Play Like a Girl (a Women Wednesdays post)

It's Wednesday night. A bead of sweat glides down my temple as I push my blade into the ice. It pops and groans. I grin with satisfaction at the successful communication between the muscles of my core and the skinny steel blade on the bottom of my foot.
Edges. Strength. Power.
This is what we learn at the Power Skating Clinic in the Portland Women's Hockey League.

Hockey. Ice. Women, and people that identify in whatever way feels right to them. It's the most beautiful and safe space to play that I could ever have dreamed of, and it's here, in my famously quirky and fantastic city.

When I was an eleven-year-old in sunny San Diego I fell in love with hockey. We got the gear and I took the classes and joined a league. I was the only girl in the whole world. They put me on the Mighty Mites, where the boys were four, five, six years younger than me. Why? Because I was a girl and the adults didn't want me to get hurt. I went along with it because adults were always right, but I kept it a secret from the kids at school that I was playing with babies.

Most of my memories of that time are hazy, just bits and pieces. I know I played right wing, and that once during a game some Other Mite wasn't watching where he was going and tripped over my stick. I cried all the way to the penalty box, but thanks to me that little midget never made it to the goal.

The coach was an asshole, constantly ripping me and the little boys a new one for not playing hard enough, not being good enough. I had my mom secretly tell on him and he got nicer after that.

I remember a kid named Michael, one of the oldest mites, maybe just a couple years younger than me. We would chase each other. I guess we liked each other. I dunno. Mostly we liked hockey.

I remember getting a chance to don the gear and try my hand at goaltending. I did good for my first time, blocking the coach's high shot with a part of my arm that wasn't padded. I acted like it didn't hurt but omfg it burned like hell. I was so proud of that bruise.

My younger cousin, who adored me (maybe still does if I'm lucky), says I once flipped a puck over the glass to him, and that he made me sign it afterwards. Like I said, I don't remember much, but it sounds like I could have been good.

I do remember the older guys making fun of me behind my back, whether I was playing or just skating and having fun on the ice. They did it just loud enough for me to hear, just low-profile enough so nobody else would notice.

What I don't remember, vividly, is having any sense of community or encouragement. Nobody out there wanted to support what I was doing.

It wasn't long before I stopped doing it.

After that, most of my life was spent off the ice, and much of it spent not being true to who I am. After many decades on a long and difficult journey towards finding my whole self, I did, at last, rekindle my love affair with ice skating, and in 2023 I was on the ice every chance I could get, practicing edges, stops, turns, spins, vines, jumps, you name it. I was flying!

I decided I wanted to play hockey again, bought the gear, and signed up for a drop-in co-ed (read men's) class. Sadly, being told to in a fatherly tone to "move on out of the way, hon" by some stiff-legged fartface rekindled the decades-old discouragement. I ditched the idea of hockey and decided it would just be ice freestyle from there on out.

It's fine, I told myself. I love skating. I can live with that. I probably could have, too.

But then it happened.

It's a late summer afternoon. A rink I don't usually skate at. I sit alone on a bench at the end of the public session, unlacing my skates, listening to the hum of the crowd and the sound of the zamboni. A woman rushes past me with a hockey stick and a bag of gear, leaving a breeze in her wake. She opens the door to a locker room, to an eruption of cheers celebrating her arrival. The door swings shut behind her, and that world disappears.

I put my skates in my bag. I'm putting on my shoes when two locker room doors burst open. I look up from my shoelaces at the army of hockey-clad women filing into the room. Some are younger. Some are my age. Some are obviously quite older than me. Many have names and pronouns written in tape on their helmets. All of them are smiling.

My mouth opens and next thing I know I am asking about the league. Everyone is thrilled to have me. Nobody cares about my skills and experience. I'm given a pamphlet. I promise to look it over and see what my budget allows, but when I get home I put the fall season on my credit card and sign up for the last of the summer's skills and drills classes with the women's league.

I want this.

I need this.

The energy on the ice is one that I've never known before. Nobody cares that I am a woman. Nobody cares if I am gay, straight, queer, trans, nonbinary, anything, any more than they care about what I ate for breakfast. Everyone is here to play hockey. With everyone else.

Most of the members of the league share a similar history with hockey. Some have been lucky to have had enough support when they were younger and are incredibly talented. Others, like me, did not. Many of them were never given the chance to try it as children. Some never played before this league was born. All of them have faced adversity because of their sex and/or gender identity.

And yet...

Here we are. Spring chickens and silver vixens and everything in between. We have all come together, we have all taken this leap onto the slippery ice to pursue our dreams. We will never again take no and can't and shouldn't as an answer.

We are here and we are playing hockey.

Dedicated to all the women and gender expansive individuals of the Dirty Birds, and to women and gender expansive athletes of all ages, abilities, and skill levels everywhere.

From the PDX Women's Hockey website. Read more about the league at https://www.pdxwomenshockey.com/.

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