By Bob Susnjara Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted on January 16, 2003
When the new Chicago Spin hockey team hits the ice in Lake County, the aim is to score goals and win games.
However, the players hope they’re knocking down a few social barriers in the process.
Believed to be the first and only gay hockey team in the Chicago area, the Spin is nearing the conclusion of its inaugural season in a recreational league with four “straight” squads at the Glacier Ice Arena in Vernon Hills.
Chuck Jacobson, 28, of Chicago, president of the Chicago Gay Hockey Association and a Spin forward, said he and his teammates believe the Spin can help erase gay stereotypes through its participation in a rugged sport, and encourage other gay players to join the league.
Spin player Ryan Ruskin, 34, of Chicago, said he senses the team already has changed attitudes toward gay men for the better in its own small way.
“The longer we’ve played, we’ve gotten respect from the teams that we play against. They treat us just as any other team,” Ruskin said.
Another Spin forward, Andy Rogers, said he sees potential for the team having social significance around Chicago because mainstream men’s sports are not expected to have homosexual participation.
“You know, I think our purpose is education and breaking down walls and camaraderie,” said Rogers, 40, of Chicago.
If all goes according to plan, the Spin will not be the only Chicago Gay Hockey Association team. Organizers want a recreational team and a separate competitive squad that would be Chicago’s representative in the 2006 Gay Games in Montreal and International Gay Hockey Association tournaments.
With the Spin, the Chicago area joins a trend in which gay hockey teams have been formed across the United States and Canada.
Ruskin said a gay hockey team offers players a comfort level that might not exist if they were surrounded by heterosexuals.
“The homophobia, I think, is going away from recreational sports, but it’s still there. It’s still a hurdle that intimidates people from even going out at all,” he said, shortly before the Canucks beat the Spin 7-4 in Vernon Hills earlier this week.
While designed for homosexual men, the Spin welcomes heterosexual players.
Of the 11 men who dressed for Monday’s game, nine were homosexuals. Jacobson said heterosexuals should be gay-friendly if they want to play for the Chicago Spin.
Joe Nowak, 20, of Deerfield, was one of the Spin’s two heterosexual players in Monday night’s game. Nowak, a Glacier employee, was recruited to play one night when the Spin needed extra players.
Nowak didn’t have a negative reaction when he was told the Spin is a gay team. He said the Spin is a competitive squad that knows how to battle.
“Sure, they’re a bunch of gay guys, but they’re straight-up hockey players,” Nowak said.
Gay teams in other cities have reported hearing some derogatory language from heterosexual players, but the Spin has encountered few problems in the Glacier league.
Meanwhile, gay hockey is catching on in Denver, New York, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Boston and other major cities. The New York Gay Hockey Association’s director, Jeff Kagan, prodded Jacobson into launching the Spin.
Several hundred fans from Denver’s gay and lesbian community follow a gay team that formed there. It has grown to three teams at various skill levels, offers T-shirts for a $25 booster club membership and boasts Coors Light as a corporate sponsor.
Unlike the Colorado team, the Spin lacks overwhelming support from Chicago-area gays and lesbians, in part because the team only got off the ground last July. About a dozen men attended the Spin’s game Monday.
Jacobson knows it’ll take a while for the Spin to achieve greater popularity. He said the team was grateful to land a sponsor, the Spin gay bar in Chicago.
One major test for the Spin is set for 10 p.m. Friday at the Glacier. That’s when local gays and lesbians are encouraged to attend the Spin’s fan appreciation game against the Storm.
Hockey appears to be a rarity among the growing ranks of gay and lesbian sports teams. Experts say volleyball, soccer and softball are attracting the most interest in the United States.
University of Illinois-Chicago Professor John D’Emilio, who has studied gay life in America for about 30 years, said the teams are evolving as gays and lesbians become open and seek to build a sense of community.
“In the present day, being gay is an important thing that people share,” said D’Emilio, director of UIC’s gender and women’s studies program.
D’Emilio, who last year authored “The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics and Culture,” said professional sports and the military remain the two U.S. institutions that still shun homosexuality.
However, he said, gay teams in so-called straight leagues can help affect social change.
One of the first efforts using sports occurred in San Francisco in the 1960s, D’Emilio said, when some gay men challenged police officers to a softball game. It came at a time when homosexuals were getting hassled by law-enforcement authorities in bars.