The calendar pin-up model and left winger for the Ice-O-Topes hockey team bears a black bustier and lacy panties for the month of April. But Quinn didn't react to the surly jeer.

"I just took the draw," she said.

Quinn wasn't rattled. She laughed off the attempt to get inside her head.

"It's not something I'm ashamed of. Every girl who has a picture in the calendar is proud."

For the second year in row, the Ice-O-Topes are undressing to nothing but their skivvies and skates for a 13-month calendar. The first $1,000 they raise goes toward BASH, the Britannia After-School Hockey program, for female and male players aged 13 to 18 whose families can't otherwise afford for their teenager to play hockey.

A number of the Ice-O-Topes live on the East Side and have played hockey at the Britannia rink. The money is used to purchase hockey equipment for the teens.

Fourteen black-and-white portraits were produced and shot by professional photographer (and Courier contributor) Rebecca Blissett who wears No. 17 for the Div. 2 Adult Safe Hockey League team.

Blissett's own photograph has her wearing a bikini and poised between two race cars at a straightway start line on a long stretch of pavement in Langley. Mechanics and track crews had an unobstructed view. She's waving the checkered flag and--sorry, would-be suitors--this redhead's pic was snapped by her husband.

Tara Loseth was also photographed with an audience, but its members appear within the frame with her.

She's posing at the fields at Oppenheimer Park wearing hockey socks with a hockey garter, skates and gloves.

"I'm leaning on the stick with one hand and have my other hand on my waist. On my face is about a pound of eyeliner, mascara, lipstick and foundation," she said. "Gathered around me are the men's homeless soccer team."

Loseth said they were gentlemen and some even shook her hand. "Everybody was quite respectful, which helped me feel at ease."

One aged bystander on a bicycle lobbed empty insults during the shoot, which Loseth said were funny in retrospect but ego-bruising and embarrassing at the time. That's when one of the soccer players asked another if he heard the jeering. "Nope, me neither," came the response.

Loseth, a pharmacist, and Quinn, a government employee with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, say the experience of posing near-nude was empowering and reinforced their positive body image. They both dismiss the criticism that a pin-up poster detracts from their athleticism as hockey players.

"If we're speaking of women athletes as a whole, I would say that we have come so far and established ourselves so well that I hardly think we need to worry about our athletic image, as women, being tainted by a naked or near-naked calendar," said Loseth.

"Whatever we had to prove to the world about women's abilities in sports has been proven over and over and is no longer an issue. I'm not a hockey superstar and I'm also not a supermodel--but I'm a decent hockey player and now I'm in a sexy calendar."

2011 Calendars cost $20. Visit iceotopes.wordpress.com. For a photo gallery, see vancourier.com.