Pride Month spotlight: Harbour Lights promotes game, fun in Australia & More News Here

This June, in partnership with the You Can Play Project, the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association’s joint Hockey Is For Everyone initiative will rejoice Pride Month. All 32 NHL Clubs, alumni, and present gamers will take part in pleasure occasions, together with parades, throughout North America. As a part of Pride Month, NHL.com will share tales in regards to the LGBTQI+ hockey group. Today, a have a look at Harbour Lights Ice Hockey Club in Sydney, Australia. 

Stuart Ridley did not know if there have been any LGBTQI+ hockey groups in Sydney, Australia, and even sufficient gamers to kind one.

So, when Ridley and his son, Dash, scoured the web in 2020 and located Australian LGBT Ice Hockey, a Melbourne-based group greater than 500 miles to the southwest, they have been shocked after they obtained a swift reply to their e-mail inquiry: “We’ve been waiting two years for someone from Sydney to contact us. We’ll help you start a club.”

In 2021, Ridley co-founded Harbour Lights Ice Hockey Club, the primary LGBTQI+ (lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) membership in Sydney and New South Wales state. The membership promotes range and inclusion whereas offering a fun and aggressive protected area freed from judgment and stereotyping for gamers of all ranges.

“For LGBTQI+ people, there’s a bit of an attitude that we can’t play, that hockey is not for us,” Ridley stated. “We’re trying to change that, obviously.”

Ridley and Carl Jackson, Australia LGBT Ice Hockey’s president and the co-founder of Melbourne’s Southern Lights Ice Hockey Club, stated their efforts drew inspiration from the success of North American teams just like the Madison Gay Hockey Association in Wisconsin, the New York City Gay Hockey Association, the Chicago Gay Hockey Association and the Montreal Dragons.

“My youngest is playing hockey and they’re having a hard time because there’s a fair bit of discrimination and bigotry, that somehow because you’re LGBTQI+, because you’re queer, you’re weak or can’t be trusted or whatever,” Ridley stated.

“They were going to quit hockey, so I started showing them, ‘Here’s what’s happening with Chicago, here’s what’s happening with Madison, here’s what’s happening with NYC, here are all these amazing groups.’ The more we looked, the more we found.”

 

Starting a crew, particularly a crew representing a marginalized group is at all times a troublesome process however realizing it has been executed in North America helped gas the drive to determine Harbour Lights. Ridley, with the assistance of Jackson and others, received began in January 2021 by posting curiosity varieties on Facebook and Instagram. The social media marketing campaign generated 60 responses inside a month, and a web site was created for gamers to register. 

While getting individuals to enroll was one factor, getting them onto the ice in the throes of a pandemic was one other.

As a few of Sydney’s lockdown guidelines eased, the supervisor of Ice Zoo, Ridley’s native rink, instructed that Harbour Lights throw a celebration — adhering to social distancing guidelines — adopted by a hockey recreation in March 2021 to coincide with the town’s annual homosexual and lesbian Mardi Gras celebration.

“If you wanted to dance to great music and celebrate queer culture, it was at the ice rink,” Ridley stated. “We had drag queens and other performers, some of us DJing. Then we played a game. Some people had played (hockey) before, some people had started playing just two months before.”

Today, Harbour Lights boasts greater than 100 members who play ice and inline hockey. The membership is holding weekly coaching periods forward of its Pride Month Invitational June 25 for newcomers and skilled gamers.

Ridley stated Harbour Lights has attracted a number of LGBTQ+ gamers who give up the game years in the past as a result of they felt that hockey tradition was homophobic and unwelcoming.

Daniel Delisle started skating with Harbour Lights final 12 months after he stopped taking part in ice hockey as a teen on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, about 25 years in the past.

“I thought it would be a one-off thing, like one game, but it was so much fun,” Delisle stated. “It was so good to be back playing, and everything had changed. Like, it was [a] really inclusive, supportive environment. It was a blast.” 

Ella Licari is a goalie for the Sydney Sirens of the Australian Women’s Ice Hockey League who grew to become the league’s first transgender girl in 2016. She performed with Harbour Lights throughout their inaugural skate and wished that golf equipment prefer it and Southern Lights existed early in her hockey profession.

“It would have been a lot easier for me,” stated Licari, whose accomplice, Alice Buchanan, co-founded Harbour Lights with Ridley. “I played at a very high level early on … but I didn’t necessarily feel a lot of safety or welcoming in the sport. I would be the quiet one in the change room. I wouldn’t really socialize with people. The culture didn’t really fit with me, so it was very difficult. Unfortunately, I don’t think I was ever really able to be who I am today.” 

Harbour Lights plans to showcase itself to the world when it hosts a hockey match throughout Sydney WorldPride from Feb. 17 to March 5, 2023. 

“Our hope is the more visible (LGBTQI+) hockey players are, the more that play at the highest level, it becomes truly accepted,” Ridley stated. 

 

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