|
Welcome to the Saint Ignatius Hockey home page. For additional
information on the Hockey program, please contact head coach Joe Gotfryd at joe.gotfryd@ignatius.org
|
Introduction
Ice hockey celebrates its tenth season as a club sport at Saint Ignatius. The hockey
program has grown in skill and numbers and now includes both Varsity and Junior
Varsity schedules. The Varsity team enters its third season as a member of the prestigious
and highly competitive Chicago Catholic Hockey League. The Wolfpack varsity home
games are played at Johnny’s Ice House West located at 2550 West Madison Street
in Chicago. Johnny’s West is less than 15 minutes from the Saint Ignatius campus.
This season the JV Pack will compete in the Chicago Catholic Hockey JV League, playing
their games primarily at Southwest Ice Arena in Crestwood. Both teams’ schedules
are posted in the side bar section on this page. The Wolfpack will also compete
in the Culver Cup Tournament in Madison, Wisconsin over Christmas break as well
as the Kennedy Cup and the Blackhawk Cup end-of-season tournaments. The JV team
will then compete in the spring Chicago Catholic Hockey JV League hosted at Southwest
Ice Arena.
History of Ice Hockey
According to the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia; “the history of
ice hockey is one of the most contested in all of sports. The city of Montreal had
been traditionally credited with being the birthplace of hockey, but early paintings
contest this claim; 16th-century Dutch paintings show a number of townsfolk playing
a hockey-like game on frozen canals.” In the 18th-century, English and French
speaking Canadians strapped cheese cutters to their boots and played an early version
of hockey during the long winters.
The first ever organized indoor game was played in Montreal on March 3, 1875. McGill
University students became enthusiasts and developed the first formal rules in 1877.
The famous Stanley Cup originated in 1888 when the governor general of Canada, Lord
Stanley of Preston thought there should be a trophy for the best team. One of Lord
Stanley’s sons introduced the sport into the United States. Houghton, Michigan
was the birthplace of professional ice hockey in this country when the Portage Lakers
were formed in 1899. The National Hockey League (NHL) dates to November 1917.
Ice hockey is now one of the fastest growing women’s sports in the world reports
Wikipedia. The number of participants has increased 400 percent in the past ten
years. The Ignatius Hockey Club is pleased to have sophomore Moira Scanlon, one
of the top young women players in the region as a member.
The sport is now played in many countries around the world and is among the most
hotly contested events at the Winter Olympics. In 1980, the underdog United States
team led by coach Herb Brooks defeated the mighty Soviet team in what has been called
the “Miracle on Ice”. This victory launched amateur hockey on a new
growth curve in the U.S.
Ice hockey is a unique sport requiring extraordinary skating ability coupled with
great skill at the game. It is arguably the fastest of the non-mechanized, non-animal
assisted sports. Hockey is also an extremely physical game requiring tremendous
stamina, strength, speed and skill. Most players begin to develop their skating
ability at a very young age, often before they are five years old. Hockey skills
come later and include stick handling, passing, checking, positioning and team work.
Although superstars exist at the professional level, ice hockey is truly a team
sports building physical and mental skills in young men and women.