Published 2006-09-19T00:00:00Z”/>

Chelsea Accursi

The men’s inline hockey team is used to playing in San Jose, Los Angeles and Redding against teams such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Berkeley and UC Davis, but the only action the team will see this year will be from inside Cal Skate Chico against other teams in the adult “A” league.

At the end of last year, the team owed money to Cal Skate for using its rink. The team hadn’t collected enough dues to pay Cal Skate, so recreational sports had to foot the $1,000 bill, said senior Paul Burrows, the club’s president.

“We used money intended for other programs to pay their debts,” said rec sports Director Mary Wallmark. “We had to protect our club reputation as a whole.”

Because of this, the team was not re-recognized by the university this season.

The team has suffered leadership and money problems the last two years. Two of the team captains left midseason last year, and Burrows and team captain Mike Quane took on what was a troubled team, Burrows said.

“Everything had been paid for first semester,” Burrows said. “Then second semester, we took over, and there was no money.”

This also had something to do with the fact that the team’s funding had been cut by the school that year from $5,000 to $2,500, Burrows said.

“League dues alone are $2,500,” he said. “The rest we had to pay in dues or out of pocket.”

That includes equipment, jerseys, practice fees and traveling money.

Even though the men won’t have a chance to compete in their league for another year, it’s not stopping them from playing hockey.

The returning men and a few newcomers – all of them Chico State students – play in the adult league at Cal Skate. In a league where a lot of players are much younger than the Chico State players and where entire teams don’t show up for games, the players are less

than thrilled.

“It’s boring to be honest,” Quane said. “It’s four to five steps down in skill level, and a lot of kids won’t even play because it’s not challenging.”

Junior Blayne Schmidt agreed.

“It’s sloppy hockey,” he said.

The team attempted to re-establish university recognition for this year, but that won’t be possible,

Wallmark said.

“I suggested that at the end of this year, when they have the opportunity to apply for recognition, to have a plan ready,” Wallmark said. “They’ll have to make a good case because the reputations of all our clubs ride on

their shoulders.”

At the same time, Wallmark isn’t going to punish the newer team members for past mistakes. Newer members deserve a clean slate and shouldn’t suffer the consequences for other team members’ actions, especially when they had no part in those actions, she said.

“We did screw up, but we’re trying to fix it,” Burrows said.

Quane, who will graduate in spring, had hoped to get the team more organized this season and more involved with the school in order to recruit players. He planned to get involved in fundraising and pursuing sponsorships to ease the sport’s expenses,

he said.

All the team can do this season is play in the adult league and maybe raise money to go to adult tournaments or exhibition games. But most of the players can’t wait to get back into more-competitive play

next year.

“I’d like to say that it’s more that we love to play hockey and it’s not about playing for Chico State,” Burrows said. “But playing with a Chico jersey on feels so good.”

Chelsea Accursi can be reached at

<a href= “mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a>