The scoreboard was unused and not illuminated to keep track of goals at a Feb. 3 scrimmage on the outdoor ice rink at the Weinberg Family Recreation Center in Glencoe.
But so what? At first, members of the Glencoe Bantam All-Stars 1974-1975 state championship season youth ice hockey team kept count.
Then, after a few tumbles on slippery ice, including a flat-on-the-back fall by Glencoe All-Stars Coach Jim Baird of Glencoe that left icy dust on the back of his red jersey, what hockey players counted on was knowing they were off dry land for a magical spell before maybe another rude awakening spill.
Just the fact that they were here, in Glencoe, at these satellite coordinates, on this piece of North Shore ice, was a score in itself.
These former championship players, now in their 60s, played ice hockey at a 50-year reunion to pay tribute to their coach Jim Baird, aged 80 plus.
Many recall growing up playing bumpy pond-like ice hockey at this location when the field was purposefully flooded in winter so folks could ice skate.
“We literally grew up playing here, our whole little kid life, when we were children when it was not even an artificial rink,” said Glencoe Bantam All-Stars 1974-1975 championship season player Mark Chudacoff of Glencoe, of the New Trier East High School Class of 1978. “All of us grew up playing house league hockey here.”
Chudacoff went on to call the reunion an emotional moment.
Jim Ginsburg of Glencoe, Glencoe Bantam All-Stars 1974-1975 championship season team captain, helped to plan the 50-year reunion. Friends were recruited to play on the opposite scrimmage team. The Bantam All-Stars wore red jerseys with their youth numbers and ultimately ended up winning the match.
Ginsburg recalled when the village created the travelling hockey program as part of its initiative to build a better ice rink.
“They had different age groups,” Ginsburg said, with the Glencoe All-Stars team representing the oldest group. “Glencoe was a small town and had many teams that did not fare well in travel hockey.”
Despite this, the team would go on to win the 1974-75 state championship in the silver division.
“It was a freak year in that we had a talented group even though the program was drawing from a very small population,” Ginsburg added. “A number of us went on to play hockey at New Trier the following years.”
Ginsburg said the Glencoe program combined with Winnetka a few years later.
“So, to this day, our team is the only Glencoe state hockey champions,” Ginsburg said.
Seeing former teammates on Feb. 3 caused Ginsburg to feel that the, “heart’s full, life’s short, life’s great, it’s great to see all your buddies from way back when. You can never replace the friendships you make when you’re young.”
The Illinois Amateur Hockey Association AA state tournament bantam division had a bracket with teams from Highland Park, Naperville, Schaumburg, Carol Stream, Westmont, Rolling Meadows and Glenview. In 1975, Glencoe’s team of teen boys defeated a highly rated team from Crestwood at a Naperville ice arena to win the state championship.
The Glencoe All-Stars also played teams that season from Evanston, Niles, Deerfield, Winnetka, Wilmette, Skokie, Lake Forest, Northbrook and Kenosha.
Nearly 50 years later, Coach Baird posed for a team photo on Glencoe ice with former team manager/assistant coach Bud Schwarzbach, 89, a 53-year Glencoe resident.
Schwarzbach said of that championship season, “These guys were the wildest guys. It really was a lot of fun.”
About 75% of the team attended the reunion. Many recognized each other immediately or offered names as hints as they greeted each other that night upon entering the makeshift locker room.
“Oh, these guys…are you kidding me?” Baird said shortly before the team took the ice. “They’re wonderful and it’s so exciting for me.”
Looking back to the championship game, “When we won, they celebrated and I was just crying like a baby…yeah, just crying like a baby,” Baird said. “It was so exciting, such a thrill.”
Chudacoff said Baird was the best coach the team ever had.
“He drove us very hard and he taught us, hard work pays off and that became a motto for me.” Chudacoff also, “learned from him (Baird), quitters never win and winners never quit. I still think about this team. I never stop thinking about it.”
All-Stars player Steven “Rosie” Rosenstein of Scottsdale, Arizona and graduate of the New Trier West High School Class of 1978, flew in for the reunion.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Rosie said.
The Bantam All-Stars typewritten team roster shows Rosenstein as the only player from Wilmette with one other player from Winnetka. All the rest were from Glencoe.
“It’s surreal, yeah, it’s surreal for all of us,” Rosenstein said of walking into the ice center and recognizing faces not seen for decades. Hugs, fist bumps and slaps on the back produced smiles.
“Even just getting off the Dundee (road highway) exit and just reminiscing,” was special, Rosenstein said. “We were kids, mischief makers, hockey players.”
Bantam All-Stars player Dan Larkin of Lake Barrington grew up in Glencoe three blocks from Watts Park.
Larkin wore a helmet retrofitted with the original guard mask worn as a player during the Glencoe Bantam All-Stars 1974-1975 state championship season.
What was it like to be back on Watts Glencoe ice with All-Stars athletes?
“It’s fantastic,” Larkin said. “We call this the Rink of Dreams.”
Karie Angell Luc is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.
