Colleen Superko: Youth hockey's keeper of the heart

With three young sons playing hockey, Colleen Superko is familiar with bone-chilling rinks.

The Wellesley Youth Hockey Association president also knows about early morning practices, overflowing equipment bags, and parents' fears for their children as they race around the rink.

Superko saw a chance to make youth hockey safer for players and the adults who coach on the sidelines and cheer from the stands. She read an article in Parade magazine about cardiac arrest in youth sports, and shortly thereafter heard about a young soccer player collapsing and dying on the field at summer camp.

Superko decided that along with a first-aid kit, every hockey rink should have a defibrillator -- a machine that administers an electric shock to restart the heart of a cardiac arrest victim. The machines have paddles that are applied to the chest. They are designed for almost anyone to use.

Why defibrillators? She looked at the statistics: 335,000 people die each year in the United States from sudden cardiac arrest.

''I realized there was this big problem, this big risk out there," said Superko, 43, a partner at WilmerHale, a Boston law firm. Her sons -- Pat, 13, Tim, 12, and Kevin 10 -- all have clean bills of health, but Superko knows there are no guarantees.

''As a parent in a leadership position there was a thought that something should be done about this. Otherwise, something could happen to my kids, or any of the kids," she said.

Superko pitched the idea of purchasing defibrillators to her association's board of directors. She pointed out that they are recommended by the American Heart Association and have been purchased by a growing number of airlines, shopping malls, and even casinos. The board responded enthusiastically.

So she got busy raising money, with an assist from MomsTeam.com, a Concord-based organization that promotes safety in youth sports. The Wellesley Youth Hockey Association raised more than $20,000 at a dance and auction last March at the Italo-American Club in Wellesley.

Each device costs $1,800, and the association bought a dozen, one for each rink where their players skate, including ones in Waltham and Watertown.

The American Red Cross offers training in use of defibrillators, but in an emergency a novice could follow the instructions printed on the devices.

Before this year's ambitious defibrillator project, the Wellesley association's principal community service activity was having players rake leaves for seniors. ''That planted a seed for something else, something with even more outreach," Superko said.

She hopes other leagues follow Wellesley's lead.

''What drove me to do this," she said, ''is that this could happen to anyone, in any sport."