“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.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Jen Clausen

Just like every other grade school kid, I was acutely aware of every minuscule difference separating me from my classmates. I was taller than everyone else. My family didn’t own a television. My mom made my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on überhealthy whole wheat bread instead of squishy Wonderbread. Clearly I was a freak.

In the locker room in seventh grade gym class a popular girl with no freakish tendencies asked me if I was a dyke. I said I didn’t know. I had never heard that word before. I quickly learned what dyke meant, what gay meant. It meant bad, stupid, disgusting. The popular girl shouted for the gym teacher and announced that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing a locker room with me.

The more I heard about dykes and fags and homos, the more desperate I felt.”Please, please, please don’t let me be gay,” I begged in my head. “I’m already different enough. I’m already tall and weird.” Tall girl. Weird girl. Gay girl?

Somehow I got trapped in this stage of desperate denial. Even when I knew for sure, in my heart of hearts, that I liked girls, I told myself it was just a phase. It would go away. If I acted like a “normal girl” on the outside, I would feel like a “normal girl” on the inside.

So I kept my guard up and made many misguided attempts at being straight. I zombied my way through middle school and high school and into college. I still wouldn’t allow myself to show on the outside what I felt on the inside.

After college I moved back home. I floundered about socially for a year, and then finally decided to reach out. I happened to mention to my friend and painting buddy, Chris Gargan, that I might possibly maybe perhaps be interested in playing a team sport. He suggested I come play gay hockey because “it’s beginner friendly and you get to wear lots of padding.” That has certainly been my experience. It is nice to be part of a group where I can have fun, learn a new skill, and feel free to be myself. I am just now starting to feel comfortable with myself after feeling like a awkward misfit for so long. Self acceptance has been very liberating.

And (to my relief) my utter lack of hockey experience has not been a deficit. In September I could barely skate or hold a stick, much less do these two things at once. My legs flailed comically as I thrashed about with my hockey stick. My backside got more ice time than my skates. I was offsides at least once per period. And I was head-over-heels in love with hockey.

I still flounder diligently on the ice. I practice skating at the Shell. I go to UW hockey games. And I am meeting so many wonderful people with all sorts of backgrounds who, like me, have become hockey addicts. As I am learning about hockey, I am learning about myself. I am learning to just get out on the ice and play even if it’s scary. I am learning to just be myself even it’s scary. The MGHA is a fun, friendly, supportive organization. I wish I had found a group like this years ago. But it’s good to be here now.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Jenn Rotman

Growing up in an ultraconservative area of Michigan taught me to hide who I was; never admit, not even to the closest of friends or yourself, who you truly are. So, for 21 years, I learned to hate being gay, because where I was from, if you were gay, you should be non existent.

I spent so many years in life doing what I was supposed to do, playing sports, dating, going to church and was even going to marry the guy I was supposed to.

In 2000, I was faced with a choice to accept myself and embrace the person I had been trying to deny for so long and lose those I love, or remain locked away. I would love to say I had open and accepting parents, and that someday they came around. I really wish it was not a story filled with so much grief and heartache, like so many others. I heard things like “it would be better if you were dead” and “if we would have known we would not have picked you” (I was adopted at a young age). I have forgiven my parents for their words, ones I hoped were spoken out of fear and shock, but I cannot forget them. That day was the last day I really had a family. Sure we still talk, but it is more like strangers discussing the weather. But, the weight that was lifted from my shoulders that day tells me that ultimately it was all meant to be this way.

It did not come as a shock to me that I was shunned by my family, which drove me here to Madison with only a couple of acquaintances, no job, and hopelessly depressed. I still do not know how I survived those first few months in Wisconsin, sleeping on floors, couches, and in my car at various parking lots around town. Some days it almost seemed that somehow I was a mistake, that there was something wrong with me, and perhaps it would be better if I was dead. But something in me would not give up, I did survive. Slowly, I began to emerge from my own shell to discover my life had so much potential, I could do something worthwhile, and there were more people like me. And, although I no longer have much of a relationship with my family members, I have made a new family, one of choice, with great people that truly care about and support me.

In the early days community was more about going out to the club but that was not a place I could find substantial relationships. Until, while on the Act 5 ride, I heard about MGHA. I was intrigued by the idea of playing hockey, and I was enticed by the passion and energy I could feel from these women, all for this hockey team! Before I could comprehend how to play, or what I would need, I was signed up and set up with my mentor.

I remember being quite nervous when we went to pick out gear, I had no idea so many pieces of equipment were under those jerseys! I think I had asked at one point if someone would make a step by step list so I knew what was supposed to go on in what order. Being new to the sport and a rookie to the team, I was unsure how people would react to my incessant questions. My teammates and other hockey players were so helpful, always willing to show you something new at open skate or talk you through the rules. It was not about being the best on the ice, but having a good time and a supportive environment.

That first game was probably the most terrified I have been in a long time. Having been athletic most of my life, I was not scared about a new athletic sport; I just knew something would change when I went on the ice that night. My knees were literally shaking as I waited to take the ice, but when it was time to leave, I could not wait for more! That is how my weeks go now… how many days until hockey, and how soon can we get back out there. I look forward to Sunday nights more than I thought I could. It’s about walking in and looking into the eyes of people that care about you. Getting hugs, sharing some hot cocoa, enjoying a few laughs and being who you truly are.

Gay hockey to me means family, a family of choice. One that laughs together, encourages one another, and supports each member. Gay hockey is a community of love and support that I can’t imagine my life without.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Matt Jelinek

People often say that a picture is worth a thousand words . . . what if that picture is a memory or an emotion?

How do words describe a single emotion much less so many emotions from so many people?

Gay Hockey, particularly the Madison Gay Hockey Association (MGHA) is much more than a picture, a single memory or an emotion. It’s so much more and finding the right description is difficult to say the least.

In my second year with the Madison Gay Hockey Association I’ve come to recognize that although some of the faces may change, the feelings are just as strong as they were before. The emotions those faces and this community evoke inspire me to work harder instead of giving up. I remember a smile as someone scored a goal, or the face of a satisfied coach or captain leaving the ice as one of their newer players started skating really hard, or the roar of the crowd as a goaltender has one of the many amazing saves I’ve seen from all of them. In these moments I’m inspired and find the energy to keep working. For those faces are my vice. The happiness, inspiration and sheer joy that comes from a group where everyone, regardless of talent, is equal.

Although I spend no time in skates or on the ice, the feelings are just as real and just as strong as the emotions of those who do. They wash past the protective panes and into the stands more easily than water over a small fall in a swift river. Frustration quickly turns into joy as players overcome their boundaries and realize all too quickly that they’ve achieved much more than they ever anticipated and are now rethinking their goals, not just on the ice, but in life . . . they realize that nothing is unattainable.

In an environment that is free from the judgment, ridicule and embarrassment which I experienced in the small farming community high school I attended in Northeastern Wisconsin, I feel very secure being who I am without the need for the crutches that other environments promote. There is rarely a moment when I am not excited at the anticipation of the next play or the next game. Even when I know I’ll have to wait until the next Sunday Evening to see how the players progress and cheer them towards their next goal . . . both literally and figuratively. I’ll be cheering the goaltenders on their next save because I know they’ll have another . . . and another . . .

So what does Gay Hockey mean to me? It means family. For family life is all of these things and more. And for those of us who have lost our families to death, not being accepted, substances or any of a number of other factors, the MGHA provides that. Family life can sometimes be challenging, but nothing that love, respect and the care felt for one another can’t transcend.

For when I’m down or depressed, all I need to hear is any one of the more than 100 voices I’m so familiar with and my heart instantly grows wings. It is in these moments, the moments when I could choose any number of vices to quiet the rising need, that a single voice or a number of them can bring me into the reality of what I’m involved with. The simple memory of any number of players’ first achievements is instantaneously more powerful than any drug. In these moments, I feel that I’ve become the man that I wish my Mom were alive to see today. And these are the people that I’m most proud to spend my time and energy with and to support.

I believe it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said, “The heart of the Nation is in the heart of a Volunteer.” I contend, “The heart of a Volunteer is in the heart of the MGHA.” For the MGHA is much larger than one picture, one word, one emotion, one memory or one person.

I write this essay not for the opportunity to attend the Chelsea Challenge in New York City, but because the MGHA has given me so much . . . more than I could ever give back.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Mike Meholic

As I sit here staring at a blank page trying to figure out how to distill down on paper what being part of the Madison Gay Hockey Association (MGHA) has meant for me, I am overwhelmed about how and where to begin. Skating in the league for the past six months has affected almost every part of my life in a very positive way. I realize now that I gained much, much more out of being part of the league than just some great hockey games, good times and bruises.

From the moment I took to the ice for our first practice in September, something unexpected started to happen to me. My past began colliding with my present. At times the world would blink and all of the sudden I was a 12 year old defensive player scrapping in the corners for the puck and destroying the other team’s break away scoring dreams. At times I was randomly catapulted back to when one of my only true escapes from the weirdness of growing up gay in a small Michigan town was being on the ice playing hockey. But also in the mix with all the fond memories were a lot of other memories. Very different memories.

These other memories were tough to think about as they were the polar opposite of the good ones. Memories like never really getting along or relating to boys my own age when I was growing up. Like always being tense and nervous in the locker room. Like taking my equipment off as fast as I could so I could get the hell out of the locker room. Like feeling alone and cut off because of this “thing” about me I sensed but really didn’t understand. Like getting the crap kicked out of me by a team mate in the locker room while the rest of the team taunted and made fun of me. Like sobbing in the car afterwards while telling my older sister who picked me up that day what happened. Like having to explain to my parents what happened and why when I wasn’t even sure I knew. Like having to walk back into that same locker room the next weekend and face those guys again.

These hard stinging memories were coupled with still other poignant recollections of that same time period. Like when that same older sister who picked me up that day (she was only 16 and not outspoken at all) went into the ice arena and chewed my coaches out for not being around when everything went down. Like the coaches talking tough to the team that they should be ashamed of knocking down a team mate rather than building him up for the good of the team. Like my Parents helping me to muster the courage to stand tall and walk back into that locker room the next weekend. Like all my brothers and sisters coming to every one of my games for the rest of that season. All these vivid memories came back from the corners of my past and stirred the person I am today to my core. But at the same time, I was able to stay acutely aware of the fact I’m not a 12 year old kid playing hockey anymore. With 25 years of time stretching between me and those memories, I can comfortably say that that was hockey then.

So what about hockey now? From the start I felt like the MGHA had something very special going on. What I’ve had over the course of the last six months was an amazing opportunity to make fresh new hockey memories. And oh, what fun and hilarious new memories I have! Like seeing pink hockey gloves and skate laces on the ice. Like the guy who said “sorry” after we collided by accident during our first game (I found that really confusing at first). Like Tammy’s Suzy baking treats for us every game. Like cheering in the stands for the all the other teams and players. Like being burned (repeatedly) on the ice by Pork Chop. Like taking my time getting out of my gear in the locker room after our games. Like some of our interesting locker room discussion topics—how do you get a black eye from ice fishing anyway? Like Steven’s 3 game scoring streak. Like that crazy auctioneer at the Jock Auction (next year we just have to make sure he gets his meds before hand). Like Jean handing out her farm fresh organic chicken eggs in the locker room. Like the best New Year’s Eve I’ve had in Madison. Like finishing dead last in the regular season with my team who really didn’t care because we had so much fun together on the ice anyway. Like Bill’s patience as he fed me pass after pass in front of the net when my shots usually missed (when I hit the net that is). Like scoring my first goal since I was 13. . Like winning our first play off game! Like feeling safe. Like feeling I belong. Like being part of a team.

What the MGHA has meant to me is hard to describe or quantify. Suffice it to say to me it is, and remains, the gift that keeps on giving. I feel like after 5 years in Madison I have finally found the elusive gay community that I knew had to exist in this town. And what an amazing, diverse, passionate, fun and inclusive community it is. Before I joined the league last fall I had one foot out of Madison and was trying to move to Chicago. But now after a season of gay hockey under my belt, I know I’ll be in Madison for a long time to come. And I plan on getting more active than ever in our league community, the Madison gay community and the entire Madison community. Can gay hockey change your life? It did for me.

Like going to the Badger State Games and having our asses handed to us but still having fun anyway.

All the ladies in the league—they are the heart and soul of the league.

Like Kevin’s cannon wrist shots from the blue line.

Like such diverse, witty, fun passionate and crazy team mates.

Like feeling like I belong. Like feeling safe.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Zach Strong

Little did I know, when I walked through the doors I was going to be doing a whole lot more than playing some hockey. I was playing Gay Hockey. Gay hockey is not a winter sport with a sexual orientation. Identities are fluid and multi-faceted. Sometimes more so than we can contemplate. Fluid and multi-faceted like me, like Gay Hockey. At some point, I’m sure the MGHA might have looked like any other recreational sports team. It did to me. It is a social outlet and something to do with all those boring Sunday nights. Only in retrospect can I see how clearly it means so much more for so many people. One of them being me.

I grew up, constantly, moving through out “Chicagoland”. The images that portrayed my community, by the mainstream, and role models in my community were both equally discouraging growing up. The images subliminally molding my brain taught me to look up to athletes and thugs and stereotypes because they were the only ones coming out of neighborhoods like mine and becoming icons. I remember RuPaul, Prince, Michael Jordan, and a whole lot of rappers who usually got shot. Impoverished queer black men, the first face of HIV/AIDS.

I was drawn to athletics and possessed natural talent. Playing stick-ball in ‘the yard’ or football in ‘the field’ was everyone’s escape from our reality. The reality that most of us wouldn’t live to see 21, almost none us would make it to a university, and chances were we would end up living in those same conditions all our lives. Mothers and Fathers cheered on sons while daughters chatted or played in the near by playground. Amongst them was a different mother. She wasn’t shouting “Yeah Adam! Go Tim! Nice play Julio!” She screamed “Alright Alicia!”

My mother refers to those days of my early athleticism when we talk about my identity now. “You were the only ‘girl’ who walked up to a bunch of teenage boys and started playing tackle football. I always knew you were special. You were always a boy.”

There is a certain time when the girls don’t play with the boys anymore in athletics, usually some time around middle school. When kids stop signing up for summer recreational teams and have to start thinking about Varsity. For me it was a little different. It was when I moved from ‘the yard’ and ‘the field’ to Baraboo, Wisconsin. I was in my second semester of 7th grade. In the beginning I hated the change from city to small town, but I got used to it. By 8th grade my softball coaches were telling the high school Varsity coaches to get ready for their new clean up hitter. Being a middle line backer on the all-boys football team had me on the front page. After a few practices word quickly spread I wasn’t a ‘girl’ just trying to get attention, I came to play ball. I gained an enormous amount of respect from my pupils early on. And it turns out 8th grade boys and girls found the manifestation of my ambiguous gender quite attractive. I almost always had a boyfriend to hold hands in the halls with and pay for the movies. I also had frequent sleepovers at my girlfriends’ house so we could ‘practice’ making-out all night.

That trend continued through high school. Organized athletics became more and more a way of life than an extra curricular activity. I remained non-sexually active unless it was a kiss during spin the bottle or a slumber-party. And I often heard a “DYKE!” walking to class. But unlike most people’s high school experience, I could yell “Hell yeah! Did your girlfriend finally tell you what we did?” And got a smile and a high five from students I passed in the hall. Unlike so many other queer kids’ experiences, being a high school athletic authority really did make a difference in the way I was treated by everyone in town.

Things began to change when I went to college. I was getting involved with student organizations to learn things and explore myself. I joined the Black Student Unity (BSU) because I had a rough 5 years in Baraboo with little diversity and people of color to relate to. And I missed community and family. I joined the university’s gay and straight alliance (GSA) because I never actually had any ‘out’ friends before and I wanted to have language to describe my feelings. I joined the women’s club hockey team because “ice time” had always been my time and I wasn’t allowed on the university’s male team. It wasn’t long before the GSA had me exploring queer identities and queer theory. I was fascinated with gender studies in my classes. I felt finding an identity that fit me might never happen but learned about fluidity and queerness. I found great comfort in this and began using male pro-nouns and challenging how people saw me and saw my identity. I ran for the executive team of BSU and represented students in the senate. I couldn’t get enough ethnic and racial studies classes.

Something still was not complete. I had found some wonderful groups. I met great people and learned a lot. The only problem being, I found 3 wonderful groups to accept separate parts of who I was. BSU students were ignorant to my queer identity. The GSA was the antithesis of being proactive about recruiting and welcoming QPOC people and QPOC issues. The hockey girls didn’t want anything to do with either one of these groups. I don’t recall a single person from one group being friends with a person in another group. Any exception I can recall would only be if a person was a member of two groups. For example a best friend of mine who was in the GSA and BSU with me. We both experienced this predicament. Each part of my identity is not separate; they are interlocking and intertwined with everything I am. It was like being torn into pieces.

I transferred to a school in Madison in hopes that being in a city rather than a town would give me more opportunity and options for finding a community I could call home. For a year, I found very little of what I hoped for. I found a few more people like me who were searching for exactly what I was. We stuck close together and created our own support and community.

I wanted more, and found very little. But along with a few friends I found something else my first year in Madison. I found out that the biggest “party school” town in the country lived up to its reputation. I found a friend in a keg, or a bottle, or a bomb shot. I found the LGBTQ people the only place I knew how, at the bar. My friends and I could find reasons to drink any day. To celebrate, or to recuperate, or to retreat. “Lets get wasted!” All before I was 21 I found alcohol to be more of a routine than a social tradition.

October of 2006, I was talking to an old high school classmate I ran into here in Madison, we had become friends. While talking sports one night she mentioned a friend of hers learned about a gay hockey team in Madison. “I play hockey”, I explained I had been too busy partying the winter before to even look for a team. She said “Some guy named Patrick from New York City started it.” And that was all I needed to know. Patrick and I had already met in French class 2 semesters before. He was down one path, obviously to succeed, and excelled in French class. I clearly headed down another path, usually from class into a glass, and failed French class. We met once, the second time I met him he would change my path with Gay Hockey.

There was no way to tell what I was getting myself into. “What is Gay Hockey?” I thought. I walked through the double set of double doors. I could already smell the stench of hockey equipment. The reek of feet, mold, and week old sweat was never so refreshing. It’s like the smell of your house, your family’s house, or maybe the house you grew up in. No matter how long you’ve been gone, it might look different and feel very, very different, but it will always smell like home. I got my practice jersey and matching teal socks from the fellows in the lobby and made my way to the locker rooms. “Locker room 1, 2, 3, and 4. There are no genders for these doors.” I hesitated to ask someone where I should go. Taking only a moment to realize I probably couldn’t choose even if they were gender assigned. I stuck with the doors numbers. I went inside, sat down, and tried to remember “huh, what goes on first again?” The door swung open, in came bright eyes and a brilliant smile announcing “Hi, I’m Sarah!”

Shortly, people flooded the locker room. Introductions were exchanged while we changed. The room was filled with excitement and bubbly personalities. But I didn’t understand. So far “Gay Hockey” had given me more nervousness than excitement and the only thing bubbling was my gut. I stared into my bag and didn’t casually converse with anyone.

We hit the ice, practiced hard, and when we were done we retired back to 1, 2, 3, and 4. I changed as fast as I could without looking hurried. I was so shy and nervous. Giving a nod and a “see ya” I scurried from the locker room through the double set of double doors and into my car. There was no way to tell what I was getting myself into. After that first night I sat in my car, still not able to grasp the meaning or the purpose. “What is Gay Hockey?” I thought.

For me, Gay Hockey-the Madison Gay Hockey Association- is the most unexpected creature I have ever experienced. I have found a place where my many facets of identity are actually welcomed parts of my athleticism. I have found a group that is aware and loving of my cultural and ethnic identities. MGHA gave me the opportunity to meet the first QPOC athletes and teammates I have ever met. And now they are my friends, my family.

It is also a place where my friends can come and see me play hockey and feel comfortable cheering loud in the crowd. My family can see me play hockey in a place where we are all welcome.

We are challenging all institutions of gender when we play together. The beliefs in stereotypes about queer athletes of all genders are being crushed by Gay Hockey’s very existence. For the first time I really looked at myself and saw who I was. I don’t know that without experiencing a community that gives me this safe place to grow would I have seen this day. I am beginning understand myself in such beautiful clarity. I am seeing farther than before, especially when it comes to gender identity. We are always growing, discovering, and evolving-I am just glad I found the perfect place to do it.

I look in the mirror see a positive work in progress that I can be proud of. But most importantly, I see the role model I have searched for my whole life. In this day in age the mainstream does not represent but a selected few of privileged people. Because of Gay Hockey, I am privileged to represent something much larger than myself for so many people. Everyone is this league is now a role model to people in our community, our state, our country, and even the world.

Because of Gay Hockey, I have a healthy community and an amazing foundation of people who I can grow with. This new road was unexpected. I have the confidence and the support to succeed in all my endeavors. I challenged my own understanding and beliefs about being a queer athlete and can now believe in myself. That is what Gay Hockey is to me.

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Caity Strong

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve heard it been said that women have it easier than men “coming out” in our society. I’d like to let it be known that, in my opinion, it’s definitely a person-to-person experience. (Take into consideration all of the closed-minded families and all of the open-armed families whose willingness to accept their child has nothing to do with their gender.)

My personal experience with identifying myself was and still is a fluid experience. It’s something complicated and emotional– a process that to this day I still believe is evolving. I cannot and will not believe I am done growing, nor is anyone else who’s still living and breathing.

Because of the societal constraints that have been thrust upon us since the bombardment of images were first allowed to devour our heads: one image of a gay boy and one image of a gay girl were what sticks out when we close our eyes as a 12-year-old and imagine ourselves as gay, right?

But I dreampt this image was wrong. With capital letters and bold, italics, underlining, whatever. I knew there should exist so many multi-faceted images of what we’re allowed to be and what really remains to be true that no two images are even remotely similar. That 12-year-old should close their eyes a hundred times and never picture the same image twice.

This is why I questioned my sexuality constantly. Why do I possess both the qualities of this stereotypical gay woman and the stereotypical qualities of the straight woman? I have long hair but I love to play tackle football with the boys. I always want to be the dad when we’re playing house, but I still want to do my nails.

Throughout middle school, I was grappling with the normal middle-school-aged things. I yearned for attention, and all the other girls got it through getting boyfriends, so that’s what I did. Little did I know the reason this didn’t work for me was because boys weren’t my thing. I needed to get help fast and find answers or else things the dark end would find me soon.
Although the downward spiral tried to catch me several times, I found myself hanging on with the help of two awesome parents and drowned myself in schoolwork and the great sport of hockey. I didn’t come back up for air or to pay any other attention to my sexual identity until the summer after I graduated high school when my mom decided to leave my dad unexpectedly.

With big changes at home and big changes for my future as I was to live on my own for the first time, I decided to start figuring myself out. After joining a local women’s hockey league, my friend Lora asked me if I was also interested in joining a local Gay hockey team. She warned me that the skill level wasn’t what I was used to, but that the people were great and I’d be a good role model for the beginners.

Little did I know that the role I’d be taking on would not be as a role model, but yet one to be looking up to these amazing men and women who’ve survived and lived and smiled and cried… thriving and beautiful people in a community I never knew existed.

Not only does it exist, but it exists in the multi-faceted way I knew it did in my dreams; the way where I can close my eyes and dream myself gay one million times over each a different time never the same.

Gay hockey is so much more than hockey to me. Although hockey for me had been an escape for so long, something to knock out having to deal with my sexual identity, now facing it without fear and knowing I am part of a diverse population– that sense of community is what brings me back week after week.

And that is what Gay Hockey means to me 🙂

“What Gay Hockey Means to Me” by Mark Sadowski

Let me just start by saying, whoa. This whole season has continued to impress me and grow me as a person as well as change every expectation I’ve ever had about people’s motivation to learn, in this case, a sport they may have never thought they could and also those people’s yearning to build a community. Through this all, I have not only made 4 or 5 amazing friends all of whom I have no doubt in calling a best friend (yeah, I have more than one), but also 50 some other people who have a common interest, creating a sense of common identity.

When Patrick Farabaugh approached me to help start this league back in July, I was immediately on board. I never knew that gay hockey leagues existed before I met him. Of course I was in on it; I grew up playing hockey and had identified as a hockey player seven years before I realized that I was gay. In that sense, I never really could see any reason why a gay person couldn’t or shouldn’t be capable of playing a sport.

After learning more about expectations that are put on many people with regards to their sexuality, my views changed. Many of this year’s new players never felt that they fit into sports because as gay men, they never saw themselves as manly men, or as women, were afraid or ostracized by men who forced masculinity on the sport. The latter, I always saw. My sister started playing hockey when women in the sport were few and far between. There were coaches who wanted her injured and off the ice because they felt hockey was a man’s sport.

Why? Why is a sport any different than any other part of our lives? Sure, because of biological reasons, men tend to be bigger than women, but as a smaller person myself, I played against scores of guys twice my size. Does your physical make-up define your ability to play? In turn, does your sexuality define your ability to play? I never saw that, so I came into this as a beacon to show the new players that anyone can play the sport as long as they have the dedication to learn.

Personally, I’ve grown into someone I never thought I could be, a leader, someone who doesn’t just sit back and roll with the punches but, rather, one who is responsible for what he says and does. I’ve always fostered in my team the notion that in hockey, you have to make the plays, not wait for them to happen.

I’ve grown into a person who willingly takes on that responsibility. That notion that passing on a great love in my life to others is a contribution to my community and beyond. By offering up whatever I knew about hockey and skating, I was able to become more comfortable talking to people. I have seen what this league has done for so many people and it literally brings a tear of joy to my eye – the friendships that have been created, the confidence people have learned, the passion to win (we know we all have it), and overall, the smaller sense of community built team by team that has generated what in my opinion is a rebirth of Madison’s gay community or at least given a much stronger, visible sense of it.

Enough about me. This league is not about one person in particular. It’s about a player who played hockey for 13 years but didn’t until this year come fully to terms with his homosexuality until he found the strength through leadership. It’s about his sister, who would do anything for him. It’s about a man who for years wanted to see this happen in Madison and jumped on board as soon as he saw it could. It’s about a transgender person who since coming out had never before felt a sense of acceptance until playing in this league. It’s about a young out male who has never before identified with the gay community who now finds himself friends with some of the best in it. It’s about an 19 year old student who only came out this year and found a positive outlet where more dangerous ones loomed. It’s about a college graduate looking to soon go back who is so humble, yet so good that all I want to do is tell him over and over how good he is. It’s about a player who never was into team sports but has learned that through the spirit of teamwork, you can have that personal sense of achievement. It’s about a man who saw a gap in his life and took it upon himself to initiate what now has become something we all can cherish.

So, I thank Patrick. I thank you David. I thank you Matt. I thank you Galen. I thank you Vivian, Sarah, Michelle, Angie, Kevin, Jay, Steve, Emily, Derick, Tim, Austin, Jen, Gilbert, Kristen, Max, Angie A., Dan, Caity, Joyce, Jason, Darren, Shawn, Lora, Kim, Tammy, Wendy, Bri, Greg, Sherry, Glenn, Brian, Kristina, David, Tim S., Christopher Z, Bill, Tim F., Chris G, Gerry, Peter, Mike, Laura, Terrance, Sean, Tony, Christopher, Michelle W., Bazil, Deb, Andrew, Cory, and Paul. Thank you to all of the fans who came out to see us play and supported us. Thank you to our sponsors and all of the community groups that have come together. Together we are all the MGHA and we are all a community.