurant, a CrossFit gym and more ---> https://buff.ly/3PsLvTo

3
Reply on Twitter 1528027975391772673Retweet on Twitter 15280279753917726731Like on Twitter 15280279753917726731Twitter 1528027975391772673
Load More...

Archives

 

 

Where to pick up The Laker and Lutz News

Copyright © 2022 Community News Publications Inc.

    Doc