Covering hockey, rowing, softball and many other sports, there are the top local LGBT-related sports events of the year.
1. Brent Sopel and the Stanley Cup join the Chicago Gay Hockey Association (CGHA) float in the annual Chicago Pride Parade.
2. Gay Games VIII is held in Cologne, Germany, and about 125 Chicagoans participate.
3. The AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) launches Team To End AIDS (T2), an endurance-training program for marathons and triathlons. About 225 T2 runners complete the annual Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October, and about $700,000 was raised for AFC by T2 runners.
4. Diversity wins: Club Escape Phoenix won the C2 Division of the annual Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association (CMSA) Open Division softball league. Club Escape is one of the only South Side sponsors for a CMSA softball team, and the team is league's only predominantly African-American team—14 African Americans, three whites and one Hispanic.
5. Shawn Albritton elected new president of CMSA, replacing Marcia Hill.
6. Ted Cappas named president of the five-person executive board for the Chicago organizing committee of the 2011 Gay Softball World Series.
7. The Chicago Rowing Union celebrates its fifth anniversary with trophies: CRU's competitive team won first-place in June at a regatta in Grand Rapids, Mich. The group also shined at an October event in Rockford, Ill.
8. New CMSA leagues launched: Women's fall softball, women's-only soccer (spring and fall), an over-50 (predominantly male) softball, and basketball (men's and women's).
9. CMSA softball, kickball, men's dodgeball, open volleyball and beach volleyball hit capacity record levels.
10. Chicago Smart Aces finished second in C-Division in the annual women's ASANA Gay Softball World Series, held in Las Vegas.
11. Three Chicago teams advanced to the semifinals at the annual Chicago Pride Bowl (A-Division) flag football tournament.
12. Sportsmanship winners: Greg Place was named the James R. Brody award-winner for CMSA's open division softball; he plays for the Hamburger Mary's Chargers and also coaches a D2 team. Bobby Hull won the sportsmanship award for men's flag football. Pat Krug won the Angie Oldham Award for women's flag football.
13. Deaths: Rich Essig, a 2008 inductee into the CMSA Hall of Fame. Jamie Moravec, who participated in volleyball, flag football and bowling. Rupert Serrano, who played volleyball.
14. Chicago Force makes playoffs again; joins new league, the Women's Football Alliance (WFA) for the 2011 season.
15. Chicago sends two teams to the annual Gay Bowl flag football tournament in Phoenix. The Chicago Freeze (5-1) finished in fifth-place in the 26-team event, while the Chicago Blaze (3-3) finished in eighth.
16. Chicago sends five teams to the annual Gay Softball World Series in Columbus, Ohio, including the city's first representative in years in the top-tiered A-Division. No Chicago team finished among the top four in any of the four divisions.
17. Peter Meyer elected to the Gay Softball World Series Hall of Fame.
18. Ernie Banks represents the Chicago Cubs and rides on the team's first-ever float in the annual Chicago Pride Parade.
19. Softball success: The Green Team Properties/Gotcha Covered Blinds G-Force of Chicago captured the C-Division championship July 3-4 in the annual Minuteman Classic gay softball tournament in Boston, Mass. The Sidetrack Blues won a Labor Day weekend tournament in Montreal.
20. Floor hockey and bowling part ways with CMSA.
Top 5 LGBT sporting events of 2010:
1. Kye Allums, 21, a George Washington University junior, became the first openly transgender male basketball player in Division I women's basketball.
2. Gay umpire Billy Van Rapphorst endures anti-gay tirade from Brent Bowers, the manager of the Edmonton Capitals in a professional baseball game. Bowers was born in suburban Oak Lawn, Ill., and resigned from the team days after the much-publicized run-in.
3. Pro wrestling news: Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling launched the charismatic and controversial character of openly bi-sexual Orlando Jordan. Openly gay wrestler Chris "Kanyon" Klucsaritis committed suicide in April. TNA Wrestling launches "Eliminate The Hate," an anti-bully campaign.
4. International rugby sensation Gareth Thomas comes out; Sports Illustrated even covers this sports sensation.
5. Indiana University makes histor by hosting LGBT Day at an October football game against Northwestern.
