Hockey Life (or something like it)..

Sasky Stewart

It’s an unusual thing, to find a girl so in love with hockey, so passionate and dedicated to the most untypical of her nation’s sport down here in the most unlikely of hockey countries. Or so I’m told. I’ve never really felt it was unusual because to me, hockey is an extension of my being, who I am and what I do.

Hockey is not a sport I fell in love with and have dedicated so much of my life so far too because it was what was expected of me or because it is what everyone else did. Hockey is a sport I fell in love with because from the moment I first saw it, first stepped foot in a rink and heard the noise of skates, I had no other choice. I do not come from a hockey family or a town that even had an ice rink. I did not spend nights watching the Redwings only to get up before dawn, dragged out of bed by parents for practice. This makes no difference as over the past years hockey has become so much a part of me that it has shaped the person I am today.

To the sport of hockey I owe a lot. It has made me strong and determined. It has taught me the value of hard work and that nothing is a bar to by success, not my size, my gender or my nationality, if I am willing to dedicate myself to the pursuit of my goals. It has taught me to find the strength needed to pull myself up every time I fall, how to be a team mate and at the same time how to lead those around me.

I could list my achievements in the hockey world, what I have done but a resume does not capture who I am as a person or how I got to where I am today. Since I first fell in love with the sport, I have dedicated myself to it, through play (as a member of the National Women’s League) and through work. When the opportunity arose I jumped at the chance to join the Board of the AIHL, not only to gain further experience in the management of the sport I love but as it presented a chance to walk the talk and make a meaningful contribution to the sport that means so much. I’ve worn many hats in the name of hockey from events co-ordinator to marketing and communications director, development leader to social media guru and even branching out to goalie coach, boards repair and first aid officer (my ability to repair facial wounds is actually getting quite good) and I have taken each of these on board with the same dedication and passion that I live my entire life with.

I’ve never been a small thinker, at 5 wanting to be prime minister and at 15 a judge. For the last while however, I’ve had my sights set on being the first female Commissioner of the NHL. These aren’t small goals and despite being small I’ve never aimed for anything less than the biggest dreams I could think of. That’s why when I wanted to learn more about developing and running hockey I set my sights on an NHL internship. After devising a promotional method and package and approached every single team until Ted Leonsis of the Capitals brought me on board. Less than a year later and with summer break once again approaching and faced with the not to appealing prospect of 3 months sitting around, I turned to the WHL this time for an internship which would help me learn and grow as a hockey professional.

I admit, I am unsure of my eligibility for this internship due to my location outside the USA. What I have learnt however, is that much akin to the Gretzky attitude on shot taking, 100% of the chances you don’t take you don’t get. This is a chance I will always take.

I grew up in a small country town who’s main interests were drinking, cows and football. My dad put in swimming pools for a living and my mother raised us and cut hair. I was lucky however, to have two of the most accepting parents you could imagine. My father once drove a bus for a drag tour and also (in his 20′s) routinely dressed up as a Japanese Geisha for reasons unknown. My mother was a hairdresser. They never judged, accepted everyone and taught me much the same.

Brendan Burke came out to his team mates, many of whom probably didn’t come from families like mine, but grew up in towns like the one I did, small, country and undeniably close minded. He had listened to years and years of chirping centered around insults to ones sexuality, the perceived ultimate in insults if  locker room trash talk was any indication. It had lead to him quitting playing in his final years of high school, unable to bear the talk, the degradation of his self. Still he came out, running the risk of loosing the trust and friendship of the hockey brotherhood he had found as a student manager at Miami-Ohio.

Not only did he come out to his hockey team, he came out to a father that is widely regarded as a prototype of masculinity in an already masculine sport. He takes a risk, at loosing a family that so many of us could never consider making. He takes a risk at rejection and shame that would send so many of us cowering and preferring to hide ourselves rather than run those risks. Instead, he finds acceptance grounded in the common sense belief that someones worth goes far beyond their sexual orientation, that persons value cannot be measured by who they love but by how they live.

The media jumps on this story, of the famous father’s acceptance of his son, the overwhelming acceptance of the hockey community to something still so taboo and suddenly Brendan Burke is everywhere, and everyone? Everyone is okay.

When Brendan Burke came out everyone heard about it. Thousands of hockey players across the country, across the world suddenly had a little bit of light they may not have had before. If Brian Burke can be okay with it, if a college hockey team can, maybe my coach, my team mates, friends and family can too.

Brendan Burke wanted to end the pattern of homophobia that was endemic to hockey and other sports. He wanted it to be okay for anyone to be who they were and to not feel shame for that, to be free to live how they wished without fear of loosing the sport and friends that meant so much. It is a goal, a dream many of us share, and in his memory, many of us will continue to carry on.

Your courage in stepping forward so publicly will serve as inspiration to many and the message you came forward with of acceptance will be remembered and carried forward. You were one of the firsts, but you will not be the last.

Rest in Peace, Brendan.