They say if you love what you do then you will never work a day in your life. Same can be said with sport, Southern Lights Ice Hockey Club is what I love.
I still remember the feeling, hitting submit for an EOI to play winter Division 10 ice hockey.
Buying the gear and finally arriving at the rink for my first training session, my body riddled with anxiety and nerves.
Could I do this? Would I be accepted? I hope I am not terrible.
I grew up with sport, it wasn’t really an option as a kid it was just something we did.
Winter would be Aussie rules and then shifting to cricket once summer rolled around.
However, there was a big gap for of over a decade from my early twenties where I didn’t play competitive sport at all.
Often I would wonder about the root cause, then I kept coming back to the same thing. Comfortability.
I have never had it, all of the locker rooms that I have been in homophobic undertones linger in the background.
Or the worst-case scenario of a teammate telling me they go gay bashing.
Inside the world of masculine men’s sport, I never felt I could be my authentic self inside a locker room.
I returned to sport in my early thirties, I played footy for Portarlington, it started off well but there were still uncomfortable times.
Like my coach calling the other team “poofters” during a quarter time huddle, language is a real barrier to queer people playing sport.
Being disillusioned with the club I left, thinking my competitive sporting career was over.
However, after plenty of nudges along the way from friends, Southern Lights came calling.
No ice hockey school or lessons, it was jumping into the deep end. Skates and all.
I walked into the locker room with a mindset of good vibes and happy times, 41-years-old my prime is in the rearview mirror.
Uniquely, I play in a mixed gendered team, so there were no preconceived ideas going in.
Often, I have thought ice hockey has a long way to go, it still does, but playing for an LGBTIQ+ club like Lights has opened my eyes.
I am now more than just a podcast, my monthly Pride & Puck episodes have created an online community, now I am there in the physical sense.
Ice hockey is a unique sport, the team aspect and community focus is hard to find elsewhere.
You package that up with a club like Lights and those two aspects are front and centre, there is genuine care for the person.
My team – the Magellanics, sit top of the standings and it isn’t lost on me that the culture created inside the locker room is a major contributor.
The effect of being able to express yourself, authentically, allows people to reach their full potential.
It all comes back to loving what you do, and there is genuine love inside the Magellanics team.
40 years to find a sporting place I can truly call home, and it’s found in the most unusual place, an ice rink in Australia.
We might fall over, collide with each other or miss the puck. But that’s all part of loving what you do.
Who knew that a group of little penguins would bring back my love of sport, this time as an authentic, unapologetic bisexual.
Noot Noot 🐧
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