I play on two hockey teams. Members on one team know I’m gay. Members on the other do not.
The players on the straight team are of high calibre. I count some of them amongst my closest friends. None has ever given me the impression they would reject me if they found out I am gay. And yet I cannot be sure of that unless I tell them.
Before and after each of our games, I sit in the locker room listening to their stories — stories of partners and children and women they are dating. I don’t contribute to these stories. I don’t feel secure doing so.
As I have felt a distance growing between these teammates and myself, I thought it might be easier to walk away from them, and the team entirely, rather than risk rejection.
But I love hockey. So before giving it up for good, last fall I decided to check out Ottawa’s gay hockey club to see if it could replace what I felt was missing on the straight team. This wasn’t an easy step.
Even as a gay man I had reservations about walking into a gay locker room. I felt anxiety, perhaps even fear, of what I would find on the other side of the door. I asked a friend whether that trepidation was rooted in homophobia. He countered, suggesting I hadn’t been fearful of homosexuals, rather I had been fearful of a possible truth: that what I thought could happen in a gay locker room actually did and that the negative stigma toward homosexuals in sport was well-founded and would thus be directed at me. Guilty by association.
So let me tell you what I found on the other side of that locker-room door. There were no Speedos or pink boas. Nor were there towels being slapped at exposed body parts. Instead there was just a group of guys lacing skates, taping hockey sticks and telling stories. Fun stories and serious stories — of partners, children and men they were dating. The same stuff straight locker rooms are made of. Game on.
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