Brandon Lawrence, one of the Butler Bantams’ 19 players, holds a puck after scoring in a game for Penn State Behrend. Lawrence has played ball hockey for over 10 years. Submitted Photo

Jim Cendrowski never laced up skates. Not to play ice hockey, anyway. His only playing involvement in the sport has come on a court, rather than a rink.

“I’ll just say I’m in my 40s,” Cendrowski said, chuckling. “And I’ve been playing for a long time. Since I was, like, 12 or 13.”

Still, he’s helping spearhead something new, as he lent a hand in the formation of the fledgling Butler Bantams. In the second tier of the Pittsburgh division, the team will compete in the National Ball Hockey League, which is slated to start its second campaign this weekend.

Cendrowski, the Bantams’ general manager, will also throw on bulky pads and mind the net.

It was the NBHL that reached out to ask if a Butler area crew could be pieced together. Cendrowski and Dillon Hepler, a forward for the team, were the first to discuss a merger of sorts between a pair of local squads, the Butler Bombers and the Butler Bardownskis.

“The top six forwards (and) the top four defensemen are all from those tournament teams,” Cendrowski said. “We just started getting people committed to doing it. There’s 19 (players) on our roster.”

Brandon Lawrence, a Butler grad with over a decade of experience playing ball hockey, recently joined the team as a forward. He also skated for Butler for two seasons and attended BC3 before joining Penn State Behrend’s team as a junior. He’ll spend his last half-season with the Lions next school year.

“It’s another opportunity to play competitively, even if it’s not ice hockey,” Lawrence said. “It’s a growing competitive market, I feel like. It’s something I’ve always thought I’ve excelled at.”

Hannah Lindey is the only woman in the group. Lindey also plays for the U.S. national women’s ball hockey team. Seasoned ball hockey players like her were what Cendrowski and the other leaders – including Cody Blum and Adam Holt – sought to build the team around.

“I know everyone pretty well, for the most part,” Lawrence said. “I think that will help us a lot chemistry-wise. We’re pretty familiar with each other’s tendencies and what works and what doesn’t work.”

The Bantams’ regular season will consist of ten games, all will be played on Sundays and the first of which against the South Hills Bandits later this week. One dek in or around Pittsburgh will host each of that weekend’s contests.

“We’re looking forward to seeing how everyone kind of comes together,” Cendrowski said. “For some of us, we’ve played together already. For others, it’ll be a new experience … All of us have been playing against each other and with each other for years here in Butler, at the Family Sports Center (or) over at the Butler dek at Highfield.

“Everyone knows each other already, so it was a no-brainer to come together.”

In the daytime, Cendrowski works with West Shore Home, which deals with renovation and remodeling. The company is also the Bantams’ sponsor.

From making sure everybody has their USA ball hockey registration numbers to making sure each player has their own respective digit on their shirt, Cendrowski’s duty as an administrator is to iron out the logistics.

Blum, the team’s captain, and alternates Hepler, Holt, and Phil Basel will decide on lineups and line combinations.

The rest of the teams in the Bantams’ tier are the: Bloomfield Meatballs, McKeesport Magic, Mon Valley Nighthawks, North Hills Militia, Penn Hills Warlocks, Rowan Rebels, Southside Misfits, and Steel Town River Raiders.