Q. When did you begin playing hockey?
A. As a boy, growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. In the winter, on school
nights, my buddies and I use to freeze water on our driveways and
play two-on-twos. My friend’s father was a carpenter, so we
used his wooden “saw horses” for our goals. Throughout
the neighborhood, the windows of garage doors were always broken
from hockey pucks, and there was always a Spring-time ritual of
making window repairs once the snow melted. On the weekends, we
played in pickup games in real competition on a local pond, which
we in the sport call “pond hockey.” It was until much
later, say 25 years, when I started playing on an actual indoor
rink with boards and glass.
Q. What happen to your hockey career?
A. Jail, actually prison, interrupted my hockey career for about
25 years.
Q. Are you serious?
A. Ah, no……
Q. So what really happened?
A. Without giving you a complete psychological profile of my relationship
with my father, I can tell you that my parent’s decision to
move to Florida when I was in high school ended my hockey career.
Q. Were you disappointed?
A. No, actually I was quite happy living with bugs in a swamp in
the middle of Florida and spending 10 months of the year in humid,
100-degree weather.
Q. Are you serious?
A. Ah, no….
Q. I sense of bit of sarcasm?
A. Really?
Q. Can we get back to my original line of questioning?
A. Surely…
Q. When did you start playing hockey again?
A. I rekindled my hockey career about 8 years ago when my boyfriend
bought me a pair of hockey skates. I then answered an advertisement
soliciting Gay people to start a hockey team. I went to the first
meeting, and I’ve been playing ever since.
Q. What has been the best experience playing Gay hockey?
A. It would have to be meeting a lot of nice people, especially
my playing partner, Karen McAfee.
Q. What has the relationship with Karen been like?
A. Basically, non-sexual, primarily because I am a man who likes
men, and she is a woman who likes women, however, she does tend
to spend a lot of time talking about men’s penises.
Q. I mean in the way of hockey?
A. Oh…. The best, actually…. We’ve been playing
together since the beginning and we have a lot of fun. We definitely
don’t take ourselves too serious.
Q. Do you two protect each other on the ice?
A. As blueliners, you know, defensemen, it gets pretty rough and
we have to stand guys up a lot of time, especially if they are hanging
out in front of our goalie. Karen and I watch each other’s
back and when someone takes a cheap shot, we’re there to help
one another.
Q. Didn’t you have such an incident in the last
game?
A. Yea, exactly. There was this forward who kept drilling Karen
with pretty hard hits, and the ref wasn't giving any penalties.
Well, after a while I just got tired of it, and I clock this goon.
It was great.
Q. You got a penalty?
A. Yes
Q. I wanted to touch on something that has followed
you around, sort of like a reputation?
A. What, that I sleep around on my boyfriend?
Q. No, that you are considered a goon?
A. Oh… well then, forget about what I said about that boyfriend
stuff.
Q. Well, are you a goon?
A. I’m glad you are giving me the opportunity to set the record
straight. When I first started playing hockey, I was a little more
aggressive, like that one time I knocked that guy out cold during
a hockey practice in San Jose, or that time I decked that guy in
Oakland, which led to a team brawl, oh yea, and that time…
well you get the idea. However, since then, I’ve gotten older
and wiser and play a more focused game. In fact, if you check the
stats, I have very few penalties this year, although I play a position
that is prone to penalties.
Q. How would you describe your hockey game?
A. When I first started playing I focused too much on myself and
my individual play. Now, I’m totally in sync with the team
play and making sure what I do on the ice enhances the play of my
teammates, such as looking for quality passes and getting open on
the points. I think more in terms of how I am going to help the
team.
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