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Matt Hennie blogs on Atlanta’s gay sports scene at www.gaytlsports.com.
FRIDAY, JAN. 18
Atlanta Rainbow Trout, Swimming and Water Polo Practice, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center. www.atlantarainbowtrout.com
Hotlanta Volleyball League, Recreational Open Play, Agnes Scott College. www.hotlantavolleyball.org
Friends Friday Bowling League, League Play, Midtown Bowl. www.friendsfriday.org
SATURDAY, JAN. 19
Atlanta Team Tennis Association, Open Play Doubles, Glenlake Tennis Center. www.atta.org
SUNDAY, JAN. 20
Atlanta Rainbow Trout, Swimming and Water Polo Practice, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.
Atlanta Team Tennis Association, Sunday Morning Drills, Glenlake Tennis Center.
Lambda Bowling League, Midtown Bowl. www.igbo.org/leagues/League_Detail.cfm?LID=85
TUESDAY, JAN. 22
Atlanta Bucks Rugby Football Club, Practice, Sammye Coan Middle School. www.atlantabucksrugby.org
Atlanta Rainbow Trout, Swimming and Water Polo Practice, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.
Hotlanta Volleyball League, Intermediate and Advanced Open Play, Agnes Scott College.
Atlas Atlanta Bowling League, Midtown Bowl. www.igbo.org/leagues/League_Detail.cfm?LID=78
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23
Decatur Women’s League Bowling, League Play, Suburban Lanes in Decatur. 404-210-4722, annebarr30345@gmail.com
Hotlanta Soccer League, Winter Season Play, Silverbacks Park. www.hotlantasoccer.com
THURSDAY, JAN. 24
Atlanta Bucks Rugby Football Club, Practice, Sammye Coan Middle School.
Atlanta Rainbow Trout, Swimming Practice, Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.
Decatur Women’s Basketball, League Play, Decatur High School Gym.
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HOME > COMMUNITY > SPORTS
By: MATT HENNIE
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The ripple effect of the city of Atlanta booting large-scale festivals from its parks, along with the threat of additional restrictions on the use of athletic fields, is being felt by several gay sports organizations.
The new restrictions, announced last week and brought on by the state’s long-running drought, booted Atlanta Pride from Piedmont Park and the date of the event to July 4-6 rather than June 22-24. That’s left a handful of sports groups scrambling to figure out if the events they hold during Atlanta Pride will move with the festival or stay scheduled for late June.
For Eileen Stone, who organizes the annual Best Ball golf tournament on the traditional Pride weekend, unrelenting heat during July may prompt her to hold the event earlier in June. The tournament raises about $2,000 for the Atlanta Feminist Women’s Chorus and attracts about 50 participants.
“Golf in the summer time is brutal – it just gets so hot,” Stone said. “If I’m not going to hook it to Pride, it makes sense to move it up earlier.”
Front Runners Atlanta is taking a wait and see approach. For 17 years, the gay running group has attracted hundreds of people to a 3.1-mile run and walk in Grant Park during Pride. While the event seems safe from the city’s new park restrictions, organizers are concerned about moving it and competing with the Peachtree Road Race, held July 4, or going later into the summer, when temperatures could go even higher.
“We’re still trying to figure it out,” said Mike Spencer, the event’s sponsorship director and a former president of the running group. “It takes months to put our run together.”
Last June, the Atlanta Bucks Rugby Football Club held its first-ever Southern Fried 7’s Rugby Tournament, which drew eight teams from as far away as Nashville and North Carolina. The club was planning to skip the event this year to make room on their schedule for the Rugby World Cup in mid-June. But because Pride hasa different date, the Bucks may reconsider hosting the tournament this year, according to Bullet Manale, the club’s president.
“It’s a possibility,” Manale said. “We’ll just have to see...We had a really good response for the tournament.”
Other sports organizations — the National Flag Football League of Atlanta, Hotlanta Soccer Association and Hotlanta Softball League — could face problems if organized sports are banned from athletic fields in the parks, a move city officials said last week that they are considering. All three groups use fields at Piedmont.
“We are just holding our breath,” said Thurman Williams, the president of the flag football league, which opens its spring season in March. “We’re not really excluded and not really included in the city guidelines.
We’re not sure where we stand.”
Atlanta’s vibrant gay dance scene steps into the spotlight this weekend with a three-day event from Hotlanta Squares. “Promenade Down Peachtree VI” is expected to draw about 120 dancers from across the Southeast for non-stop square dancing.
“It’s a big social event,” said Kent Tolleson, a Hotlanta Squares member who is organizing the event. “We don’t compete for anything. A lot of the weekend is surrounded by socialization, food and dancing.”
And dance they do – about 18 hours beginning Friday evening and running through Sunday afternoon, all for a $95 registration fee. The event leads into the group’s open house on Jan. 28 and the start of a 12-week training session for gay men and lesbians who want to learn square dancing.
“This is our big deal weekend,” Tolleson said.
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