For all the winners associated with the Penguins' Stanley Cup triumph last month, add the PIHL and local high school hockey to the list right after Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the legions of fans of the team.

For a sport that has customarily lagged behind more traditional games such as football and basketball in areas such as participation levels and school district backing and funding, the Penguins' high-profile run to the Stanley Cup this spring can do nothing but be a boon for hockey at the high school level.

So says a random sampling of some of the more successful high school coaches in the area, anyway.

"It's huge," said Greater Latrobe coach Dan Ridder, who led the Wildcats to an undefeated season and second consecutive state title this past spring. "We obviously saw big [participation increases] when Mario [Lemieux] came to town and big numbers in amateur hockey and high school hockey when they won their first Cups in the early '90s. We had a little period there when Mario retired where there was a lull, but then when Sidney came along, that boosted numbers again.

"I can only imagine what next year will bring."

The number of high school hockey teams has steadily grown in the past 25 years since future Hall of Famer Lemieux was drafted by the Penguins in 1984.

This past season, there were 69 teams in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey League, which covers the western half of Pennsylvania and the parts of West Virginia that border the state.

While the effects that the Penguins' drafting of Lemieux and fellow No. 1 overall pick Crosby 21 years later have had on hockey in Western Pennsylvania have been well-documented, the team winning the Stanley Cup can act as just as much of a multiplier for the number of "puckheads" in the region.

Television ratings in the Pittsburgh market for Penguins playoff games rivaled that for when the Steelers are in the postseason in this city with a gridiron-crazy reputation.

"We're approaching football in terms of popularity of the sport," Serra coach Brian Boehm said. "More and more people want to jump into it, and more corporations will support it. I know the PIHL has always gotten a lot of money from 84 Lumber and [other] businesses, and more money will be put toward it when you see more exposure for the sport."

The boon to high school hockey figures to be delayed until the youngsters just being introduced to the game are of high school age. Rare is the young athlete who steps onto the ice wearing skates and holding a stick for the first time who can excel at the sport; it takes an early start, and today's preschoolers who choose hockey over T-ball or youth football will be the varsity athletes of the late 2010s.

"I'm not sure there will be an immediate effect [of the Stanley Cup win on high school hockey]," Bishop Canevin coach Kevin Zielmanski said. "I like to talk about the number of registered players [in the area], and the age group right now in high school is really down. These birth ages [came of age in] what was the valley between the Lemieux Effect and the Crosby Effect.

"I think [this season's Stanley Cup run] definitely will be a positive for Pittsburgh hockey, but I don't know if it will have a measurable effect during the 2009-2010 season. We might get a couple more kids interested in playing, but the bigger payoff [at the high school level] won't come for another few years."

Then again, assuming the prophecies of more players and more teams come to pass, they all need places to play. Although ice rinks certainly aren't as ubiquitous around here as the much-more-affordable-to-build-and-maintain baseball diamonds and gymnasiums, there are exponentially more places to skate around Pittsburgh now than when Lemieux first set foot here a quarter century ago.

"Before, we didn't have the rinks to support it," said Boehm, who heads a Serra program that has won PIHL and state titles in the recent past. "We ended up with kids who had to have 5:30 a.m. ice times, and you lose kids, especially high school kids, they don't want to get up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning for practice.

"Now we do have the rinks to support that kind of hockey boom, and maybe some of the rinks that are struggling right now financially, that's going to help pick their business up. In fact, that's what I think they're banking on, actually."

The hockey community is a symbiotic cycle that has several different pieces to it that all work in tandem to keep all aspects of each other viable. Keeping rinks financially healthy is as an important piece of the puzzle as having child-rearing adults watching the Penguins or high school athletic administrators supporting the sport.

The foundation for growth and vitality is in place, said Ridder.

"Right now as a sport, hockey is actually pretty healthy all around Pittsburgh," Ridder said. "People who come from outside and move into the area, they cannot believe how big ice hockey is here.

"But anything we can add to it and any way in which the sport can become more popular is always good."