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salt • Thursday, February 13, 2020
STORY BY
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COLIN HOOD
WHAT IS MORE LIKELY - THAT EVERY PLAYER OF THOUSANDS IS STRAIGHT? OR THAT SOMETHING IN THE CULTURE OF HOCKEY MAKES THE PERCEIVED COST OF COMING OUT TOO GREAT? The NHL, and hockey at large, is just starting to reckon with the consequences of its culture. In Halifax, there is a league trying to create a space where there aren’t barriers to break.
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN The Halifax Mussels were conceived by Chuck Dauphinee in 2017 as a league that was not just tacitly, but explicitly open to LGBTQ+ players, allies and others who felt like outsiders to the hockey world “I myself am none of those letters, but I support all the values,” says current league chairman Scott Sears says. He’s intent on carrying Dauphinee’s vision forward. “Chuck supported a positive environment for beginners. To me, the values overlap. The bottom line
is that it’s hockey. Everybody loves hockey. And we just wanted a supportive environment where people could feel comfortable.” At the best of times, hockey has a high barrier to entry. It requires much more equipment than basketball or soccer. You have to learn how to skate. A lot of time and a lot of money invested just to walk into the rink. Add to that the anxiety of stepping into a room with 20 strangers. “When we have a new person walk in the room, our captains engage them as soon as they walk in the dressing room. We introduce each other. We talk. We joke with them,” says Sears. “It’s a really different bench on the Mussels bench. Our captains are not based on skill, they’re based on how they act, how they encourage other people.”
FINDING THEIR GAME Mussels players are linked by their love of hockey and their support for each other. How they come to the game, and what they do outside it doesn’t factor into that acceptance. Defenceman Mike Roy — who also plays a little left wing — is in his first season with the Mussels. “The reason why I wanted to get involved is because it was a queer-friendly league,” says Roy. “I am queer myself, so it felt like a safe space to get into a new sport that I never really got a chance to play growing up.” Roy remembers adolescent locker rooms with insecurity and awkwardness manifesting in jokes at the expense of others’ sexuality or physicality. In the Mussels, he has found an alternative.