Ice in place of wort chiller?

I'm about to attemp my first 2 gallon brew. I have not invested in a wort chiller. Can I boil 1.25 gallons of wort an pour over .75 gallon equivalent in ice to bring the temp down. There is a lot of info scaring people about the harm of slowly reducing the wort temp. Curious if this will work in a pinch.  Thanks! Jim

The ice has the critters in it, unless you done something to sterilize it and freeze it sterilized.  You're better off, putting your boil kettle into a tub of ice water and stirring the wort slowly to get it to the outside of the boil kettle where it can transfer heat away.  Just keep adding ice, as your ice in the water batch melts causing the ice water to warm up.

Stir slowly, until you're down to about 100F.  You don't want to splash too much before you get down to 100F.  Oxygenation above 100F is bad, below 100F is really, really good!