Bravery takes many forms, and on Sunday mornings at a near-empty ice rink on Chicago’s West Side, it assumes the shapes of part-time burlesque artist Ali Lawrence, general contractor Stephen Spargur and Cook County Circuit Judge Diana Kenworthy.
They are all north of 30 years old. Until very recently, they did not know how to skate. Now they want to learn to play hockey.
Blame in part the Chicago Blackhawks.
“I started following hockey more and the Hawks were doing really well,” said Lawrence, who performs as a dancer with the name “Lady Ali Mode” in the Dirty Birds and Better Boobie Bureau troupes. Her day job is graphic designer. “I fell in love with it, and I’m the kind of person that if I really like something, I want to be involved in it. So, I decided: Why not give it a shot?”
Lawrence and about three dozen others give it a shot with Hockey 101, a popular class at Johnny’s Icehouse tailored specifically for adults who have never skated and want to learn the game.
Johnny’s started offering the class in 2008 and received a meager response. Then the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010 and interest exploded, instructor and coach Ken Rzepecki said.
Now the class is full about 15 minutes after registration opens, he said. A waiting list Rzepecki estimates at more than 20 all but guarantees that the class has a promising future.
So, apparently, does hockey. Participation in the sport is rising.
In Illinois, nearly 30,000 players were registered last year with USA Hockey, the national governing body for hockey in the U.S., up from almost 22,000 a decade earlier.
Nationwide, nearly 520,000 players were registered with USA Hockey last year. Twenty years ago, that number was barely over 300,000. Female participation also is on the rise. The organization reported that more than 67,000 female players were registered across the country in 2013-14, up from about 14,000 in 1993-94.
A major factor in that growth was the addition of National Hockey League franchises in nontraditional places such as Florida and California in the 1990s, said Pat Kelleher, USA Hockey’s assistant executive director of development. That expansion “fueled a rink boom” in those regions, which sparked intense marketing of the sport.
Fan interest may be heating up as quickly as participation. Game 7 of the Blackhawks-Anaheim Ducks Western Conference championship series drew the highest overnight rating for any National Hockey League telecast, excluding the Stanley Cup Final, since NBC began televising pro hockey in 2005, according to Sports Media Watch.
During Hockey 101, the Blackhawks’ presence is palpable and yet as distant as Pluto.
The United Center stands six blocks away, and the Hawks practice on the rink where the class is conducted on Sunday mornings all year long. On the east wall, in large numbers, are each of the five years the team has won the Stanley Cup, and the ice bears the Blackhawks emblem.
Only three people watched from the bleachers on Sunday, but grit, albeit wobbly, was evident among the 30 adults who took to the ice at 9 a.m. When they came off the ice, most were drenched in sweat.
“I give them a lot of credit,” said Rzepecki, 62, a hockey lifer who began coaching after a knee injury cut short his career in professional development leagues and semipro organizations at 21. “To come out here and try to learn to play this game at their age, God bless them that they put themselves through it.”
He said the only problem that “a lot of them find out pretty quickly, it’s not as easy as the Blackhawks make it look.” All the athleticism, hand-eye coordination, speed and action that the Blackhawks display at the very highest level is accomplished by navigating the ice while balancing on two blades, each about an eighth of an inch wide, Rzepecki said.
In addition to the physical rigors and dangers of the game, Rzepecki notes that playing hockey requires lightning quick strategic thinking.
“Hockey,” he said, “is like playing chess at 25 miles an hour.”
During a break from class, Kenworthy, the 46-year-old judge, said her two teenage sons play hockey and her husband, after playing for years, coaches the sport. In addition, their daughter is a figure skater. Being the only family member off the ice motivated her to enroll in Hockey 101 in September, Kenworthy said.
It has been humbling.
“I think I spent the first two weeks apologizing to my boys for all the times I sat in the stands (and shouted) ‘skate harder, skate faster; how did you miss that?'” she said.
Her previous participation in team sports amounted to cheerleading, she said, and those skills did not transfer well to the ice.
“I was just horrific,” Kenworthy said, “but it’s also the most fun I’ve had being so bad at something. It is so much fun.”
Kenworthy said she now watches Blackhawks games and shouts instructions at the TV.
“My son’s like, ‘I’m sorry mom. How long have you been playing?'” Kenworthy said.
Like Rzepecki and Kenworthy, Spargur said the Blackhawks’ success in recent years ignited a spark that prompted him to act on his lifelong interest in hockey.
Spargur, 48, of Chicago, said he watched last year’s team lose a heartbreaking Western Conference championship to the Los Angeles Kings, “and I was feeling badly that I’ll never get to play and I was like, I could at least buy some skates.”
He did, then started skating at McFetridge Sports Center in California Park. After his confidence grew, Spargur said, he enrolled in Hockey 101 and joined a league.
The hardest part, he said, is “letting my ego and the shame be put aside” and being humble.
“It’s just a place to get out on the ice and everything else is gone,” Spargur said, smiling while sitting out a few minutes during class. Sweat dripped from his graying hair. “It’s a great place to exercise and forget about everything else that may or may not be going great, and do something different for an hour.”
The class began with Rzepecki directing the participants to skate the oval while lifting their hockey sticks above their head, then behind their backs and twisting at the waist. Next was skating while holding and flipping the sticks in each hand.
Then drills started. Students skated the length of the ice, jumping over the blue line, an activity that produced a few tumbles and staggers. That drill was followed by what Rzepecki called “biscuit time,” when he told players to skate up and down the rink while controlling the puck.
Apart from the exhaustion and humiliation of learning the game, students in Hockey 101 pay a class fee of $225. Gear, including helmet, shoulder and elbow pads and shin guards, can total $400 per player.
Class typically wraps up with a scrimmage, which on Sunday morning ended with a 1-0 score on a last-second goal. Lawrence, the winning goalie, came off the ice beaming.
She recalled falling 30 or 40 times on her first day of class about 18 months earlier and, more recently, taking a puck shot in the stomach, which left a nasty bruise that required makeup for her dance performances. The most difficult part of the class, she said, is knowing what you want to do and being unable to do it.
But she said she doesn’t mind failing and takes inspiration from a sign on a wall that reads, “Don’t judge those who try and fail. Judge only those who fail to try.”
Besides, Lawrence said, the class helped expand her friend group and burlesque repertoire. She now has a Blackhawks-themed performance.
Twitter @tgregoryreports
