Thirteen players will pull on Rizzo jerseys and enter DVHL competition as an 8U team, becoming the first step toward rebuilding a travel hockey program that disappeared during the COVID era.

On paper, Rizzo Revolution is brand new. But hockey at Rizzo Rink isn’t.

The city-run rink carries 40 years of tradition, with generations of Philadelphia families passing their connection to the game from grandfathers to fathers to sons. The new Revolution represents an opportunity to take that history and begin writing a new chapter.

There are no previous championships to defend. No playoff appearances to build upon. No established travel-hockey reputation. Just 13 young players, three coaches who have watched many of them skate since they were four or five years old, a group of committed families, and an opportunity to build something together.

For Rizzo, that’s more than enough.

Starting With One

The Revolution will enter its inaugural season with exactly one team.

8U. Thirteen players.

And that’s precisely where Rizzo wants to start. Every player has been skating for at least two years, but 2026–27 will be their first experience playing competitive travel hockey. They’ll encounter unfamiliar opponents. They’ll learn positioning. They’ll experience the pressure of competition. They’ll make mistakes. And they’ll begin learning how to translate the skating and individual skills they’ve developed into actual hockey games.

The expectations aren’t centered around wins and losses. They’re centered around progress.

When the season ends, Rizzo wants people to say one thing: They improved immensely.

From Learning to Skate to Learning the Game

For the Rizzo coaching staff, this season represents the next stage of a journey that started years ago. Head Coach Stephen (Steve) Grosso Jr.and Hockey Director Steve Grosso have coached alongside Jimmy and Eric for the past three years, working with this group primarily on skating and skill development. They’ve watched many of these players grow since they first stepped onto the ice at four or five years old.

Now comes the fun part. They get to teach them how to play.

At 8U, Grosso believes the foundation matters more than anything else. Strong skating and individual skills give young players the tools they’ll need throughout their hockey careers.

Competitive games now introduce another layer.

Where do I go without the puck?
How do I support a teammate?
How do I react when the other team has possession?
How do I compete while still making good decisions?

Those lessons won’t be mastered in one weekend.

That’s why Rizzo is building for more than one weekend.

Three Players to Watch

For DVHL fans getting their first look at the Revolution, Rizzo identifies three young players to keep an eye on:

Mason Grosso.
Blake Flood.
Owen Penko.

There are no returning travel players or established veteran leaders on this roster. There can’t be. This is year one. Leadership will emerge as the players experience competitive hockey together, and that process will be another part of what makes the Revolution’s inaugural season interesting to follow.

Someone will score the first goal.
Someone will make the first big save.
Someone will become the teammate others look toward when a game gets difficult.

Rizzo gets to experience all of those firsts together.

More Than a New Hockey Team

What makes the Revolution particularly different within the DVHL is where it comes from.

Rizzo is part of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation. For four decades, Rizzo Rink has been a community hockey home built around tradition and family. That history is important because the Revolution isn’t simply trying to launch an 8U team.

It’s trying to rebuild a travel hockey program. COVID interrupted that pathway. Now Rizzo is attempting to bring it back despite one significant obstacle:

Ice time. Limited access to regular ice makes building a full travel program difficult. It’s the challenge Rizzo identifies as its biggest entering the season and one that will shape how quickly the organization can expand. But rebuilding doesn’t have to happen all at once.

It can begin with 13 players.

Everyone Is Family

Rizzo describes its values simply:

Family. Sportsmanship. Fun.

Those aren’t complicated concepts, but they’re particularly important for a team filled with eight-year-olds entering competitive hockey for the first time. The organization wants players and families to feel welcome. It wants the rink to remain a place kids are excited to visit. And it wants the relationships surrounding the team to remain one of its greatest strengths.

In fact, when asked to identify the club’s biggest strength entering its first DVHL season, the answer wasn’t skating, scoring, or goaltending. It was the strong relationships between the families. That’s a pretty good foundation for year one.

A Different Kind of Success

Rizzo understands that this season will bring challenges.

The players are inexperienced.
Learning positioning will take time.
Adjusting from skill development to competitive games won’t happen instantly.
Ice availability will remain difficult.

There will undoubtedly be opponents with more travel experience. None of that changes the objective. At this stage of the Revolution’s development, the standings can’t tell the entire story.

Did the players become better skaters?
Did they begin understanding the game?
Did they learn how to compete?
Did they become better teammates?
Did they finish the season wanting to come back?

If those answers are yes, Rizzo will have accomplished something much more important than an 8U record.It will have created the foundation for year two.

Building Something That Lasts

The long-term vision reaches beyond this inaugural team. Rizzo hopes the Revolution becomes the beginning of a rebuilt travel program — one capable of giving future players from its developmental system another opportunity to continue playing hockey within their own community.

That’s why this first group matters. These 13 players aren’t simply joining another youth hockey team. They’re becoming the first players in something new. If the program grows, future Revolution teams will trace their beginning back to this group.

Back to 2026–27. Back to the season when a group of families and coaches decided it was time to bring travel hockey back to Rizzo.

Asked for one word to describe the upcoming season, Rizzo chose: Perseverance.

It’s difficult to imagine a better one. Starting something is hard. Rebuilding something can be even harder. There will be obstacles, and Rizzo already knows ice availability is among them. But there is also excitement in starting from the beginning. No one knows exactly what the Revolution will become.

That’s part of the story.

For now, the objective is much simpler. Teach the kids. Let them compete. Let them have fun. Give them a reason to come back. And keep building.