Ray of hope for Barrington hockey team

The threat to Barrington High School’s long affiliation with a local hockey club at first seemed to grow Tuesday night when school district officials revealed they had legal liability concerns as well as financial ones.

But Barrington Unit District 220 board members and parents resolved to work together to try to overcome them both.

Discussion of the hockey program arose when the $3,647 cost of high school liaisons to the local boys and girls hockey teams was proposed to be part of $2 million in budget cuts the district is seeking due to economic and state-funding uncertainties.

Hockey, like lacrosse, is not a recognized high school sport in the state of Illinois, but rather a local club sport to which some schools have established an affiliation.

In fact, hockey is in some ways less recognized than lacrosse, which is now considered an emerging sport by the Illinois High School Association and is more often played on actual school property.

When parents learned of the possible severing of the connection between Barrington High School and the Barrington Broncos Hockey Club last week, they offered to find a way to pay for the liaisons themselves.

But in consulting with the district’s legal counsel and insurance company, administrators were advised against any show of support for the club that could result in legal liability for the district.

Among 32 comparable school districts, most had no affiliation with a local hockey club and only three offered some form of financial support to a hockey program, admininistrators reported.

Nevertheless, several board members expressed strong interest in finding a way to maintain the high school’s affiliation with the hockey team if parents were willing to be partners in that effort.

Board President Brian Battle said he realized that attorneys’ advice to their clients will always be to minimize their liability.

The board suggested a thorough discussion between interested parents and administrators to see if a legal document could be forged indemnifying the school of any liability in its association with the hockey team.

Though that work remains to be done, most parents left Tuesday’s meeting encouraged by what they saw as a positive first step.

“Why has it worked so far?” parent Mary Jo Kunzmann said of the long association between the school and team. “I feel like there has to be a solution. There has to be some way to keep the lawyers happy and allow the players to feel like they’re playing for their school.”

The matter is hoped to be resolved by March 15, when the board will vote on its selected budget cuts.

The board’s discussion of potential cuts will continue at 7:30 p.m. March 1 in the gym of Station Middle School at 215 Eastern Ave. in Barrington.