Illini Hockey History

It was in 1956 that year that several of students on campus approached Joe Kenney, the rink manager at the time, on the subject of doing something for the hockey enthusiasts in the area. They started pickup sessions on Tuesdays and Thursday from 3:30 to 5:00 PM. Harvey Wittenberg was the sports editor of the Daily Illini in those days and put announcement notes in the paper to draw anyone that was interested to come out.  They had students and faculty join in, but no staff and no residents, they were hot and heavy in the two speed skating clubs that used the rink as their home quarters at the time.
 
It was a mixed bag of players that showed up, from the quite outstanding to the ankle-benders.  Pete Holzer from the Accounting Department in the Business School was the top notch player, a skating and stick-handling whiz.  Rumor was that he grew up in Austria and played for their national team before coming to the U.S.
 
There was still some old equipment from the varsity team that folded up in 1943 because of the war and the Athletic Department's lack of enthusiasm for having a hockey team.  Vic Heyliger, the coach for most of the varsity history, did a lot of recruiting and funding practices that didn't make him that popular but no great lose to him.  He eventually moved on to the University of Michigan and did quite well.
 
Most players brought the majority of their equipment.  The pace, skill level, and competition was at a fairly low level.  Who needs helmets, elbow, and shoulder pads?  Skates, shin guards, gloves and a cup were the basics.  Luckily Chuck Hoover had one complete set of goaltending equipment and there was almost enough from the old gear to keep the second goalie fairly safe.
 
In those days the rink was 198 feet long but 147 feet wide, a good reason to be popular with the speed skaters, but quite tiring for this caliber of players.  But they had fun and at the time Joe Kenney only charged them fifty cents each for the sessions.  He felt any revenue was better than an empty building.  The group kept the locker rooms in the basement clean and resurfaced the ice, quite a chore with the tools of that era, after their sessions so the evening skate was ready to go.
 
Naturally they only played "intersquad" orange versus blue games at the time, but that would change.
 
Doug Mills of the Athletic Department was approached for support and the team was given a 100% cold shoulder.  Those basketball guys don't realize that we shorter people like to play games too.  But with some help from Joe Kenney they did schedule two or three games during the 1956-57 season with teams from the semi-pro Illinois Ice Hockey League in Chicago.  Each was a sell-out and Joe Kenney was quite pleased because the games generated more revenue than general skating.  Naturally selling 1,100 seats on in a demographic area like Champaign-Urbana was no great challenge.  Harvey Wittenberg gave them good space in the Daily Illini and the Champaign Courier was encouraging as well.  They even had a radio interview and a short spot on the evening news on Channel 3 so there was a good deal of interest in the hockey club.
 
Harvey Wittenberg, by the way, went on to work for the Blackhawks after graduation and was their stadium PA announcer for about as long as Al Melgard played the organ there.
 
The 1957-58 season made the giant step forward.  Mr. John Morris walked into the rink during the start of the new season and wanted to sign-up in the club.  He was a graduate of a university in Maine and was now Illinois' Safety Officer.  He was probably in his forties then, maybe early fifties, and could play more than good enough.  The key things were that (1) he was motivated, (2) loved the game, (3) he was on the staff and (4) he had the time to go after the University to at least recognize the organization at the club level.  Nobody held out hope that we were anywhere near returning to varsity state.  But he did get the club recognized and was making effort to get some funding from the Illini Union if not the Athletic Association.
 
That season had another interesting aspect to it.  Pete Holzer signed-on with the Chicago Blades of the Illinois Ice Hockey League in Chicago and drove up and back through-out the season to play the Thursday night games.  He helped the Blades win the league championship that year and looked like he really enjoyed the competition despite the long "commute."  Not your every day accounting professor. 

Today, some forty seven years later, the Illini Hockey Club still continues to bring enthusiastic crowds into the Ice Arena. A lot of things have changed since the Illini Hockey club first started, all except for the players love of the game.

(A special thanks to Chuck Hoover, Class of 1958, for the insight to the beginnings of the Illini Hockey club. Chuck currently lives around the Detroit area and still attends Illini Hockey games when they are in his area.)