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University of Winnipeg
Transgressing “The GoodOld Hockey Game”: Non-Conformist Players in theConformist Arenas of IceHockey
Women’s and Gender Studies StudentColloquium PresentationKevin SchachterApril 4, 2009
 
 Hello out there! We're on the air, it's 'Hockey Night' tonight.Tension grows, the whistle blows, and the puck goes down the ice.The goalie jumps, and the players bump, and the fans all go insane.Someone roars, "Bobby scores!" at the good old hockey game.
 — Stompin’ Tom Connors, “The Hockey Song”In the above verse from his legendary “Hockey Song,” Stompin’ Tom Connors narratesan iconic expression of Canadian cultural identity: a nighttime hockey game, in which a player named “Bobby” scores a goal (Connors 1973). Vividly captured in this verse are a few major qualities that lead to the allure of the hockey game: the tension of competition, the utilization of skill, the expression of physicality, and a sense of community. Yet just as striking about thehockey game is a prominent characteristic that is not depicted in this verse: the structural andcultural barriers that effectively limit participation in ice hockey to select groups of people.Ice hockey is governed by a masculine, heteronormative, ‘able-bodied,’ middle and upper class hegemony that privileges the participation of players who conform to this norm. A set of social structures and cultural constructs serves to support the participation of these ‘normal’ players and to impede the participation of players who do not conform to this norm. Recentsociological research has uncovered several of the barriers faced by non-conformist players,including: patriarchal processes by which access to ice time and other resources are allocated; theunreimbursed financial costs of hockey equipment, playing fees, and practice time; pressures toconform to traditional gender roles; and the construction of women’s hockey and sledge hockey —a version of the sport accessible to players with lower-body disabilities—as lesser alternativesto the ‘real’ game of ‘able-bodied’ men’s hockey. Conversely, these studies portray how, in spiteof the formidable barriers, non-conformist hockey players have gained access to ice hockey andto the corresponding positive experiences of skill development, competition, physical exertion,and community-building. The literature thus reveals a tension between the hegemony governing
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 participation in ice hockey and the potential for positive transgression of this hegemony posed bythe play of non-conformist hockey players.In the initial sections of the research paper from which I have adapted this presentation, Ianalyze this base of literature through an intersectional feminist disability lens. Such a lensfacilitates a sharp understanding of the socially constructed cultural and structural barriers thatreinforce the hegemony over ice hockey and of the potential for the transformation of the sport posed by the participation of non-conformist players. As my analysis reveals, non-conformisthockey players have succeeded in gaining access to the positive experiences of playing the sportthrough adapting to or slightly transgressing the barriers that they have faced. However, thisanalysis also suggests that non-conformist ice hockey players’ participation may only serve todiversify the demographics of hockey players without effectively challenging the hegemonicculture and structures of the sport. In the third section of this paper, which I present today, Iattempt to contribute to this discussion through a case-study examination of my own position onthe No Regretzkys, a mixed-gender non-conformist team playing in a normatively male divisionof a recreational hockey league. Through this examination, I identify how the No Regretzkys’enrollment in a recreational hockey league transgresses the hegemony over ice hockey, whilecautioning that moments in the team’s experience indicate the limits of this transgression.Comprised of five women and eleven men, the No Regretzkys registered to play inWinnipeg’s Adult Safe Hockey League (ASHL) for the 2008-09 season; the majority of the players on the team had not played organized hockey in over a decade, if ever. After starting inthe league’s third lowest male division, the team moved to the lowest division for the final 27games. Several statistics illustrate the extent to which the No Regretzkys are a non-conformisthockey team: the team’s limited experience and skill is reflected in a 0-33 win-loss record, and in
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