THEY SHOOT, THEY SCORE

Travis Lubinsky of Irvine is jazzed that he’ll be able to letter in roller hockey, his favorite sport. To him, it’s a mere footnote that roller hockey will remain an unrecognized sport by the California Interscholastic Federation, which regulates high school sports.

“Starting this year, we can letter in high school,” said the 12-year-old Lubinsky. “That’s pretty cool, because we’ll get our picture in the yearbooks.”

His mother led a contingent of Irvine parents who trailblazed a temporary solution to the CIF mandate that new sports will not be considered until 2002. To circumvent the CIF’s block, roller hockey in the Irvine Unified School District will be a “club sport,” a new category that allows all the perks of a school club, including lettering and yearbook photos.

Schools across the Southland are responding to the rabid interest in roller hockey by integrating it into physical education curricula and officially carving out new club-sport status.

The leader of the Irvine campaign was Lesli Lubinsky, commissioner of the Orange County Interscholastic Hockey Federation, a volunteer organization formed in the summer of 1996 to serve as a governing body in lieu of the CIF.

Her goal: for all 50 roller hockey teams in the county, with more than 600 kids participating, to win club-sport designation in their schools.

“If CIF truly needs this period of time to reorganize and do administrative work, I can respect that, but I don’t feel the children should be shortchanged because of it,” said Lubinsky. “We can provide a vehicle that may not be CIF but will give the children a sense of school pride and belonging.”

Cindy Power of Lake Forest, who is on the board of directors for the Interscholastic Hockey Federation, requested that the Saddleback Valley Unified School District follow Lubinsky’s blueprint within the Irvine District. Trustees will discuss the possibility of a club-sport hockey status in an October meeting.

According to Dean Crowley, commissioner of athletics for the Southern Section of the CIF, the moratorium on new sports isn’t specific to roller hockey. The CIF also has been pressured about equestrian, fencing and crew teams.

An overarching concern for the CIF is about the escalating costs of high school athletic programs, said Crowley, citing the cost of travel, bus transportation, safety concerns and the price of uniforms and equipment.

Insurance and liability issues are also a concern with roller hockey, an activity that can get physically rough.

One downside of the club-sport status for families is that roller hockey teams will receive no school funding and all costs must be defrayed by the parents. With CIF-backing, money is earmarked for the sport and facilities are provided. Roller hockey uniforms, including skates, pads, a helmet, jerseys, pants and a hockey stick, can cost $500 to $800.

The push for roller hockey recognition started on an individual school basis, but it was ultimately more efficient for the Interscholastic Hockey Federation to lobby at the district level, Lubinsky said.

“The majority of principals won’t stick their neck out and take on a new activity. They don’t want to take on any more administrative costs nor do they want to be held liable for any accidents,” she said. “We were making absolutely no inroads whatsoever, so we decided to go above the heads of the principals.”

Peter Hartman, superintendent of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, predicts that the district will approve the club-sport status next month, despite some lingering concerns.

“The bigger question is: How many sports can you accommodate at a high school?” he said. “For a number of years, we tried to bring equality throughout our girls’ and boys’ sports. Then we had these big budget cutbacks.”

Crowley said the CIF does, in fact, support Lubinsky’s efforts. “For the time being, the club-sport status is a good solution,” he said. “The districts are trying to meet the needs of the young people in their communities.”

The burgeoning roller hockey craze in Southern California happened in tandem with the in-line skating boom of the early ‘90s, according to Mark Brown, editor and publisher of Roller Hockey Magazine based in Los Angeles.

“The weather here is perfect for it,” said Brown. “It was a natural merge because of all the in-line skating. Put a stick in their hands and the kids took to the streets and started playing roller hockey.”

Hartman said that, in the end, the cacophony of kids and parents demanding recognition for roller hockey at the school level has become too loud to ignore.

“The kids are really driving the growth of the sport,” said Brown. “They love it . . . and kids of any size can play and be successful.”

For Ryan Cummings of Lake Forest, the groundswell of local support and district support still comes too late for him to earn a letter.

“We’ve been pushing for this for years,” said Cummings, a senior and captain of the El Toro High School varsity team in the Saddleback district. “Now I’m more into it for the little guys, because it’s too late for me.”