By James Scalzitt
Contributing writer
It hasn’t been an easy season for the Chicago Spin.
The team fielded by the upstart Chicago Gay Hockey Associated knocked on the door of victory many times in its first season, but not until earlier this month did the team pick up a regular win in a recreational league at Glacier Ice Arena in suburban Vernon Hills. The newbie team won 4-3 – in overtime.
In six months Spin has grown from a “sounds great” idea to a club taken seriously by its opponents.
The start of the season was a birthby fire for Spin. Barely three months old, the team went into its first game last September with a group of players who had never skated together. They faced the best squad in the league and they were defeated 9-3.
Since then, though, Spin has earned a silver medal in a Toronto hockey tournament, and, at home in the Chicago area, put two wins, a forfeit, and two ties up on the scoreboard.
Those who follow and paly hockey, like Chuck Jacobson and Andy Rogers, have an obsession unique to the sport. Neither Jacobson, a founder and president of CGHA, not Rogers, the organization’s treasurer, had played organized hockey before moving to Chicago.
Jacobson, who moved to Chicago from Ft. Wayne, Ind., in 2000, connected with the gay hockey world on the Internet, in a forum on outsports.com, where he met Jeff Kagan, directory of the New York City Gay Hockey Association. Last spring, Jacobson, at Kagan’s invitation, competed in the Chelsea Challenge, a tournament in New York City. About a dozen gay hockey organizations in Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Minneapolis/ St. Paul.
After spending the weekend with dozens of other gay hockey players in New York, Jacobson decided to start a gay organization in Chicago.
Rogers, who fell in love with hockey at Michigan State University in the 1980s, made the transition from fan to player after moving to Chicago in 1991. He took nine months of figure skating lessons – in hockey skates – and then picked up a stick and began competing.
But he was a man without a team until he met Jacobson and, in June 2002, with help from local businesses such as Voltaire, Felt, and Spin, the Chicago Gay Hockey Association was born.
Although there was an effort to get gay hockey fans and players together in Chicago about five years ago, CGHA is the first gay club to take to the ice in Chicago. Its mission is to “provide an environment free of harassment and discrimination for members and friends of the LGBT community to play ice hockey.”
CGHA has 23 members – 15 who wear the Spin sweater and skate on the competitive team and others who attend the weekly Friday night open hockey sessions to work on their skating, passing, puck-handling and shooting skills.
“Its more fun to play… (with) people you can relate to,” Jacobson said.
Spin’s men and women skate and play hard, fast and tough in a non-gay league. They may hit different post-game watering holes than players on other teams, but on the ice they’re more Bryan Trottier than Brian Boitano.
That, however, is no the perception of gay skaters. “Hockey’s still very white and still very straight,” Rogers said. “And people don’t really believe gay pleople can play hockey.”
While the victories haven’t piled up for Spine, the inaugural season has had its highlights. The team, with eight players making the trip, medaled in a divisino with three tough, established Canadian teams in the gay Toronto Friendship Tournament last October. Spin beat a Toronto team 4-2, then lost 3-0, and 4-0 to two teams from Montreal, one of whihc was put together to complete in Gay Games in Sydney Australia.
Rogers and Jacobson lauded the play of goalie Keith Halverson. “We were competitive in Toronto because of him,” Rogers said. “He’s been phenomenal… amazing. If it wasn’t for him, those two (tournament losses) would have been way out of hand.”
Rogers said Halverson has worked out with the AHL Chicago Wolves, and when NHL players went on strike, with the Chicago Blackhawks. Rogers said Halverson is one of the best goalies, gay or straight, he’s ever shared the ice with.
Jacobson said Halverson has “kept us in so many games. He’s given us a chance to win every time out there.”
Jacobson and Rogers expect in a few years to take CGHA from one team to multiple teams, putting on the ice men’s and women’s clubs in competitive, recreational divisions. The association may also send a team to 2006 Gay Games in Montreal.
“It’s going to take time,” Rogers said. “But we’re committed to the sport because we love it.”