Huntington Beach Goalie Is Honored

When Chanda Gunn asked for hockey gear on her 14th birthday, family and friends in Huntington Beach thought it was a joke. But it was no laughing matter to Gunn, who on Thursday was announced as the winner of the Honda Inspiration Award. Gunn, 24, became one of the top female hockey goalies in the nation, despite bouts with a serious illness that threatened to cut her career short. And she has been a volunteer in several community service projects.

Gunn was diagnosed with epilepsy when she was 10. Doctors ordered her to stop swimming and playing soccer, activities she liked at the time. But with medication, diet and plenty of sleep, Gunn apparently got the disease under control.

About three years later, she attended a King hockey game with her brother, Jacob, and a passion was born.

“That’s all I wanted to play,” she said. “On my birthday I asked for hockey equipment and I found out later that it was just a huge surprise to everyone. They had no idea.”

For a while, Gunn played on boys’ youth teams. By the time she was 16, she had been picked for a traveling women’s all-star team. She graduated from Huntington Beach High in 1999 and earned a scholarship to play at Wisconsin.

But seven games into her freshman season with the Badgers, Gunn began having epileptic seizures. She was hospitalized for a month and didn’t get back on the ice. On the day she was set to return to Wisconsin for 2000 fall practice, the Badgers told her they didn’t want her back.

“I was all packed up and ready to go,” she said. “The coach said she didn’t think it was in the best interests of the program having me back.”

Gunn got on the telephone to find a college that would take her. There weren’t many.

“I had been very unhealthy,” she said. “It was known that I was not welcome back to Wisconsin. Most coaches steered away from that.”

Northeastern Coach Heather Linstad, now at Connecticut, took a chance.After a year as a backup, Gunn established herself on and off the ice. This season, she was chosen a first-team All-American and co-most valuable player of Hockey East. She led the nation with a .938 save percentage and was 10th with a 1.94 goals-against average.

She is Northeastern’s all-time leader in save percentage and saves (244).

Gunn said she has been healthy for nearly four years and in April played for Team USA in the World Games in Nova Scotia. She is considered a candidate for the 2006 U.S. Olympic team.

“The bigger the game, the bigger the challenge, the better Chanda plays,” Husky assistant Michael Cox told the Northeastern News.

“That’s why I think we’ll see her in the Olympics.”

Gunn received the 2004 Humanitarian Award, presented to college hockey’s finest citizen, for her volunteer efforts.

“She’s active in every single community service program we have and I think she’s probably invented several of those,” Northeastern Athletic Director Dave O’Brien said.

Gunn, who intends to graduate next May, looks upon on her college playing days with mixed feelings.

“It was quite a turbulent four years,” she said. “It was not easy at all, but it ended up working out.”