After being iced for years, ladies’s hockey groups in the end lace up at Maccabiah Video games
For the primary time within the historical past of the Maccabiah Video games, ladies’s ice hockey is at the program, thank you largely to the decision of 1 particular person: Chelsey Goldberg.
9 years after she first tried to play along her dual brother, Chad, at the males’s hockey staff, however was once rebuffed, Goldberg succeeded in carving a trail for girls’s ice hockey on the “Jewish Olympics.”
“I’m so proud to be Jewish, and I feel after seeing my dual brother compete in two video games [in 2013 and 2017], and simply listening to the revel in he had and the tales he got here house with, it’s an excessively particular feeling with the ability to supply my spiritual background and my athletic background [to the Games],” Goldberg mentioned at a panel previous to the hole rite.
Goldberg has already solidified herself as some of the preeminent Jewish feminine ice hockey gamers as of late. In 2020, she was once elected to the Southern California Jewish Sports activities Corridor of Reputation, striking her along the likes of Corridor of Reputation pitcher Sandy Koufax, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz, and 2006 Olympic silver medal winner Sasha Cohen.
Along her prowess within the rink, Goldberg has additionally develop into a casual historian of types, monitoring Jewish feminine Jewish hockey gamers from around the globe. She even compiled an Excel spreadsheet of the ones gamers she comes throughout.
“I imagine I’m happening 72 strains now,” Goldberg mentioned, including that she hopes to stay that quantity rising.
Looking for to in the end make the ladies’s festival a truth, Goldberg contacted Devra Schorr, who serves because the ice hockey co-chair for Maccabi USA. In combination, Goldberg mentioned, they tag-teamed the mission, elevating consciousness via social media and attaining out to any feminine Jewish ice hockey gamers they may to find.
Chelsey Goldberg. (Screenshot/Twitter)
“The most important problem was once simply the hobby to start out. That’s what I had to end up to everybody, to exhibit that there are sufficient feminine hockey gamers that may play,” Goldberg informed The Instances of Israel. “That’s why it’s been any such lengthy procedure, as a result of I want to display Maccabi that I may box no less than 3 groups.”
Goldberg in the end succeeded in forming 3 ladies’s ice hockey groups for those video games, representing america, Canada and Israel.
“Step one was once getting sufficient hobby, and when we may end up we had sufficient hobby around the board, then it was once more straightforward to get hockey right here,” Goldberg added.
Chelsey Goldberg (R), captain of the Maccabi USA ladies’s ice hockey staff, posing for a photograph. (Screenshot/Twitter)
Even males’s ice hockey has now not all the time been a part of the Video games. In 2013, the yr her brother first took to the ice in Israel, the game were reinstated after a 16-year hiatus. Whilst discovering ice within the wasteland would appear to be a Sisyphean effort, Goldberg says that Israel has stepped up their sport with regards to its ice hockey amenities.
“I’ve been tremendous inspired thus far,” Goldberg mentioned. “The ice was once improbable, all of us felt nice, it gave the look of that they had all of the fundamentals you want.” She even discussed that the Pais Enviornment in Jerusalem reminded her of an NHL rink.
Goldberg mentioned she was once blown away by way of the sure reaction she’s gained and the comradery that has been established between the gamers.
“I feel that’s so robust, and simply with the ability to meet such a lot of different Jewish athletes which can be combating for a similar factor and feature the similar objective in thoughts, it’s only a surreal feeling,” she mentioned.
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Replace: The Maccabi USA ladies’s ice hockey staff received its first fit in opposition to Israel, 11-0, on Wednesday. It’s going to play Canada two times, on July 18 and 20, and can play Israel yet again, on July 19. The general, which is prone to characteristic the American and Canadian groups, is about to happen on July 22 at 10 a.m. All of the video games are going down on the Pais Enviornment in Jerusalem.
