What does Gay Hockey mean to me?

When I started writing this I wasn’t certain, but I figured it out by the end.

I’m straight.  When I was younger, in my early to mid twenties, I identified as Bi, but in hindsight that’s not the case.  When I was in the dorms my first two years of college I was the only non-homophobic straight guy on my floor.  My freshman year, I was actually outed as Gay by the other straight guys because in Des Moines Iowa in 1985 not being homophobic meant you had to be Gay.  And honestly, it didn’t bother me to be thought of as Gay because I liked my friends that were, and most of the straight guys I knew at the time were dicks.

And, the fact is that the notion of being attracted sexually to another man doesn’t disgust me or freak me out or threaten me.  As far as I can recall, that’s always been true.  So, when I was much younger, my own ignorance, and the ignorance and bigotry in my surroundings, led me conclude that since I knew I liked women “that way” and could at least understand liking men “that way” as well, I must be Bi.

So, I can’t really say that my four years in the MGHA has led me to any deeper understanding or connection to the Gay community in Madison.  I have more friends now that happen to be Gay, because the MGHA has led me to meet more Gay people than I have in one place before, but I don’t have any particular insight into or understanding of the Gay community because of it.  I have some relatively new really great friends that have enriched my life tremendously, at least one of whom is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and I’m grateful for that.

I do know Straight hockey.  I grew up playing Straight hockey, and Straight soccer, and Straight baseball, and Straight wrestling, and some other stuff as well.  I was a jock growing up, but I was a misfit jock.  I was good on the ice, or on the field, or whatever; but really uncomfortable in the locker room.  I started playing hockey at four, and then went on to other sports.  Beginning around high school something changed in the locker rooms, and I never felt comfortable in them after that.  The best way that I can describe it is that they got sexualized.  Suddenly everyone was talking about the girls in a way that made me uncomfortable.  I’d never heard the word “objectification” before, but I now know that that’s what was happening.  Everyone was talking about the size and prowess of their “junk”.  I felt like I’d missed a meeting that everyone else had attended.  The whole thing was so alien to me that I couldn’t even fake it, so I just sat there confused and uncomfortable. I still excelled in the game, but got further and further alienated in the locker room, to the point that I wasn’t friends with anyone on the team, and I stopped caring how the team did.  If I had a good game and we lost I was happy.  If I had a bad game and we won I wasn’t.

Straight sports are aggressive.  There are fights.  You have to prove you’re good enough to play, and keep proving it through the season or someone else will get to play in your place.  Any amount of inappropriate behavior is acceptable if you’re good.  No amount of exemplary behavior can make up for not being as good.  That’s okay for professional athletes, but not recreational athletes.  At least, not to me.

I love hockey.  I love the speed, the skating, the movement of the game.  I love the contact that goes with the checking version of the game that I played until I was eighteen.  But I hate the aggression.  I hate the win at all costs thing that leads otherwise mature and intelligent people to act like dicks.  I don’t want to get into fights on the ice.

Hell, I can’t get into a fight on the ice, but that’s another essay.

I had pretty much decided that I could never play organized hockey again, because the aggression and the fights and all that are such a feature of beer league hockey.  I’d thought about playing.  People that I know had asked me to play in their leagues or on their teams when they heard I grew up playing.  They’d tell me not to worry, it’s “no-check”.  But when I asked them what that means they’d say in reality it doesn’t mean much.  But hey, they’d quickly add, if you grew up playing you’re used to it, right?  And you’re probably good, we could win.

No thanks.

Then I heard about MGHA.  The person who told me about it described being spoken to about his own level of contact in the no-check game.  Not even because of checking, just because he made some contact that was deemed too much.  So, this bunch really means no check, I thought.  I really missed hockey.  I was really burned out on the physical things I was doing.  What the hell, I’d check it out.

That was four years ago, and I’m still here playing Gay hockey.  I love the fact that the league takes everyone.  I love the fact that there’s relatively little interest in the score at the end.  I can be competitive during the game when I’m facing a player that’s as good as I am or better.  I can back off when the person coming towards me is a beginner and give them room to skate some.  And even if they score, or set up a goal, nobody on my bench gets on my case about it (that happened tonight actually).

The league has changed a lot in the last four years.  The level of play has gotten much higher.  That’s inevitable; the new players from the beginning aren’t so new anymore.  The new players that came in experienced are really good.  I’m also four years older than I was when I joined the league, and I wasn’t young four years ago, I’m probably maintaining my level of play, but it’s certainly not improving anymore.

We seem to be at something of a crossroads right now, and maybe having a bit of an identity crisis.  There’s been the suggestion that it’s not Gay hockey anymore.  I don’t know.  I can say for sure it’s not Straight hockey, though.  I know Straight hockey, and this ain’t it.  Not because of the skill level of the game, but because of the aggression level.  Because I can cheer when a new player on the opposing team scores a goal against us and nobody on my team gets mad at me because they’re cheering also.  Because it’s still as much fun to set up a teammate who’s a beginner for a goal as it is to score one myself.  Because finally, at the age of 45, I don’t feel like a misfit in the locker room any more.  I haven’t had that since I was 13, and never thought I would again.

On the ice, Gay hockey is hockey.  On the bench and in the locker room though, it’s a bunch of grown-ups playing a game like we used to as kids.  Not childishly, but playing because it’s fun rather than in order to win.  Enjoying the people that we’re playing with, as well as playing.  If we win, good.  If we lose, also good.

Beginning in high school I started defining what I did tonight as I won tonight, or I lost tonight.  In the MGHA it’s only that I played hockey tonight, and had a blast doing it.

And that, I realize, is what Gay hockey means to me.

I joined the league three years ago, wondering if this was a way to mentally and physically get through the winter months.  Having lived in Madison my entire life, one would think that I was at least relatively accepting of the ice, snow and cold; in reality, my tolerance to the cold weather and the elements has dwindled over the years, and with that, an addition of a little seasonal-affective depression and some serious hibernation and hermitage.  I was also feeling a little isolated from the queer community, and wanted a way to see people every week, and get to meet new friends.

I had never played any organized hockey before.  When I was younger (about 20+years ago) I played a bit on the outdoor rinks on Madison’s east side. I wouldn’t say that any of those games helped much in the way of developing any real skills or strategic understanding for the game.  It really looked more like a cross between ice-fencing and unsynchronized ice ballet. Not a lot of actual hockey was happening, just inflated egos and bruised shins.  It was also not a sport I watched a lot, other than being a fan of Badger hockey and maybe going to one or two games a season.  I was highly curious, albeit skeptical, whether being in a hockey league, gay or not, was a good fit for me.

My three years with this league has surpassed any expectations I had for the organization and for myself. Three years of highs and lows, wins and losses, successes and failures.  I have been on the 1st place team, the last place team, and this past season with a team that finished in the standings somewhere in the middle.  But this only scratches the surface of my experience with the league.  The community of folks in the league has been a big reason why I choose to come back each season.  It’s a slightly different definition of community than I have felt in other places.  There are still people in this league that I don’t know at all, or very little. There are folks who come from different backgrounds and have different life realities than my own.  I never thought about that much the first two seasons I played.  I was just happy to meet new people and work at learning how to play hockey.  Entering this season of hockey, I learned even more about this group, and even more about myself.

In the off-season, I started taking steps to change my gender from female to male. There were definitely some anxieties about this in different areas of my life, and starting a new season with the hockey league, where last year I was one name, and now registering under another (but as a returning player) was one of them.  It’s not that the hockey league doesn’t have any transgender individuals- we do.  I just didn’t know of anyone who started transitioning after playing hockey for a couple of years.  From the very beginning of the season, emailing the Operations Committee about this change, as well as the very first practice, I felt immediately at ease.  People were almost seamless in changing my name and pronoun in their heads and in speaking with me.  Any questions that people asked me were incredibly kind and respectful.  I have felt incredibly supported in all areas of my life regarding this change, but I really needed this organization to be a place where I didn’t have to explain myself.  Not only did this league accept and support me, playing hockey this season has increased my own acceptance of me, and how I define myself.

I have a special love for this league and the people associated with it because it’s been a constant for me over the past three years when my life outside of hockey has been anything but constant.  In the past three-plus years, I have found the love of my life, bought a house, got engaged, began co-parenting two boys, quit my job to start a new career and started transitioning my gender.  I am the happiest I have ever been in my life, but large changes create anxiety, stress and sometimes, shaky confidence.  My Sunday nights in the fall and winter months have become an outlet for stress, as well as a familiar place to see friends and the chance to play hockey with some outstanding individuals.  Playing hockey has been both a reset from the week and a place to celebrate accomplishments.  (Heck, I celebrate the fact that at the age of 41, I am healthy and able to play hockey and plan to do so for as long as I can.)

This last season has been the most rewarding for me as a person.  My team is an exceptional group of people, and I appreciate and respect each and every one of them.  I admire how we developed into a group that really cares about one another, and that we all worked together to become a united team when faced with adversity.  Being able to walk into a locker room and be greeted by teammates, getting to hear little bits about people’s lives and just engage in overall banter shows how special the league can be for a person. Total Team Acceptance.  The Violet Offenders will always have a special place in my heart when I look back at my hockey history with this league.  Not only did I have a fantastic season with them, but this season is where I learned to define and accept myself, learned how transitioning gender affects one’s hockey game, and how this league really has the potential to be everything that has been envisioned.

This league’s newly adopted mission states: “The Madison Gay Hockey Association is an adult developmental ice hockey league for people of all sexualities and gender identifications. We are especially committed to providing opportunities for those who have historically felt uncomfortable in traditional sports settings to learn and teach ice hockey in a safe, supportive, and fun environment. We aspire to the highest standards of sportsmanship and promote integration of the wider Madison community into the gay community”.  We are a diverse group, and I love that we have people who identify themselves in so many different ways.  It goes way beyond “gay” or “straight”- the diversity of our players in this league include ages 22- 48, single, married, in a relationship, parents, grandparents, students, professionals, working class, middle class and unemployed.  A player might be highly skilled at the sport, a complete beginner, or anything in between.  Our diversity goes way beyond our mission statement.

In the six years of this young organization, several different issues have shown themselves.  It is expected with a league of this size and diversity that there will always be a problem that seems impossible to solve, a conflict that seems too daunting to deal with.  What is special about this organization is that people step up to these challenges and face them head on, and work hard to find a solution.  Board members ask for input from the other players, whether it’s an official invitation or survey, or just a board member asking another player their opinion about something.  I think some of the best problem solving takes place when watching hockey games, talking about what is happening on the ice, or talking about a particular issue that has come to light.

This league continues to teach me how to work with people and understand different points of view.  Different people bring different opinions, some that I don’t immediately understand, but strive to try. I feel constantly challenged- whether it’s learning more about hockey, developing my game, or learning about the strengths and weaknesses in my own character.  This is the kind of challenge that extends into the rest of life, and this league and its people have continued to teach me about acceptance and perspective, both in my own learning and by their example.

I am a proud member of the MGHA and this is what being a member means to me.

If you would have passed me on the street approximately a year and a half ago, you would not recognize me. A bit overweight, head slightly lowered, avoiding eye contact and even conversation. Then an event happened to me that totally changed my life. Growing up I always had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be typical, but coming from a pretty small town and with a narrow-minded attitude I can still remember specific times in my life where my mind and mentality changed. When I was around 7 I knew my ‘preference’, although I was honest about it at the same time I paid for it. By the time I was 13 I can still see it in my mind as if it was yesterday, being in school, the phrase that was spoken. The exact moment where my emotional state shut down and I was going through the motions of life devoid of passion and feeling. I had built a wall so high around myself and would not let anyone or anything in. For the next 15 years I walked alone through life as much as possible. I then found out about the Madison Gay Hockey Association, having an appreciation for sports I was interested. Upon reading more and more upon the website I decided to see what happens and sign up, if anything else I’d be learning another sport. Taking my then quiet self to one of the first open skates I had no idea what to expect, except for what happened. Upon introducing myself I was expecting the usual reaction, but to my surprise I was met with openness and kindness. Throughout the summer I attended more and more open skates, quickly meeting the founder and most of the board members, I was unsure whether to be scared or intrigued. By the time the first skills clinic came around, I remember finishing up and sitting in the stands and watching the others. I was approached by a few people, who I haven’t met before, but seemed to know my name and came to sit next to me and start up a conversation. This happened more frequently as the season started to get underway, I was totally in awe of what type of community that existed and the idea that I could possibly have a place here and be accepted. I could feel a part of myself come alive and the wall that I had built was quickly crumbling away. It didn’t matter that I’ve never been on a pair of skates previous to that summer, or that my hockey knowledge was limited, that I knew no one in the league before I signed up, or who I was as a person. Through constant support, encouragement and positive reinforcement (on and off the ice), I have made such amazing friendships and discovered so much about myself that I never knew existed, everything has been going in a positive direction which honestly I am not used to seeing or feeling. I remember being at an open skate by myself and met another board member, I was working on trying to stop and the one thing that I distinctly remember her saying was “You’ll be fine just keep at it, remember, you get out what you put into it” At that time I only thought it applied to hockey, little did I know it would apply to so many other aspects of my life. If I could tell you the one thing that I’ve learned this season is that life doesn’t happen to you, you have to participate in life for anything to happen. I may have been brought into this world in the 80’s but the summer of 2009 is when I truly was born and brought into the light of life.

What does gay hockey mean to me? That’s a great question to ask. I was completely surprised with the community I met when I joined the MGHA. It was a completely different society compared to the society I met, when I first started playing hockey.

When I first started playing hockey, I was 6 years old. I played for Beloit Youth Hockey Association (BYHA). Our rink was an outdoor rink, so it was freezing cold outside and inside. The players weren’t very skilled, and they didn’t play to be the best. We kept score by how many penalties we received. Our season started in the middle of October, and most other hockey teams started in September. We traveled hours to play other teams, and we lost almost every game. It was fun, exciting, and I loved it. When I joined the high school team, I lost my love for hockey. I didn’t lose it because of the game though. I lost it because of the team. I wasn’t open in high school, and I had a homophobic parent. I was on a team of bullies. I remember they called me “squeaks.” I hated that name. I learned to hate every one of the players on the team. I remember being the most afraid in my life when I was a player for the Beloit Knights. The initiation for a freshman hockey player was terrifying to me. They would take you to the back of the bus after an away game, duck tape your eyes, and make you run through what they called “the gauntlet.” They would hit you with sticks, pucks, fists, and anything else they could imagine. I was so scared they would make me go through that, but I was fortunate enough to have parents come to every game and drive me home. They already pegged me as being gay, and if they would have had the chance to take me to the back of the bus, I don’t know if I’d be the person I am today.

The MGHA was the first hockey league I have joined since then. I was welcomed into a community of smiling faces, hugs, and fun times. I am able to smile every time I hit the ice. The MGHA gave me the opportunity to try and be the best hockey player I can. I have met great people, and I hope I have influenced others to be better hockey players as well.

Gay hockey is what hockey should be in general. It should be a thrilling, exciting experience. It should make you make you proud of yourself every time you play the game, win or lose. It should you should drive you to the fullest of your abilities, and you should be completely exhausted after every game. You shouldn’t be exhausted because you are tired, burnt, or just out of energy. You should be exhausted because you gave it your all. You should be able to hear that final buzzer, and smile to yourself knowing you just played the greatest game on earth.

The Hockey Saga Prequel to My Yet-Unwritten Epic

– Or –

Why My Skates Are More Comfortable Than Any Pair of Shoes I Will Ever Own

Bill Cox

I’m a product of a white, middle-class suburb. Growing up on the greener side of the municipal, racial, and economic border in “the safest [suburb] in the US” (determined as such for seven years running during my childhood), I led a considerably sheltered life. High school was attended, lawns were maintained, and bowling balls were tossed. Errant street hockey pucks over fences and the crowded subway after a Sabres game, packed to vacate the dead downtown area, were among the few annoyances.

The town I grew up in bordered a burned-out ex-steel-and-grain industrial metropolis, whose unemployed, abandoned streets were more post-apocalyptic than post-industrial. It was the tarnished oversized buckle on the American rust belt. Catholicism ruled and censored much of the city during its zenith, but the newly born generation and the newly dead economy left religious hope in the gutter and grasped only the fear and hatred of diversity, which was mostly handed down from parents. White-flight, depopulation, and narcotics shattered one of the Northeast’s most racially-integrated, progressive, and cosmopolitan cities, leaving the pieces segregated, poor, and murderous.

My parents never valued athletic endeavors, so despite my middle-class upbringing, the first set of ice hockey gear was always just out of reach of their pocketbook. An eight-dollar plastic stick and some PVC pipe for a home built goal was enough to get out on the pavement. Some extra Christmas money helped me buy my first pair of rollerblades. They were sweet.

I matured into young adulthood as a proud Eagle Scout. Scouting gave me many tools to live life: character, leadership, knowledge, kindness, and teamwork, and all were exercised as I led my troop with smiles through three feet of snow to collect food for the local homeless shelters and taught first aid out in the wilderness on rainy, 40-degree afternoons. Despite all I had gained from scouting, diversity was curiously absent. I had never met a homeless person. To my knowledge, I had never met a gay person.

Attending the largest public university in the state somewhat cracked the egg. Suddenly, I was interacting academically, intellectually, and socially with Asians, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Hindus, and Italians – Americans. I thought I had finally found the huddled masses yearning to be free… in a majority-white, -straight, economically-abled institution of higher education. I was able to scoff at my father’s self-admitted pride that I “was able to compete academically with the Chinese math whizzes.”

I decided to pursue an undergraduate degree in both chemistry and physics. It was a bane to my social life.

<scene: A busy kegger at a run-down frat house. Music is loud, alcohol is voluminous.>

Attractive undergraduate female: “What’s your major?”

Over-achieving undergraduate freshman male: “Chemistry and physics.”

Attractive undergraduate female: “Oh. I hated physics in high school.”

<Attractive undergraduate female immediately flees the scene of the social crime.>

The time required to pursue this academic feat forced my choice not to join the university’s intercollegiate hockey team. My athletic pursuits were then limited to captaining several bad floor and roller hockey teams toward abysmal records in chippy, goon-filled, intramural leagues. I served a six-month suspension after an infraction purposely committed to coax the referees to pull the whistles from their pockets, whistles that had been put away too long before. With lots of effort and to my own surprise, I did actually develop into a somewhat legitimate goaltender in that climate. Later life lessons would teach that goaltending skills accumulated in sneakers on gymnasium floors don’t translate well to skills in ice skates on ice. By the end of my collegiate hockey campaign, I could barely ice skate.

Once I moved to Madison to continue my academic career in graduate school, I immediately sought out opportunities to take the plunge into ice hockey. I had practiced ice skating over the few months previous to moving and I was ready to give intramurals a try. I was lucky to be selected from an intramural free agent list, and even luckier to be selected by a team of great individuals. They played the game to have fun and they were patient and accepting of my developing skating ability. They taught me a lot about the game, and their experience and sportsmanship rubbed off on me, demonstrating what the joy of a clean, competitive, fun hockey game could be like. I learned that to develop better and faster, that I needed to play more, a lot more. Hockey on ice was going to be fun.

It was January 2007. By day, I was a determined graduate student in physics looking for the energy of the future from nuclear fusion. By night, I was a zombie, roaming for more opportunities to play ice hockey. The short intramural hockey seasons were not enough to feed my now-insatiable appetite for ice time. I used the tool now well in place in every twenty-something’s toolbox. I Googled.

<scene: An apartment’s dimly-lit computer workspace.>

Graduate hockey zombie: “Google, I demand you find me more hockey in Madison.”

Google: “Are you feeling lucky?”

Graduate hockey zombie: “Yes. Yes I am.”

<Click>

Graduate hockey zombie: “Google, are you crazy!? I can’t play for the Badgers. I’m not feeling that lucky.”

<Click, click click.>

<Several links are displayed. Several of them point towards one website.>

Graduate hockey zombie: “Madison…Gay…Hockey Association. Gay?”

As I had known it, gay was a malicious adjective used by vocabulary-stunted teenagers as a synonym for stupid or lame. As a straight man, I had never thoughtfully contemplated anything or anyone that was actually “gay.” I browsed the MGHA website and I considered what I saw. I wanted to play hockey, but I wasn’t gay. Inherently, I wasn’t a lesbian either. I thought to myself, “On the ice, what is the difference between a gay hockey player and a straight hockey player?” My rational side piped up, “nothing. There is no difference.” I had realized that playing hockey on ice was a great equalizer of off-ice differences, and this realization made my next decision easy. I wanted to play hockey in the MGHA.

After contacting the league, I was invited to spectate for a game. On that Sunday night, when I walked through the set of glass doors from the rink lobby to the rink stands, it hit me like a bus. The air was cold and dry. It stunk like ice additive and sweat. The rink steelwork echoed puck slaps and skate cuts. The love of the game welcomed me home. Someone scored and the crowd cheered. I did a double-take. A crowd? To my surprise and delight, there were roughly seventy fans loudly cheering the teams on. I watched the rest of the games that night, watching the players’ skills, the beginners’ falls, the great goals, and the missed passes. I quietly sat in my straightness.

I was assigned to a pastel-colored jersey-wearing team that featured a very skilled gay hockey player, a superbly friendly lesbian captain, a crotchety old vulgarity of a straight man, a gay drag queen beginning skater, a transsexual goalie, and several other friendly, memorable characters, who I now consider good friends. I was assigned to the team because they were struggling in games and expected to lose their most skilled player. Despite my developing skating abilities, I played as hard as I could for that team, and we played our way through several upsets to win the league championship as fans cheered us on. Playing a game I was in love with made for a supremely welcoming experience for me as I ventured into a community I’d never contemplated, let alone immersed myself in. I found myself making great new friends so quickly, that I hadn’t noticed that the secret uniqueness of my straight sexual orientation in this community was already uncovered and dismissed with insignificance.

In the late summer of 2007, I was asked to be the captain of Dyno-White. I was honored by the opportunity, and I truly committed to teaching the game of hockey to players both beginner and veteran. I taught players how to shoot. I demonstrated to players how to jump over the boards. I helped them learn to stay onsides. I prepped new centers on face off tricks. I made plays that forced them to make better ones. I showed myself how to teach hockey players. I showed hockey players how to teach themselves.

Five Step Guide for Good Face Off Success:

1. Make conversation with the opposing center before the puck drops. Ask a question, how the weather is, anything. Talk a little shit if you want to. Get your opponent to think about anything but where they should try to draw the puck and how they should be doing it. If you’re lucky, it’ll also throw off their reaction timing as they try to mentally search for verbs to describe thundersnow and adjectives to describe your mother.
2. Keep your eyes on the puck in the referee’s hand, not on the face off dot. If you watch the dot, you’ll always be surprised by where and when the puck drops.
3. Start to react when the puck comes out of the referee’s hand, not when it hits the ice. It doesn’t always matter what you’re about to do with the puck, as long as you’re the one doing it first.
4. This is the tricky part. Refer to the decision made in Step 0, the step in which you analyzed who’s lining up and where, which part of the ice you’re lining up at, where the opposing and home goals are, and the direction you want to draw the puck, all of which was completed before you crouched at the face off dot. There’s several ways to draw the puck in this pre-determined direction, but I like two in particular:
   1. If you’re quick, slide your blade forward into the dot ¾ of the way in and ¾ of the way to the opposite side from where you want to put the puck, then pull or push the puck in the direction you want, and when you do it, you do it quick.
   2. If you’re not quick, with your lower arm in a strong punching motion, use your stick shaft to smash your opponent’s stick shaft laterally away from the face off dot as soon as the puck leaves the referee’s hand. Aim for a spot on their shaft about two inches above their blade. With the opponent’s stick momentarily out of the way, free the puck in the direction you want.
5. In the event of a face off win, commence goal scoring (separate guide). In the event of a face off loss, stand in a manner that obstructs the progress of the opposing center without attracting pesky interference calls.

Dyno-White was all heart, and is to date the most emotionally-bonded team I have ever played for. The camaraderie built through the season made every teammate’s love for the game more pure and worthwhile. Each game we fought hard not always to win, but to live up to our coach’s mantra of making our teammates look good. The idea was to make plays as pretty as possible from our teammates’ point of view. Give great assists by making great passes. Shoot to score when your teammate makes a great pass. I would take that mantra to every other team I would ever captain for. That season forged unforgettable memories and lifelong friendships through on-ice play, off-ice tomfoolery, and the sharing of the pure love of the game of hockey. It is these most joyous memories that I will carry with me every time I lace my skates. Putting on shoes doesn’t compare.

<scene: On-ice before one of the last games of the season. Dyno-White Coach Tammy Champion takes to the ice to warm up, making it the first time ever that she has skated with Dyno-White. She had broken her foot a few short weeks before the season started, and had hobbled to the bench on crutches every game of the season to give instruction and inspiration to the team, all without playing a single minute of ice time. The team’s pride and joy for Tammy is palpable. The captain’s respect and admiration for her dedication to the game and the MGHA is overwhelming.>

Captain: “Tammy, get your ass in gear!”

The Dyno-White experience was enough of a strong positive influence on my teammates and I to spark an explosion of volunteerism for the benefit of the MGHA. Players from Dyno-White would go on to fill the roles of six members of the Board of Directors, five committee chairpersons, four committee staff volunteers, and would devote hundreds of person-hours of planning, coordinating, and laboring to continue the mission of the league. To date, I have been honored to serve the league mission with the Hockey Operations Committee for two years and with the Board of Directors for one year. I have proudly enjoyed my time working with other committed hockey players and cooperating with people and businesses in Madison to further the success of the MGHA. I have enjoyed more than ever working with others to set, work toward, and accomplish the goals of the MGHA.

<scene: Outside the hockey rink after a game. A former graduate student of physics is learning the impossibility of unemployed life the hard way. After graduating, and without a job or any prospects, the threat of him moving from the MGHA to live in his parents’ home far away is unnervingly real. The news is out and the rumors are true: if he doesn’t get hired in the next week, he will lose it all. A somewhat muscular friend of the league and manager at a local sporting goods store steps forward.>

Beefcake: You can sell hockey equipment. How much money do you need to make to stay in Madison?

Serving the MGHA has demonstrated to me that a diverse group of people can join together through shared love and aligned concern to accomplish great things. My previous realization needed some tailoring. Playing hockey is not the great equalizer of off-ice differences. The virtue of understanding, acceptance, and cooperation is the great equalizer, and I will continue to hone these tools of cooperation among true diversity forever.

I plan to someday return to live in my once-great city. I plan to use these new powerful tools in my life. I will smash prehistoric cultural and economic barriers and topple saturating indifference to rescue the city from its fiery decline. I will stand on the ashes of prejudice and declare a new era. I will lay the first bricks. I will work hard with people of differing backgrounds that have a shared love and aligned concern to be the united pillars in the reconstruction and reemergence of that fallen metropolis. I will never forget the Madison Gay Hockey Association and what it has bestowed upon me.

The joking, the skating, the passing, the scoring, the winning, the losing, the anger, the cheering, the leading, the following, the sorrow, the pride, the friendship, the planning, the building, the striving, the accomplishing, the horizon-broadening, the teaching, the learning, the understanding, the accepting, and the cooperating sum to an ultimate meaning of gay hockey to me:

Hope for my hometown.

Thank you.

My name is Mike Kaiser. I was fortunate enough to be relocated to Madison about two years ago. At first, my partner Dale and I had dreaded moving from La Crosse for his job. The day we moved in, our neighbors Donna and Liz took us under their wings and got us active in the neighborhood and community. Prior to moving to Madison, we were never active members in the LGBTA community. We started to attend New Harvest benefits, gay softball, Camp Bingo, and of course MGHA hockey games. We talked to some people at a hockey game and they mentioned that MGHA is an outstanding gay hockey league.

The idea of playing hockey sounded exciting, but I was 36 years old and hadn’t really skated since I was ten. To top that off – except for swim team and track – I had not been on a team sport since soccer in grade school. Even then, I didn’t fit in. Although I didn’t know I was gay until my early twenties, I knew that I was different from the other boys. My parents tell this funny story from my “soccer” years. I was up against an opponent that fell down and got hurt. The other parents were yelling for me to make the goal, but I stopped and asked him if he was ok and missed an easy point. In tee ball, they tell me that I sat in outfield facing the wrong way looking for four-leaf clovers. I just wasn’t cut out for sports – or so I thought.

I started going to every practice session offered this summer and starting feeling more comfortable skating again. Then, I actually joined MGHA and have enjoyed it immensely ever since. I finally feel like I fit in. When someone smacks into me accidentally (or vice, versa), it is so awesome that they are like “oops sorry – you ok?”. The teams are very competitive, but in a very good natured way. It is still a struggle getting used to skating in tandem with learning the rules for hockey, but my team has been very supportive. They have helped me to become more confident in myself. Overall, I just love playing hockey. I’m more physically active and have made many new friends.

GO SIN!

MGHA Chelsea Challenge Scholarship Essay – Max Camp

In 2006 I was working at the UW-Madison LGBT Campus Center, and saw a poster of a shirtless man clad in shoulder pads and holding a hockey stick. Not just another ad for a local fetish night, I immediately jumped when I realized there was a gay hockey league in development. In high school I had played some pick-up games of roller hockey with some neighborhood friends, but I never had the chance to play ice hockey-much less in an organized league. Three and a half year later after first seeing that poster, the Madison Gay Hockey Association has played a transformative role in my personal happiness and my social connection to Madison’s gay community.

As a kid, my dad encouraged me to play many sports as he dreamed that one of his kids would go pro. I started off with the team sports baseball and soccer, and gradually added doubles-tennis, swim team, and even a year of little-league football in 6th grade in exchange for a Gap jean jacket. However, as puberty set in, and team sports developed an atmosphere that was less about having fun playing a sport, and more about male bonding over girls, or proving you are not a girl, or worse, a faggot, sports gradually became to be not a source of pleasure but something to dread and occasionally fear.

However, MGHA and its emphasis on recruiting inexperienced players and teaching each other through peer-development has been an amazing experience. There is a variety of experience and expertise in this league. But rather than the great players growing impatient, they are kind and helpful. While many people express a desire to win, the underlying priority is to have fun and make sure everyone gets a chance to play. MGHA epitomizes what team sports should be about: having fun, building each other up through encouragement, and teaching each other new skills.

The second reason that MGHA has been so important to my personal happiness is it has opened a space for me to meet and develop friendships with other gay men. While I have been politically active in the queer community for the last 10 years, there has always been a disconnect between myself and many other gay guys. It has been a continuous source of frustration and disappointment because while I was working so hard for sexual freedom for all and the end of oppression of LGBT folks, I felt like I was not connecting with those I should have most in common with.

Engagement in political struggle fostered tendencies in me to judge people by their politics (or lack of). Gay men who seemed to play into the hands of consumer capitalism by looking for the next cute outfit was kind of sad, I thought. Gay men who didn’t like women were instantly repugnant. I could go on, but hope you get the point. I closed myself off from people I disagreed with rather than opening dialogue.

However when I tried to explore social outlets, I found this fairly unfulfilling. Despite a commitment to feminism, I could not help but feel when I walked into a gay bar that I was there to “find someone” for some yet-undecided-reason. It was difficult to not feel like I was objectifying people. I hated thinking and feeling this way when it went against so much of what I believed in and strove for. As a result, I tended to avoid gay bars, and just went to “straight” bars with friends where we could grab a drink and chat.

In contrast to these two experiences, MGHA has opened an incredible social space where I can be around other gay men (and queer women, trans-folks, hetero men and women, etc.) and have a great time in an environment that is not hyper-sexualized. Although the environment itself fosters building positive connections with others, the people that MGHA has attracted have been wonderful. Most people are grounded and relaxed. I think the developmental aspect of the league tends to attract people who care about others and are patient. For example, on my team this year this shy straight guy bends down and helps tie the laces of a butch queer woman. Where else would you see this type of bonding and concern across people of different orientations and gender expressions? This is pretty rare, and just one example that makes this space so special for me.

Now that you know how important MGHA has been to me over the last three years, I think it is appropriate to discuss why I would like a scholarship to the Chelsea Challenge. After 15 amazing years in Madison, a place I proudly call home, I will be moving in August to attend law school. Prior to joining MGHA, I really could not ice skate. I had been to the Shell a handful of times, and held onto the boards as I took insecure baby-steps—not glides—and prayed I did not fall. These days, I receive compliments from my Coach and Captain that I am an “animal” on the ice. I would really like to represent MGHA and demonstrate how amazing this league is in terms of developing complete newbies into puck-thirsty monsters on the ice. Thus, I think I am a good candidate to represent the unique mission of MGHA as a developmental league. Conversely, attending this tournament would be a wonderful way to conclude a three-year tenure with an organization that has taught me new skills, introduced me to amazing people, and brought me much happiness on a weekly basis.

In addition to being a product of MGHA, I am applying for this scholarship because as a graduate student who faced unforeseen financial hardship in 2008 I would not be able to attend otherwise. Last year my partner Boian, who is not a citizen, ran into complications with applying for a work visa. Not only did he not get the work visa, but he lost the job he held at the time. This made me the sole income-earner for our two-person family while I was a grad student. We made ends meet, but in doing so, I tapped out various financial resources available to me. Therefore the scholarship would open an opportunity for me that otherwise would not exist.

After 32 years, I’ve come to realize that life in general is pretty hard. And for many in our community, life is frequently unnecessarily hard. This league has brought so much joy and happiness to me and others on a weekly basis. When I move in August, a piece of my heart will be left with MGHA, but the fantastic memories will remain strong. Thank you.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Benji Sudolcan

Growing up in south Texas, I never had the chance to watch a live hockey game. In fact, my first exposure to the game was the movie The Mighty Ducks. I’m not sure if my nine-year-old brain was focused on the excitement of the game or a cute little Joshua Jackson, but I remember thinking, “I want to play this.” I wore that VHS out from watching it so many times. Little did I know, while dancing to “We Are the Champions” during the ending credits, the impact playing hockey would have on me in the future.

I’m the odd duck in a sports-focused, military family. During childhood, my dad enrolled me in every sport imaginable from the age I could hold a ball (or bat, racquet, or shuttlecock). It didn’t matter to him which sport I was good at so long as I was at least above average in one. Seemingly endless soccer, swim, and t-ball practices saturate my early memories, but the unimaginable terror I would feel before every game stands out above them all. In basketball, if you passed me the ball, I would pass it on or shoot; in soccer, I would pass; in baseball I wouldn’t even get that far, I’d just strike out. No matter how much I practiced, I never quite had the confidence to relax and just enjoy playing the game. Although it was never verbalized, I could feel my dad’s disappointment. You’d think that watching me embarrass myself time after time would weaken his resolve, but it only strengthened it. The more sports I found I wasn’t good at, the more teams he would sign me up for.

Around middle school, my mother decided try her hand at finding my talents. She started taking me to spelling bees, math olympics, and band competitions. Here, at last, I found my place to shine. I would run, beaming, to show my dad the trophies and ribbons. After congratulating me, he would steer the conversation towards my struggling sports career. I would be grilled on my practice regimen or given a lecture on “keeping my head in the game.” It quickly became apparent that he didn’t respect the areas in which I had natural aptitude. I grew frustrated, eventually growing to hate all sports and anyone who played them. No longer was I friendly to everyone. If you were on a team, you were beneath me. I carried my intellect like a shield. My resolve grew as I started accepting the fact that I was gay. Now the enemy had a face. Instead of hating sports because I wasn’t good at them, I hated them because they (I thought) churned out all of the bigoted, hateful teens who made fun of me in the halls, threw me into a headlock in class, and wrote notes about me in the bathroom.

While working through the feelings these experiences left with me, I realized that my misplaced anger had unforeseen consequences. Physical, mental, and emotional health are interdependent, and my narrow mindset was preventing me from becoming a mature, well-adjusted adult. I began to want to play games with people and started to push my body in ways I hadn’t since I was a kid. It started off slowly, a game of kickball here, a frisbee golf game there. I enthusiastically sought ways to be more physically active. I scheduled bike rides and hiking trips with my friends and even had a stint on the gay rugby league. Waiting to be awakened, however, was the love of a sport I’d seen as a child, but never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to play.

In pursuit of a more active lifestyle, I became aware of the new Madison Gay Hockey League. Bars and volleyball courts alike were buzzing with excitement. I went to a game and it was obvious that everyone on the ice was having a blast. I decided that hockey would be my next venture, and went to a MGHA sponsored open skate to see if I could hack it. I quickly realized that I struggled with a basic required skill—skating. This shouldn’t have surprised me, considering I’d only been on ice skates once (at a fourth-grade birthday party), but I was still disappointed. How was I going to play if I couldn’t stay upright? There was only one way to succeed. With almost a year until the next season started, I bought some used equipment and started practicing with my friends.

The anticipation was unbearable, but winter came once again. There was a blur of practices, team rosters, and bruises leading up to the night of the first game. As if on cue my old familiar terror returned, and I was petrified; I threw up and irrationally hoped that I would get injured at the beginning of the game. Anything was better than going out on the ice and embarrassing myself. I didn’t get hurt, but I did fall almost immediately. With my mantra, “everyone falls, everyone falls,” running through my head, I got back up. Without coming in contact with another player or the puck, I fell again. Strangely, I didn’t care. Every time I fell (and in that first game there were plenty), I got back up and just kept going. I started loosening up and realized that I was enjoying myself. I didn’t care if I ever got the puck or if I ever had a super star moment. Just being on the ice, with everyone laughing and smiling, was such a great time.

Halfway through the season, I was surprised to realize that I was no longer nervous before my game. The amount of acceptance and good sportsmanship that exists in the league makes it impossible to carry all those feelings with you. Instead, I wanted more; I was no longer content with just playing. I wanted to score, I wanted to have an awesome pass, and I wanted to grab that puck from someone as though I owned it. Don’t get me wrong. I still missed passes, easy shots, and fell, oftentimes taking other people down with me, but being on the ice was so invigorating I couldn’t help wanting to play harder. I was playing offense this game, not my usual position. We were ahead by a couple of points, so Mark, my coach, decided to switch up the lines to allow us to practice playing other positions. I turned to him and said, “I really think this is my game to get a goal. Can I stay on offense until I do?” He smiled and told everyone, “Ok, new goal for this game, get Benji his first goal!”

I went out excited, knowing I would get it right this time. We took the puck down the ice, and I was on fire. I loved the feeling. I was playing better than ever before. I was passed the puck, and I took the shot. Deflected! That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I turned around, with my back to the goal, to get the rebound. I got to the puck and backhanded it. I really wasn’t trying to shoot; I just wanted to get the puck closer to the goal. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the puck slide into the net. I was stunned. I had always thought I would go crazy when I got my first goal, but I couldn’t even raise my hands. I just skated back to the bench. It took a little while to set in, but the crowd cheering my name definitely helped! For this reason I’ve taken to telling everyone that my first goal was an accident. I laugh about it, but I’m still just as proud.

I called my father on the way home from the game to tell him about the goal. He was pretty excited and said, “See, I always knew you were more athletic than you gave yourself credit for.” I fell quiet, mumbled an “I love you,” and hung up. I realized then that I didn’t need what he was trying to give me. I had pushed myself so hard to show him I was worthy of praise, and when the time came, I realized that I stood on my own. I’m an adult, and my confidence comes from within. I appreciated his vote of confidence, but it wasn’t necessary anymore. Like the taunting and harassment I’d received from my peers as a teenager, his behavior didn’t bother me anymore.

This is what gay hockey means to me. It’s a place where anyone, regardless of athletic prowess, sexual preference, gender, or gender identity, can learn to play a sport that is not only fun but also empowering. When I get on the ice I know that I’m doing something that most people don’t have the courage to do, and I know I’m doing it with people who care about me and want to see me succeed. When I fall on the ice, if someone laughs, it’s because I’m already laughing. When I accidentally knock someone down (something I still do frequently), I look into their eyes to help them up, and I see them smiling. When we lose a game, I’m just as excited during the post-game “Good game” conga line than when we win. In the many seasons of gay hockey that I will play in the future, I will wear many jerseys and sing many chants. I will never forget the Skyhawks, my first hockey team. In my team, the jocks, the nerds, the gay guys, the lesbians, the straight guys, and the straight girls come together and love one another. That is a rare and awesome thing. The most important thing that I have learned from the MGHA is that I can do whatever I set my mind to, and if I don’t know where to start, someone’s always there to help me.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Geoffrey Gyrisco

Few things have brought as much joy into my life as playing hockey. A year ago, I never imagined I would be out on the ice, playing hockey, on offense. Through most of the season, each time I put on my gear, I would feel a rush of emotion, and say to myself, “I can’t believe I am actually doing this.” I was realizing something that was a part of my deepest longings—so deeply buried that I was not consciously aware of it—and that a year ago seemed so far out of reach, that it truly was beyond my imagination. Like so many who have shared this experience with me, I learned that I am more than I had ever known myself to be.

In the process I began to pick up a piece of my childhood lost long ago. In the process I found an amazing community of incredible people, a community of which I am immensely proud to be a part. In the process I joined other LGBTQIA people exercising leadership in a new arena, hard contact team sports, an arena widely regarded as not for gay people, at a time when we were being publicly marginalized.

The dissonance between my self image and sports began early. As a young child, growing up with minimal contact with persons outside my immediate family, I was unprepared to enter a 700 student elementary school. An inability to effectively track small fast moving objects did not give me good basic playground skills. (When Vivian Lin was patiently coaching me on how to catch the puck with my stick by letting the stick give with puck so it didn’t bounce off, she explained it was like catching a ball. Well Vivian, I understand the principle, but I never learned to catch a ball.) By sixth grade, I was convinced that I was truly un-athletic. After high school gym class, I succeeded in avoiding all team sports and most casual team games.

Thus, when I stepped on the ice with the MGHA for our first game, it was the first team game of any kind I played in 16 years. The last time I had played a team game, it was monastic volleyball, veggie prep vs. kitchen crew, played in our aprons, at a yoga ashram.

So how did I wind up on the ice in full hockey gear, playing with the MGHA? A few years ago I started to notice that I was not as completely un-athletic as I had once believed. I grew comfortable swimming in the Wisconsin River, in an area where the current is swift and deep channels are hidden beneath the silt-laden water. For the past 20 years I have downhill skied one day a year, and I finally noticed that I am a good skier.

I came to Madison to work at the Wisconsin Historical Society, with a vision of history as fascinating, having emotional power, and being fun, but discovered that the historical society wanted someone else. Inside I felt like a piece of driftwood washed up on a beach, even if Madison is a nice beach. I felt the pull of my roots back on the East Coast and my family home near Montreal, Canada. Yet I felt with some certainty that I was not in Madison by chance but to meet someone. By summer of 2007 I was tired of waiting for my purpose in Madison to appear, and was in crisis.

One day, someone mentioned Patrick Farabaugh, the founder of a hockey league and a new magazine, as though surely I would know who Patrick Farabaugh was. I had never heard of Patrick Farabaugh, and, of course, did not know there was a hockey league.

I got the first issue of Our Lives and read several times the articles on the hockey league. I studied the website. To pull me out of crisis, a friend encouraged me to seriously consider joining. A long dormant gene began to express itself. I sent an e-mail planning to arrange a face-to-face meeting, not so much to answer 10 big questions in my mind, as to seek reassurance. The meeting never happened and a deadline drew near.

With much anxiety, I made a bold move; I posted my name and photo on the MGHA website, on the players roster, having met no one in the organization.

Next came the stick taping party, so I bought the cheapest stick I could find, figuring it would not make any difference. It was a large, friendly and overwhelming crowd of people I had never met. During a presentation on hockey sticks, I realized that I knew nothing about hockey. I had not even watched a game in 20 years. Furthermore I had skated only once in a couple of decades, and before that was a mere beginner. I looked at the schedule. Only four practice sessions before the games began. I needed to learn how to skate. Quickly. Gerry Haney kindly helped me select a good pair of skates, and I started practicing at the Shell. There I enjoyed the support of fellow MGHA players and dinners together. And I began to love skating. Then came the practice sessions.

When 10 minutes into the first formal practice we were instructed to skate out to the blue line, stick in hand, and throw ourselves down on the ice, I realized that the adventure had only begun.

I found an extraordinary community, where members are so generous in sharing their knowledge, coaching and supporting each other. Most importantly, for the first time in my life, I found unconditional support and encouragement, no matter how poorly I skated or how badly I played. I did not feel self-conscious and that I was letting somebody down. For the first time in my life, I was in a safe space to learn a sport, any sport; and this sport was a complex sport, a team sport, inevitably a hard contact sport, and a sport few take up in middle life.

One game, for my first unassisted goal, I actually gained full control of the puck, took it down the ice, and fired it into the net. A few minutes later, with only a few seconds left in the game, I again gained control of the puck, skated it down the ice, and team-mate shot it in. It was nice; that was all. It never had the emotional impact for me of a previous game. During that game, when I passed Vivian Lin on the ice, although on the opposing team, she offered me encouragement, knowing I was a raw rooky, and Patrick, the loudest voice on our team called out encouragement to individuals on the opposing team. I still cry when I think about that, something so rare and so precious, I do not have words to express it.

The great emotional power of the MGHA is that we matter to each other. When someone lands hard on the ice, often it is a member of the opposing team who pauses to check if the one down is OK. Between periods, in a game where one goalie was having a bad night, and no doubt needed encouragement, the opposing goalies met in the center of the rink, in front of everyone. It was a sweet moment.

Yes, there is such a thing as gay hockey, and you don’t have to be gay to play. Gay hockey is having persons of a vast range of age, size and level of skill on the ice at the same moment, and somehow figuring out how to play together. Gay hockey is the joy of the game played with the support and encouragement of one another, celebrating each person’s achievements. Gay hockey is emotionally embracing one’s team-mates in locker rooms with both genders and a broad spectrum of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. It is about embracing each individual history that led us to that locker-room. I am glad that people refer to us as the Madison Gay Hockey Association, or the gay hockey league, not as Madison Thunder.

I found a lost piece of myself and I found community. I learned to enjoy being aggressive and competing for the winning score. I also learned that when we play with enthusiasm, with joy, with love, with respect, with integrity, to the best of our ability—regardless of the scoreboard—we win the game. So it can be off the ice as well.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Cory Moll

My life began on a cold January winter day in 1982, born as the only child of a single mother. It was just outside of Madison that I spent my childhood and adolescence growing up in near-isolation from most of the mainstream world. Aside from attending school in an environment with kids who were deemed to have learning disabilities, I didn’t really have much of a life. My main outlets growing up were when I spent time with my grandparents, and in the late 90s, the Internet.

I don’t have any resentment toward my mom, who always worked to help keep things afloat for the two of us. She preferred me being inside at her watch, and I contented with watching television and playing Nintendo, or playing around in my room on the computer my grandfather gave me as a gift. I could count my friends on my two hands, and I more or less gave in to being a societal outcast before I made it to 7th grade. I had no real exposure to sports except for television, and the occasional summer drive through parks where little league teams were playing baseball. I grew envious of those kids – being active, playing outside with their peers, and with full support of their parents and friends. I wasn’t allowed to join, for reasons that have never been explained to me. Maybe it was lack of money, or fear of me getting hurt, or that I might find myself involved in the “wrong” crowd.

My first experience as a spectator at a sporting event was when my mom got tickets to a Madison Monsters hockey game at the Dane County Coliseum. I was excited to sit so close to the ice, and watch the players skate by so fast and effortlessly, and scoring goals to beat their opponent. I never really gave any thought about playing hockey, but over the following winter I did attempt to ice skate on a pond with skates that were way too big. I tried rollerblading also, and I didn’t have too much success with that either. That was the last time I skated on ice or wheels until the fall of 2006.

I made my way through Junior High and High school, continuing my ability to count friends on just my ten fingers. It was during this time that I acknowledged my sexuality and came out to my family and friends (Thanks, Ellen!) When I turned 18, I signed the pink piece of paper that ended my obligations to public education, and moved to Madison. I was now in a position to get what I wanted to make myself happy.

I was chatting on Gay.com with local people in the summer of 2004, and they were talking about the summer recreational softball league in Madison. At the time I didn’t have a big interest in softball, but it was a chance to get out and be social and experience softball firsthand. It was at Olbrich Park where I had my first exposure to Madison Gay Softball, a league consisting of a few teams of men and women with varying skill and abilities. But they played as a team. And they were having fun, regardless of the score. And I found myself cheering whenever a player made it around to home base. I was having fun. And I was increasingly feeling an urge to be a part of it.

The next summer, I joined the league. I made many new friends, and was having a lot of fun. One week after a game, a group of us went to a local bar, where I met one of the new bartenders – Patrick Farabaugh. Little did I know, that meeting him would have a profound affect on my life. I later learned of his struggle to make it on his own and find his own happiness – and hockey was a big part of that. I had no idea of what was to come from our chance meeting that summer.

The next fall, Patrick founded the Madison Gay Hockey Association with a group of sixty or so players, most of whom identified as LGBT, and with varying abilities to skate or play hockey. I was asked to help with scorekeeping and music, and I obliged. Over the next 6 months, I watched a group of people do amazing things for themselves, their team, and the community. During the season, a handful of players attended open skate sessions at the Camp Randall Sports Center. I started going as well, and Patrick along with the other players helped coach me to be more confident, both on and off the ice, and gave me the push I needed at times. I remember being able to skate backwards for the first time, and stop without running into the boards… and then summer came around.

The summer of 2007, I joined the MGHA as a player and participated in the scrimmages at Madison Ice Arena. They held skills clinics for those who have never played hockey before, and we quickly learned things like keeping the stick on the ice and keeping your knees bent! Later that summer, a group of us had the opportunity to travel to Minneapolis to participate in a ‘border battle’ with the Twin Cities Gay Hockey Association. Although we weren’t exactly a match for their players, we had a great time and played our hearts out and made new friends.

This past fall is my first official season with the MGHA, on team Maroon… er… Mulan Rouge! I’ve noticed an amazing metamorphosis in everyone from both sides of the glass – watching players who never skated before transform in to hockey machines, gliding down the ice in a breakaway to make their first goal. They challenge themselves and cheer on their teammates, and put a huge emphasis on having fun. And I have Patrick to thank for introducing myself, and our community, to this life-changing sport.

I think that having experienced it first hand, I can say with certainty that hockey is the best sport to play. I wish I had the opportunity as a child to get involved with it, but it was worth the 25 year wait. And I’m looking forward to many more seasons with MGHA here in Madison and on the road. And maybe someday I’ll be someone’s inspiration to try hockey. It truly is, and has been, a life changing experience.