Throughout the week, fans walking the concourse at PPG Paints Arena have stopped to marvel at the brand-new art installation designed and built by Wicked Pittsburgh, located at section 101.
The 8'x8' installation is a testament to the ongoing partnership between Highmark and the Penguins Foundation to revitalize the historic Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Hunt Armory, and the diverse community that benefits from this facility.
“This is actually amazing,” said Kenya Boswell, Senior Vice President of Community Affairs at Highmark Health, after the piece was unveiled ahead of Tuesday’s game versus Minnesota. “It’s more than just a piece of art. It embodies a spirit of collaboration and the transformative power of sports. The Hunt Armory gives opportunities for open skate, a sense of community collaboration, and for everyone to feel welcome.”
When Highmark first came on board in 2021, Boswell remembers that the Hunt Armory “was an empty shell, and it was just a vision.” The facility, which is the first indoor community ice rink to open in the city of Pittsburgh in 25 years, has grown so much in the years since. Around 28,000 community members visited the ice rink during the 2023-2024 season alone.
"This facility serves as a diversity arm of the foundation, being in the city, being on a bus line,” said Yvonne Maher, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation. “The programming and initiatives that we run through the Foundation at the armory really invite the people who’ve never played hockey or have had an opportunity to play hockey into a space where we provide all the resources that they need to be successful and become fans of the game.”
The unique art installation represents the various local city hockey programs and non-profits supported by the Highmark Hunt Armory through its free community ice times.
The Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ Tigers, Chatham University women’s hockey, the Hunt Armory Youth Hockey programs, and Penguins forward Bryan Rust all made donations to help properly represent the important role that community and diversity play in the game of hockey.
Wicked Pittsburgh is a group of 50+ local artists creating work to give 20% back to a rotating local Pittsburgh charity initiative. Their founder, Mike Schwarz, spent months running around the city collecting sticks from the various teams, which are a vital element of this project.
“We could’ve easily just gone to Dick’s and bought 100 sticks. That seemed like a cop-out,” he said. “We were like, ‘Why don’t we go and benefit these teams?’ They have all of these broken sticks sitting in their equipment room, and now they’ll be able to replace those sticks with money from the project.
“Without everything from the Tigers – which are all the rainbow sticks – the Little Penguins sticks, Rust’s stick and all these components, I don’t think it would be nearly as special.”
The two muralists who collaborated on this project, Max Gonzales and Shane Pilster, have made over 100 pieces of art together, but this is the first for hockey. It was particularly impactful for Gonzales, who attended and played ice hockey at Carnegie Mellon University.
“I met the Tigers at an adult league game and found out that there was actually an LGBTQ+ hockey community,” he said. “So, it’s very cool to see where hockey is at now as a progressive sport, as a sport that you can find that camaraderie with.”
While the team worked down to the wire to get the finished product, they couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The muralists and the rest of the Wicked team worked tirelessly over the last twelve months to make sure that this piece was special in every way imaginable.
“It’s pretty amazing to see it all come together. It’s this huge culmination of all of these different people’s efforts across states and several months,” Pilster said. “It’s kind of crazy how it all came together in this last week.”
The Penguins and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield want the finished product to permanently demonstrate their shared commitment to this community.
“Our hope is that every single day as we’re welcoming our fans in, they’re going to look at this, and it’ll encourage them to continue to support our mission at Highmark Hunt Amory,” said Steve Kelley, Penguins Senior Vice President, Partnerships.
