(Content warning: post and links discuss harassment, assault, sexual assault, rape, racism, sexism, and homophobia)

Yesterday was both a blemish on major North American sports and an utterly predictable series of events. Within the span of about an hour Thursday morning, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers launched “an embarrassingly sexist” program aimed at helping female fans understand the complexity of football with tips about fashion and play clocks. The official Vanderbilt Football twitter account tweeted an offensive and ill-conceived promo for its program claiming, “We are RELENTLESS, TOUGH, AND INTELLIGENT, and WE DON’T NEED YOUR PERMISSION”. The sexual assault overtones are clear; they are made worse when the program’s recent history with sexual violence is known. At about the same time word broke of Chicago superstar Patrick Kane’s involvement in a rape investigation in New York.

There was appropriate concern and pushback against these developments online as well as predictable, disappointing, and harmful support for Kane and dismissal of the Bucs’ and Vanderbilt’s actions. Those content to bury their heads further in the sand sang the familiar and flawed refrain of “this is society’s problem”.

Conventions, rules, and pedagogy in sport did not develop in a vacuum. Rather, sporting traditions have always grown out of the values of and challenges faced by the cultures creating and codifying sports like football or hockey. Hockey is like the internet in that it reflects, not exists separately from, our culture. Consequently, it is the flimsiest of defenses that suggests “hockey doesn’t have a problem with violence against women, society does!”
No.

That’s incorrect.

Violence in sport is socially constructed.

Both hockey and the society which created it, and maintains the sport’s practices, have a serious problem with violence against women. To suggest otherwise is to blatantly ignore the reality that we are presented with on an almost daily basis.
As fans we have a tendency to want to limit the scope of hockey’s domestic violence and sexual assault problem. So we try to limit the discussion to player actions we deem criminal and ignore the everyday sexism we see in the game, in the way teams treat female fans and employees, and jokes on social media that fall flat. We eviscerate the Los Angeles Kings and Dean Lombardi for being terrible, which they are, and we take the Nashville Predators to task for being appalling, which they are, and we’ll add Chicago to the list now, but we will refuse to see this as a league-wide problem. We’ll ignore that it permeates various levels of the game and is endemic to the sport. It makes it easier to keep watching and talking hockey if every team, and by extension, fans, aren’t complicit. It makes it easier to root for your team when you only object to rape culture and violence against women when it’s a player from a rival team in the crosshairs. The team I cheer for is complicit and so is the team you cheer for. No team has a moral high ground here.

We’ll continue to take our cues from the commissioner who says hockey doesn’t need a comprehensive strategy for addressing and dealing with violence against women; that most in the sport are good guys who would never participate in such violent actions. We’ll cross our fingers and believe it, even with all the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle yesterday was another Canadian sports league taking action. The CFL released a comprehensive and victim-centred violence against women policy. Created in partnership with the Ending Violence Association of Canada the program doesn’t relegate victims to the sidelines which happens frequently in other leagues. It’s not perfect but it also illustrates that pro leagues can lead on this issue and change the cultures of their sports if they just make an effort. The more proactive a league is, the harder it becomes for its fans to deny the realities we keep seeing in the games we love.

There are many who want to stop these incidents. But the culture won’t change just by throwing the book at Slava Voynov, Mike Ribeiro, or Patrick Kane. The culture won’t change if we continue to refuse to centre the victim in discussions of violence and rape. The culture won’t change if we don’t take sports media to task for writing bullshit, reputation repairing pieces. So far, sports fans, and hockey fans in particular, have been unwilling to examine their own complicity in the culture of the game which permits such treatment of women. Further, we are collectively unwilling to look at the ways in which hockey itself promotes and relies on a masculinity rooted in rape culture.

Earlier this spring comedian Amy Schumer’s sketch “Football Night Lights” made waves and was widely celebrated not just for its stance on rape culture in sports but for clearly articulating the fictional community’s complicity in that culture and how football itself speaks the language of rape. The coach, played by Josh Charles, tells his team football isn’t about rape; rather that “It’s about violently dominating anyone that stands between you and what you want! You gotta get yourself into the mindset that you are gods, and you are entitled to this!” The message is clear: victory on the field requires both physical prowess and domination; players must force the opposition into submission. In this landscape, women are treated as trophies, the spoils of victory, and subject to a similar domination.

Yet there’s been a failure to apply what’s articulated in “Football Night Lights” to hockey. Hockey players are encouraged to play hard, dominate in the corners, and beat their opponents into submission. In hockey, players and teams are frequently reward for using violence during the course of a game. Typically mocked as simple sports clichés, we hear the language of domination from players, coaches, and analysts as well as read it in newspapers and blogs. We don’t bat an eye when this language crosses over into more explicitly sexual language. How often have you heard Jim Hughson or Gord Miller talk about penetration when describing a player like Kyle Turris or Henrik Sedin enter the opposing zone? Objections to this word and similar phrases in hockey are usually met with dismissal; “this is hockey,” the refrain goes, not sex or rape (the distinction between the two remains murky to many). To paraphrase Pitch Perfect, a zone entry is not a good enough reason to use the word penetrate. As hockey fans we’re aware of how suggestive the language of the game can be, but rather than question what’s at stake when using sexual language to describe a sporting event, we treat it as a joke and use hashtags like #hockeyporn to keep the laughs going. But we rarely reflect on the homophobic nature of the humour or how it naturalizes the pairing of violence and sex.

We talk about hockey this way and use such sexual language because of the type of masculinity we celebrate in the game. Hockey praises a masculinity that is still based on conservative notions of toughness and dependent on strength and aggression. The game’s ubiquity and popularity in Canada means it’s the dominant expression of masculinity in this country. It’s typified by people like Nick Kypreos and current players like Chris Neil, and celebrated by personalities like Don Cherry. Steeped in whiteness, it uses subtle, racially-motivated language to police behaviour and maintain the status quo. Players like Evander Kane, P.K. Subban, and Josh Ho Sang are considered controversial because they have “personality,” confidence,” and are “outspoken”; coded language highlighting how uncomfortable hockey’s traditional, white masculinity is with difference.

Hockey has a code which also maintains and rewards this kind of conventional tough masculinity. Hitting and fighting are acceptable performances of aggressive masculinity (despite the physical dangers and the fact that fighting is always penalized) while more benign transgressions, like diving (which generally injuries no one), are treated as stains on the game. Those who dive are described in feminized language as soft and delicate. European players are often described this way in contrast to the proper masculinity of celebrated Canadian boys who play the game the “right” way. I’ve always found the consternation surrounding diving in sports like hockey and soccer to be over the top, but that it’s characterized so vehemently as duplicitous is important. Cross-checking is cheating, hitting from behind is cheating, and sucker punching a player is cheating, yet diving, more than any other infraction in hockey, causes the toughness crowd to lose their composure. It’s because diving is seen as lying, cheating, and fraudulent and those who dive are feminized. Think about that. Think about the language used and the response from hockey fans when players embellish or are perceived as faking an injury to gain an advantage like a power play.

It can’t be surprising then, that the majority response to women who have been raped or physically abused by hockey players is to disbelieve and discredit victims, to slander and shame women. It’s the same language.

I’ve been thinking about my masculinity a lot lately. It’s a component of my trans identity and I can’t dismiss it simply because of the numerous examples of toxic masculinity around me. Yet I’m a product of a patriarchal society and I can see how a masculinity based in toughness is appealing. Following convention when it comes to identity can provide someone like me with security and safety and that’s desperately needed for trans lives. But for me, the cost of inclusion is simply too high, namely increased complicity in the toxic masculinity and rape culture of sports like hockey.

One of the things you become acutely aware of if you’re trans is how much of gender is performance. The same is true of masculinity. We often evaluate masculinity in terms of crisis and fragility. The emergence of organized and codified sports like hockey at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries are sometimes discussed as a response to the feminization of men in the late Victorian period. Similarly, we talk about the fragility of modern masculinity in the face of the erosion of traditional gender roles and the loss of breadwinner status and therefore embrace contemporary examples of tough, aggressive masculinity, like hockey, football, and MMA. But the real crisis is not masculine identity but the violence against women which continues to plague the North American sports landscape.

I don’t see the panicked actions of a fragile identity. I see a deliberate digging in. It’s a limiting mindset for men and sidelines all who don’t fit this particular expression of identity. What I see in the masculinity typified by hockey, in its players and many of its supporters, is dangerous. It is a concerted effort to maintain the hierarchical power they have always enjoyed and abused. It extends to the stands and bars and pubs where fans watch this performance of tough, aggressive masculinity. It continues off ice for players and team personnel.

That women continue to bear the brunt of this assertion of power remains tragically predictable.

This month marks the 10^th anniversary of the Hossa-Heatley trade. While Yashin for Chara and the pick the Sens used to draft Jason Spezza will remain the greatest trade in team history, Hossa-Heatley is perhaps the most important, franchise defining move and subject to considerable revisionist history by Sens fans.

It’s not that people weren’t excited about the trade at the time, far from it. While a vocal minority panned the move, Heatley was young and exciting and certainly a big ticket winger on the same level as Hossa. Hossa was beloved in the capital, fans chanted his name after every goal. He was one of the team’s most exciting players and a big contributor during the 2003 playoff run to the Eastern Conference Finals. But the P.R. machine got to work quickly; conventional xenophobia emerged in reaction to the move – Hossa was a soft European who couldn’t handle the tough play of the NHL playoffs while Heatley was a gritty Canadian kid. It was easy to paint Hossa as greedy, the stereotype of the mercenary European player still fresh in the minds of Sens fans after several rounds of contract disputes with former captain Alexei Yashin.

Heatley didn’t exactly fit the gritty Canadian player mould either. He scored more from the hash marks than the crease, and came with his own considerable baggage. He had asked for a trade out of Atlanta earlier in the summer, troubled by his responsibility for an accident in September 2003, in which Heatley drove too fast, crashed his car, and his passenger and teammate Dan Snyder died as a result. But just as quickly as Hossa was painted as greedy, Heatley’s past was glossed over by many Sens fans. He was Ottawa’s first true Canadian star. Spezza would quickly join Heatley, but didn’t have a breakout season until paired with the winger, and Wade Redden, who would have his best season statistically in 2005-06, was overshadowed by Zdeno Chara. Ottawa’s best, Yashin, Alfredsson, and Hossa, were all Europeans who had strained and difficult contract disputes with the organization in the past. Players negotiating with the tools available to them has for a long time been characterized as greed by fans and media alike. If playing the game right means measuring a player’s toughness on the ice, then playing for the love of the game and eschewing monetary concerns is how to play it right off the ice in conventional Canadian hockey mythology. In contrast to Yashin, Alfie, and Hossa, Heatley had starred for Canada at the previous three World Championships as well as the World Cup in 2004 while recovering from serious knee and eye injuries. There was the prospect of cheering a Senator wearing the red maple leaf for Canada at the Olympics in 2006 with his arrival. He was also under contract for three more seasons. He was different in key ways that generated excitement and allowed fans to quickly move on from a summer of debating the merits of Hossa and the dollars he deserved.

Looking back, the money can’t be overlooked.

Hossa was frequently credited with being not only a great two-way player at the time of the deal, but Ottawa’s best player period. One of the top wingers in the league at the time, he matched the play of upper end comparables like Jarome Iginla and Vincent Lecavalier. The eventual deal the Sens and Hossa agreed to (3 years, $18 million) before reaching arbitration was fair in terms of his ability and what he was worth, but would prove difficult to accommodate in the new, salary cap world.

With the Senators hovering around the $31 million mark in salary and the newly instituted cap set at $39 million, Ottawa was right up against the upper limit with the Hossa deal. Had the case been decided in arbitration, the award could have been even higher and the team risked losing him as a UFA 12 months later. It wasn’t a salary considered in isolation either. Then Senators GM John Muckler had an eye on the following summer when star defensemen Wade Redden and Zdeno Chara could both walk as UFAs and winger Martin Havlat would need a new deal. The situation might have been even trickier had Sens captain Daniel Alfredsson not signed a 5-year deal after the 2003-04 season. Signed before the 2004-05 lockout, it was subject to a 25% rollback when play finally resumed the following season. After a lucrative $7.5 million signing bonus, Alfie was set to make just $4.66 million in 2005-06. Had Alfie signed another short term deal in 2004, he might have been deemed expendable in the post-lockout world as the Sens struggled to get both star wingers under contract. Had the Sens kept Hossa after signing him to that three year deal ten years ago, Alfie, signed long term and to an affordable deal for a star player, might have been appealing trade bait.

While the salary cap put teams on equal footing in terms of spending, it disproportionately affected good teams with young talent coming out of RFA years and moving toward UFA status. Teams like the Senators. Not only did the lockout wipe out a year of contracts for players like Hossa, it wiped out a year of RFA status, a year of team control. It was hard to plan long term with the looming lockout. While the league was pushing hard for a salary cap, what it would be set at was unknown and salary rollback wasn’t guaranteed. Further complicating the matter for the Sens was the team’s recent bankruptcy. Financial trouble had hounded the team since its early days and became acute in the years leading up to 2003. During the last few years of Rod Brydon’s ownership, the Sens often stuck to short term deals, affording the team financial flexibility in times of ownership and CBA instability. Simply put, it’s hard to lock up your young stars to affordable or near affordable deals when you can’t afford to pay them in the first place.

This trade has received a lot of retroactive criticism, but I wonder if it would be seen as a good bit of business, perhaps even prudent, if it was a move Bryan Murray had made this summer. I wonder how the move would be viewed today had it been made in the climate of analytics and a decade into the salary-cap era. At that point in their careers Hossa and Heatley were pretty close in terms of point production, but Hossa would have likely come out on top of the Corsi battle. Still, Heatley’s projected production at the time, in combination with the fact that Heatley’s cap hit was $1.5 million less than Hossa’s each season through the course of Hossa’s deal (which is the same amount the Sens saved on Hossa’s deal in real dollars each season by trading for Heatley), and some might conclude that Heatley might have been the better value in the restrictive early years of the cap system.

What pushes the deal over the top in the short term is that in addition to trading sniper-for-sniper, the Sens were able to offload Greg de Vries. The veteran defenseman was coming off a down year and was due to make $2.28 million in 2005-06 and was under contract until 2007. While that might not seem like a lot now, he was making more than every Senator not named Hossa, Alfredsson, Redden, Chara, or Havlat. In other words, he was making a lot for a defensive defenseman who failed to impress as a deadline pickup in 2003-04. With Hossa and de Vries in the lineup, it’s likely depth contributors like Chris Kelly and Christoph Schubert, as well as rookie standout Andrej Meszaros, would have been stuck in the AHL due to budget constraints/de Vries’ spot in the lineup. It’s always going to be difficult to give up a player of Hossa’s calibre, but to bring back a younger player with similar point production and strengthen your depth all while shedding salary isn’t a bad way to get out of bind.

If it’s hard to remember where the Sens were at in August 2005, those first two seasons with Heatley in the lineup seem equally distant. For all the longing for Hossa you hear now, things were considerably quieter when Heatley notched points in his first 22 games as a Senator (besting Hossa’s previous franchise mark by nine games), on the way to back-to-back 50 goal seasons and a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. While Hossa put up similar numbers in Atlanta, it’s not like the Senators missed out on a terrific trade return when he was shipped to Pittsburgh at the trade deadline in 2008. It’s possible Hossa wouldn’t have jumped around so much if his faith in the negotiating process hadn’t been shaken by the Senators, but it’s also clear he wanted to win a Cup. After falling short with Pittsburgh in 2008, he signed a lucrative one year deal in Detroit that didn’t work out and led to a mammoth 12 year/$63.3 million deal with Chicago in 2009. The Hossa everyone regrets missing out on is the elder statesman Hawks version, with three Cups to his name and part of a modern NHL dynasty. That’s fair, he’s been a big part of Chicago’s golden age. What it illustrates the most though is Hossa’s legacy in the NHL is defined by his time Chicago now, his Ottawa years more footnote than main story.

It was always going to be tough to sign and retain that early-to-mid 2000s core in Ottawa. A perfect storm of bankruptcy, maturing talent, and a new (and by today’s standards, restrictive) salary cap, was always going to leave at least a few players on the outside looking in. That Heatley didn’t have the longevity of Hossa is clear. That the Senators gave up the best player in the deal is also clear. What might have been a win in the short term has been a loss long term. But keeping Hossa would have also altered the story as well and the results likely wouldn’t have been the fairy tale ending he’s enjoying in Chicago.

The arbitration period of the summer is typically the low point of the hockey year. So little is going on that fans spend hours debating the merits of a player asking more than his employer on his next deal as if this was not an utterly predictable exchange and tactic. But it does shine a light on what is deemed valuable within the current mood of the NHL and who is assigned value.

Ottawa has had its fair share of heroes; players who have put up big points, scored crucial goals, or strung together remarkable victories. These players get a lot of ink, but what about the underrated and underappreciated? The guys who aren’t subject to round after round of Senators Revisionist History by bored fans on brutally hot summer nights. Who are the most underappreciated Senators?

Shawn McEachern

McEachern was part of the best Sens era in team history but gets overshadowed by offensive players like Alexei Yashin, Daniel Alfredsson, and Marian Hossa. Yet in his six years in Ottawa, McEachern twice finished second in team scoring to Yashin and finished third on another occasion. There was a period of a few seasons where Alfredsson had horrible injury luck and the Yashin saga was playing out when McEachern was the reliable veteran who could be counted on for top-six offensive production in the dead puck era. Two 30+ goal seasons as well as a season with 29 goals, Shawn wasn’t depth scoring, he provided key production, yet has been all but forgotten in the decade+ since his trade to the Thrashers.

Jason York and Igor Kravchuk

Neither were key contributors or flashy players. What they were is what we now crave: reliable blueline depth. Good for 25-35 points a season and generally more than 22 minutes/game, York was in Ottawa for five seasons and Kravchuk for three and a half. They didn’t take a lot of penalties, they didn’t hurt their team. They were just quietly steady. They were the kind of blueline depth that fans now crave but the type of players that are easy to forget when they’re in the lineup.

Antoine Vermette and Chris Kelly

These two go together because my memory of one seems to always include the other. Young players during Ottawa’s golden age, Kelly and Vermette came up as inexperienced, inexpensive, depth players, the type good teams need to cultivate to stay good. They spent most of their time on the third line and killing penalties, where they were not only an effective shutdown force, but a force for good with a knack for chipping in shorthanded goals (8 between them in 06-07 alone). Trapped behind Spezza and Fisher, Vermette was too good for the third line but couldn’t break into the top six. Still, he had seasons of 19, 21, and 24 goals for the Senators, but never received the attention of the surprisingly comparable Fisher. Chris Kelly is remembered more as a useful, but limited, defensive specialist. However, he always hit double-digits in goals, and twice notched 15 as a Senator. That’s awesome production from a third line player, especially one who is so versatile defensively – the original Erik Condra if you will, but with twice the goals.

Nick Foligno

Foligno was another young player who the Sens moved in his mid-20s like Vermette. During his first couple of seasons with the big club, the Senators were still under the illusion they were an elite team. As Foligno continued to develop, he played on some truly crap Sens incarnations yet seemed to have trouble sticking in the top-six and often played a third line role under Cory Clouston (Q. how much did that guy fuck with things?) Yet Foligno kept contributing and his last season as a Senator was his best (15 goals, 47 points). His penchant for taking ill-advised penalties seems more an anomaly instead of habit in retrospect, but one which contributed to him being traded. He’s not the biggest guy in the league, but he’s a physical player who’s comfortable setting up in front of the net. Essentially, he’s the player Bryan Murray envisioned when signing the Colin Greening contract. Even his goalie hugs, which have become the stuff of legend in Columbus, were underrated in Ottawa.

Chris Phillips

It might seem odd to see Phillips on this list. A Senator since 1964, Phillips was key in choosing a new Canadian flag. But he also gets lost in the shuffle somewhat, as Ottawa’s blueline has traditionally been pretty strong. Behind Redden and Chara on the depth chart for the prime of his career, his pairing with Volchenkov was given its due, but his-hard hitting partner was the more celebrated of the duo. Since Erik Karlsson’s emergence, a litany of defensemen (Kuba, Gonchar, and Methot) have all been more vital to the Sens success. That Phillips was not one of the team’s two best defensemen for much of his career shouldn’t diminish the fact that he was a valuable one for the bulk of his years in the NHL and deserves the corresponding appreciation. His rapid decline post-35 is being weighted too much right now. His last days in the capital have surely been his worst, but like Bryan Mulroney or George W. Bush who also left at their lowest, there’s nowhere for Phillips to go but up.

Now that Bluesfest is over, we are officially deep into the summer and the news coming out of the NHL seems to be a little slow. You might think that slackers like Bob Mackenzie or Elliotte Friedman are doing it right by taking off to the cottage for two months rather than dissecting the minutiae of which RFA’s pre-arbitration salary request is the most preposterous, but you’d be wrong. The hockey off-season isn’t just about contract negotiations and salary cap escalators. There are some great hockey stories that come out of every summer, if only you have the eyes with which to see them.

Don’t believe me? Here are some great moments from past off-seasons in Ottawa.

August 3rd, 2014: Bobby Ryan calls his Aunt Louise to wish her a happy “Big Six-Oh”.

June 29th, 2009: Jim O’Brien is recognized by a fan while dining alone at Baton Rouge. The fan does not say hi.

August 4th, 2012: Chris Phillips tries to invite Chris Neil to his cottage for the weekend, but accidentally sends the text to Sergei Gonchar instead. Luckily, Gonchar declines the invitation.

July 22nd, 2003: Shawn Van Allen does an internet search for his name and learns a thing or two about astrophysics.

July 17th, 2008: Ray Emery has a quiet day where nothing remarkable happens.

July 3, 2014: Clarke MacArthur spends time with his daughter while his wife goes out for drinks with her girlfriends. After his daughter is in bed, Clarke catches the last two innings of the Jays game.

June 8th, 2007: During locker cleanout day, Dany Heatley finds a collection of turtlenecks thought to have once been owned by Alexei Yashin.

July 6th, 2013: Robin Lehner just so happens to be at home during the delivery window and receives or a UPS package he was expecting. The contents of the package were undisclosed, but are thought to have been “organic” in nature.

August 20th, 2002: Mike Fisher watches the classic Seinfeld episode “The Contest” for the first time. He feels guilty for laughing at it.

July 7th, 1999: Petr Schastlivy learns that Beavertails are both delicious and not actual beaver tails. His first Beavertail is a classic cinnamon-sugar flavour.

June 28th, 2012: Zack Smith remembers he is nearly out of paper towel before checking out at the grocery store. He does a small, private fist pump as he leaves the store with paper towel.

August 29th, 1996: Janne Laukkanen discovers a local Valu-Mart that carries his favourite brand of pickled herring.

Various Dates: Erik Karlsson goes to a concert.

August 12th, 2009: Chris Campoli throws out any of his socks or underwear that have holes in them. He buys new socks and underwear from the Joe Fresh section at a Westboro Loblaws.

July 27th, 2008: Joe Corvo declares that the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ early stuff is “pretty underrated”.

June 14th, 2001: Wade Redden accidentally grabs a bottle of red Gatorade instead of his usual blue following a morning run. He drinks the red Gatorade anyway.

July 29th, 2010: Pascal Leclaire accidentally drops a plate following dinner, but the plate doesn’t break. However, the plate is slightly chipped and is only ever used when all other plates in the house are dirty.

August 17, 2013: Jason Spezza has an extremely desirable parking spot stolen at the last second. He just laughs it off and parks two rows further down.

(Content warning: anxiety, harassment, assault, sexual assault, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia).

Earlier this week I wrote about what sports fandom means to me during transition. It was an introductory post on a new site and I hadn’t intended on writing a series on mediating being a sports fan and transition. But I went to a ball game on Tuesday night and had to go through all the typical trials of that experience. On Wednesday, I wrote about how difficult it is to make it from your house to your seat when attending a game if you’re not cisgender. I’ll return to writing more about the Sens soon, but before I do, I want to pick up where I left off in Wednesday’s post and talk about what it’s like to watch a game live when you’re not cis.

Most sports maintain, enforce, and rely on the traditional gender binary.

Certain sports like hockey, which generates and enshrines toxic masculinity as its core value, are particularly invested in keeping this status quo. To attend a sporting event when you do not fit the traditional definitions of femininity and masculinity is to take a risk that threatens your safety. If something does happen to you during the course of the game, very few people your back.

Sports crowds have documented issues with racism, homophobia, and sexism. Often stadiums and arenas are only partially accessible if you live with a disability. Trans people exist at the intersection of these issues and their gender identity.

Chances are you’ve thought a lot about the location of your seat if you’re trans and the view of the playing field wasn’t top of the list. Maybe you’re most comfortable if you only have to sit beside the person you’ve come with, so you’ve chosen an aisle seat. Maybe it’s easiest for you to get through the game if you don’t have to look at other fans so you chose a seat against a railing or a column. Maybe you chose to sit in the last row of your section or against a wall so all the action, including other fans, remains in front of you. Perhaps you want to be close to an exit in case things go south. If you’re MTF, FTM, agender, or non-binary and you use a mobility aid you have even less options for controlling your surroundings. Some sporting events, such as the Pan Am Games and university competitions, have unassigned bleacher seating. Many people, including trans people and people dealing with mental illness, show up early to secure seating which makes navigating public space and a crowd more manageable. Before you ask someone to move over so you can get the seat you want, consider that many people chose where they sit deliberately. Being a good ally means being aware that not every disability is visible and privileges you enjoy are not always shared by others. The same goes for swapping seats at a sparsely attended baseball game and while using transit to and from the game. Be aware.

Trans people face so much discrimination just by sitting in their seat. There are numerous announcements during the course of the game, often starting with the anthem. Sometimes these announcements ask fans to stand or give their attention to something happening in the crowd or at ice level. Facilities that are actively inclusive begin these announcements with “fans” instead of “ladies and gentlemen”. “Ladies and gentlemen” is a common expression and is seen as polite. It might not seem like a big deal to you if you’re cis, but if you’re not, it can feel like an erasure of your identity and serves to underscore the fact that you are not welcome.

Just sitting in your seat might lead to problems with other fans and stadium employees. Fans passing by to get to their seats or to the stairs say “sir,” “ma’am,” “miss,” or any of the multiple gendered descriptors we use every day without much thought. A worker climbing the steps selling water, pop, and cotton candy genders you incorrectly. You exist outside of cisnormativity but get called a lady when buying 50/50 tickets. I worked as a cashier for a number of years and employees who interact with customers are often taught to ask “may I help you ma’am?” and “is there anything I can do for you, sir?” Many people see this as a sign of courteous service, but simply asking “may I help you?” without gendered terminology is a lot more inclusive.

Even simple game day rituals can contribute to misgendering. You identify as trans feminine but sometimes pass as male so you think twice about buying that beer and not because it’s going to set you back $10. When you are gendered a certain way by others and then partake in activities typically associated with that gender (like passing as male and buying a beer at a hockey game), the likelihood the person serving you the beer is going to call you “man,” “dude,” “bro,” or “buddy” increases dramatically. That gendering doesn’t end there. If you’re ordering a beer you’re most likely going to hold it, and, unlike in beer commercials, you’re actually going to drink it. Some people read that beer as a signifier of maleness. This can be useful if passing as a certain gender is important to you, but it might also contribute to continued misgendering by the fan who wants to slip by you to head to the concourse or the person beside you who wants to high five after a goal.

Misgendering happens. It’s a regular part of life for people who aren’t cis. If you misgendered someone, apologize and move on. Don’t make it about you because it’s not about you. For some trans people, misgendering is a normal part of life that isn’t upsetting unless in extreme situations. For others, it’s deeply distressing. There is infinite variety in gender identity, and the trans experience is one that differs from person to person. If someone misgenders you and they see it upsets you, sometimes that person keeps doing it with the purpose of upsetting you. That’s happened to me at games. Consistently misgendering someone isn’t an accident or mistake. Consistently misgendering someone is offensive, abusive, and compromises the safety of the person being misgendered.

Sometimes sitting in your seat is a threatening experience if you’re trans. A rink is a gendered space: traditional masculinity is on display in the form of the players on the ice and the toughness of the game; traditional femininity takes place on the margins. Ice clearing crews are formed primarily of, or exclusively of, women filtered through the heteronormativity of the male gaze. It’s a situation that makes a lot of cisgender people feel uncomfortable and fosters an environment hostile to all but those who meet this narrow definition of masculinity. Consequently, it’s common to use gendered language and insults to abuse the opposition or in some cases, the home team. These insults, spoken casually around you in the stands or abusively hurled, yelled for all to hear, are sometimes racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic. This behaviour can be encouraged by alcohol but it’s the product of a society that actively hates women and those who don’t conform and a game which encourages players, and by extension fans, to “man up”.

Someone beside you insults you. A person four rows down and eight seats over is yelling homophobic insults at the opposition. Cis people don’t always have the option of saying something to a fan who is being offensive. If you’re alone or in a small group impacts whether you say something. If you’ve brought you’re kids to the game, you might not feel comfortable confronting the group of dude bros sitting in front of you making offensive remarks. Whether you’re a man or a woman or a person of colour impacts you’re ability to say something. If you have anxiety or another mental illness does too. The same holds true of sexual orientation. Trans people have to make these considerations as well. But we have additional barriers when confronting discrimination in game.

Sometimes our voices out us.

If you’re non-binary, sometimes the sound of your voice leads to you being misgendered. If you’re trans, speaking can out you. Listeners might make assumptions about which gender you were assigned at birth. Say you’re a 27-year-old trans man who’s started T. Your voice is likely changing, getting deeper, and yeah, might even be cracking. Some trans people go through puberty for a second time as an adult and it raises several issues that can prevent someone from speaking out. That’s not to say that those who do not fit traditional gender binaries don’t speak out against discrimination, many do and they should be listened to. It’s just that there are barriers for many of us when it comes to speaking to say nothing of the barriers cisgendered people deliberately put up when it comes to listening to trans people.

There are lots of valid reasons why people don’t say anything about the abusive and discriminatory language that’s common at sporting events. But consistently, cis people fail to pick up the transphobic overtones of this environment. This oversight jeopardizes the safety of all trans people.

It gives bigots an invitation to insult, harass, and assault us.

In plain sight.

There’s a sort of paradoxical nature to my fandom experience. I’ve been accepted by many in the Sens online community. I’ve met some truly wonderful people and gained some cherished friends. But my in-game experience is quite different. There isn’t a noticeable show of support, there’s just silence. There are valid reasons not everyone can speak out, as I’ve mentioned above. But I wonder if some part of that silence is a different sort of acceptance. That hearing, seeing, and experiencing hatred is viewed as a problematic, but natural, part of the game. That those doing the hating, by virtue of always having been there, have become somehow fixed, like a ubiquitous, bigoted foam finger.

When I’ve talked about the harassment I’ve experience, people respond with things like “where do you live?” “who are these people?” “didn’t anyone say anything?” and “how did this happen?” as if this sort of thing doesn’t happen all the time in front of them. I’ve been to games where people around me openly debated my gender. Whether done in a mocking tone or with genuine interest, this sort of behaviour is incredibly offensive and frankly, none of your business. Men and women have used transphobic insults against me for nothing more than trying to watch a beautiful Erik Karlsson rush. A man told me I had “nice titties” as he flicked my nipples with his fingers and called me “bro”. Think it makes things better by challenging these assumptions or objecting to this transphobia? It doesn’t. It makes it worse. When your body isn’t read as meeting cis standards, you are often considered suspect. For objecting to insults I’ve been called a sexual predator.

Cisgendered men and women have contributed to this discrimination. However, most of the abuse I’ve received has come from cis men. There are cis men who have been among my biggest allies when attending games, who consider my needs and offer support in a variety of ways. However, there are also cis men who are invested in actively maintaining the toxic masculinity that empowers them. Toxic masculinity gives them the faulty impression the public space of the arena is their birthright and must remain aggressively male, aggressively white, aggressively straight, and aggressively cis.

When cis men with this view speak nostalgically about what it used to be like to go to a game I get uncomfortable. Some fans just want to cheer loudly and ensure their team has the best home ice advantage. Cool, that’s not what makes me uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable because often this type of nostalgia is coded. When English soccer fans yearn for the days of terrace culture and when North American fans want to replicate the rowdy, raucous atmosphere of European stadiums, what many of them aren’t saying is those space are desirable because of who was kept out. Hostile to women and people of colour, these spaces were celebrations of a certain type of maleness and as a result, also homophobic and transphobic.

Sports teams and arena management groups do little to curb the discriminatory behaviour still present in our stadiums. Little changes can make these spaces safer for everyone. Something as simple as posting signage with team/arena discrimination policy, clearly outlining that all types of discrimination, including transphobia, are prohibited helps non-binary people know there’s a chance their concerns will be heard. It’s common for teams or the companies running sports facilities to save money by cutting down on the number of ushers working at any given game. Not every section has stadium personnel, not every area is monitored. If an usher is present, not only can they intervene on their own when they see or hear objectionable conduct, but they also provide an easily identifiable source for help. Further, many trans people have a distrust for security and law enforcement personnel. Ushers can act as intermediaries between fan and security. But they can only do this if they receive training on issues of disability, race, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Assuming your employees have the resources available to address the insectionality of fan conflict, is not a sound policy. Greater diversity among ushers and security personnel can aid in establishing this type of institutional knowledge as well as improve the approachability of your game day staff for women, people of colour, and LGBTQ folks.

Assuming every fan can access stadium personnel when needed is also problematic. There are numerous valid reasons why someone is unable to physically go and seek out this kind of help. For trans people sometimes getting help means being on the receiving end of more discrimination. Making official complaints to stadium personnel or police can be problematic for trans people if you have to give your name. Lots of people are transphobic and many don’t hide it because it’s still socially acceptable to hate people who are not cis. Some of those transphobic people work in rinks: at the concessions stands, as part of the cleaning crew, as ushers, ticket scanners, and security, to say nothing of the management of the organization itself. When people hate you, they don’t see you worthy of help and they don’t care about the abuse you’re suffering. In recent years, some teams have set up a system allowing fans to use texts to report abusive behaviour and lodge complaints. Making this sort of accessible system available enhances the safety of not just trans people but all fans.

Transphobia doesn’t exist in a vacuum. To eliminate it we must actively work to eliminate racism, homophobia, and sexism from these venues as well instead of accepting discrimination, bigotry, and hatred as the cost of going to the game.

Whatever happens on the ice or field, leaving usually has additional hurdles if you’re not cisgendered. While it is customary to leave a Blue Jays game in the seventh inning or a Sens game with five minutes left in the third period, the crush of fans trying to exit their row and down staircases, on their way to the concourse after the final whistle blows, is hard if you’re dealing with mental illness. The close proximity means some bumping between fans, which is anxiety-producing for some people. But some see this as an opportunity to grope, press and otherwise take advantage of the crowd to harass and assault other people. Those who exist outside of the intersection of cis, straight manhood are often the victims.

For trans people this time can be really stressful and hard. It’s not just that the ride to the rink and the experience of the game has been mentally draining, it’s that the mental preparation that is required before you even leave for the game compounds things. You’re just tired and drained. You’re less likely to be able to come up with quick, alternate plans if things start to go south. You might be rushing to catch a bus and trying to not worry about what happens if you miss it.

Some of my worst interactions with other fans have been on the way out of the rink. It’s hard to ignore the impact alcohol has on this part of the game day experience. Many fans are at least a few drinks in, some have been overserved for most of the night. What might have just been insults in the first period can easily turn to physical abuse when it’s time to leave.

Once in Detroit I was harassed by two shitbags. They were on my radar from the moment they took their seats. If you’re fortunate you don’t have to scan the crowd around you looking for people who might cause you problems. If you’re trans, you don’t have that luxury. These particular shitbags made several sexually explicit comments about women and started drinking during warm up. During the first intermission they noticed me as I was walking back to my seat. I was familiar with the way they stared at me because I’ve seen that look a thousand times. It’s the look of cis people realizing there’s something different about me. During the next two periods they looked across the aisle at me at regular intervals. But it wasn’t until the end of the game that things got really dangerous. They followed me down the stairs of the section. On the concourse one walked behind me bumping into me, the other to my right, pushing me and knocking me off stride. There had been a promotion that night; cardboard signs reading “Go Wings Go” were given out. The shitbag beside me held his right in front of my face so I couldn’t see where I was going. The shitbag behind me was bouncing his sign off the back of my neck, cutting me with the edge of the cardboard. The whole time they were saying transphobic things to me and threatening me. I wasn’t alone and we were surrounded by other people. It was in plain sight.

It’s not like things like this don’t happen at my home rink. This sort of stuff can happen anywhere. The last time I went to a Sens game in Ottawa it was a pretty good experience as far as these things go for me. The Sens won in overtime and fans went home happy. I rushed to catch my shuttle bus and was able to get there before anyone else and grab a set at the front. Four drunk shitbags got on the bus and suddenly I had a problem. I had made a mental note of them when they got on the bus at the start of the night, but now they were drunk and we were alone. I was sitting looking out the window and one of them punched me in the back of the head. They laughed and fist bumped and called me “pussy” and transphobic slurs. Then they took their seats like nothing happened. The bus finished loading and we started for downtown. We cheered for the same team.

I am not ashamed to say I cried for most of the trip back downtown. The only shame in that situation should be felt by the people who see difference and can only acknowledge it with violence.

That was the last time I went to a Sens game. I don’t know when I’ll be back.

So you think the NHL is inclusive? You think the team you cheer for is accepting? You think You Can Play has solved the NHL’s homophobia and transphobia problem?

This is a massive discussion and I want to focus on one small part of it: what it’s like to walk into an NHL arena and get to your seat if you are not cis.

Not everybody starts their trip to the rink by remembering to bring the tickets before getting into their car. If you’re trans, there are other considerations. If you’re trans, you’re not trans in isolation but live at the intersection of race, illness, disability, and sexual identity among other things. If you are trans (or if you’re someone dealing with mental illness) you’re probably checking out the arena if you’ve never been there before. Googling images of the parking lot, exterior, concourse, and seats helps people dealing with anxiety or other mental illnesses get to the game. Knowing what you’re walking into helps. You might check out the rink’s website hoping they’ll have specific information that’s necessary for a game day visit. It likely won’t and teams that own the facility they play in are doubly at fault here. If teams were welcoming to all genders/agender people, washroom policies would be clearly articulated online. Security policies would be clearly and specifically articulated beyond acceptable bag size. But this information is rarely, if ever, available.

If you’re going to a game how you dress is important. Maybe you have a lucky ball cap or specific jersey you have to wear. Maybe you dress only in team colours. Whatever you’re look, fans think about presentation when headed to the arena or stadium. Trans people think about how they present too. Some of these concerns are the same: what jersey do I wear? Do I wear red or black? But trans people also have to navigate another side of presentation: balancing presenting in ways to ensure safety with presenting in ways that express who you are. I don’t have knowledge of all trans experience. Each trans person’s identity, expression, and experience are their own. Unlike some trans people, I have passing privilege: I’m tall and broad and often pass. But I’m still concerned if things like wearing shorts to a ball game will be worth the hassle. Should I dress in layers to better hide my breasts? Things many trans people do for their well-being and happiness like wearing makeup, packing, binding, tucking, breast forms, and wigs (google it if you don’t know), to name just a few, become things to reconsider for some when attending games.

Lots of us think about who to attend games with. For a lot of cis people this means monetary, transportation, and enjoyment consideration. For some cis people, attending a game with your partner is made more difficult if you don’t fit heteronormative ideals. These things enter into it for trans people, but there are other issues as well. A group from work is going to the game but you’re not out at the office or store? Friends ask you to a game but you’re not sure how they’ll handle it if your gender identity becomes a problem at the arena? These are things that cause you to hesitate.

Many trans people don’t have a lot of money. Trans people exist on the margins of society and that includes employment. If you’re trans and lucky enough to afford a trip to see the Sens play, there’s a good chance you’re taking the bus. The OC Transpo ride to Kanata is a challenge at the best of times, but if you’re trans, the bus is not safe. This problem is made worse by the overcrowding. Think you’re better off taking a shuttle bus from one of the many downtown bars and restaurants providing this service? Not really, you’re at the mercy of the other riders. Sometimes it’s fine and sometimes you’re verbally harassed and physically assaulted. Best case? It’s an anxiety-producing ride that leaves you mentally exhausted by the time you get to CTC.

Following the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon, the NHL, MLB and other pro sports leagues heightened security at entrances to arenas and stadiums. While security has value, without critical examination of other issues which threaten fan security on a far more regular basis (mainly the sale and consumption of alcohol at sporting events), these security measures serve to add accessibility barriers to those already marginalized and at times are just plain harassment. Bag size might not matter to you if you’re a dude going to the game with your buddy, but it targets people who aren’t valued by teams and the NHL. Women carry purses for many valid and vital reasons. These new measures make it harder on the father who brings his chronically-ill child to the game and has to carry medication/equipment at all times. Yes, after some explanation that man could probably get an exemption and bring his bag in, but he’s had to disclose and justify a serious illness. Metal detectors are a frustrating and upsetting experience for the woman who needs to wear a knee brace and pass through security. You want to go to a Sens game wearing medically necessary braces or equipment? Well, it’s winter so you’re likely wearing long pants and layers. It’s a process that irritates the people behind you in line but makes the individual experiencing it feel unwelcome. If you’re dealing with mental health issues, the security screening process often exacerbates what you’re feeling. If you’re someone who has experienced sexual assault or harassment, the screening process can be incredibly triggering. Trans people deal with all of these things in addition to their trans identities.

At some point in the recent past, teams/leagues/security companies realized having predominately male security personnel check, wand, and at times frisk everyone was a huge liability in addition to being incredibly invasive to people. Security lines are often divided into male and female. You want to know what that process feels like if you don’t fit the traditional gender binary? Fucking awful. You can’t tell someone’s gender identity by looking at them, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s told this to security personnel. If you’re a woman and don’t present in traditionally feminine ways or if you’re a man who doesn’t present in typically masculine ways, security is more difficult. If you’re trans and don’t pass as either male or female, you have to make a choice in that moment to be either male or female. That in itself can really mess with your head. But you might also encounter a situation where you have to “prove” your gender identity. This can go smoothly (some very insistent statements on your part, a flustered security person who eventually lets you through, and some serious emotional fallout afterwards) or degrees of worse. Many trans people don’t have access to proper identification that can “prove” things to security’s satisfaction (ditto to trying to get a beer in an attempt to enjoy yourself after getting harassed at the door).

Training could actually help this process. Training about mental illness, sexual assault, and LGBTQ acceptance could make the process easier for both ticket holder and security personnel. Less triggering, less mentally draining, and more compassionate are actually good things for everyone.

If you make it through security, you’re confronted with washrooms that don’t have stated, inclusive gender policies visible on signage outside the washrooms. Why is this important? So trans people know what kind of environment they’re walking into and that it’s inclusive. What a clear, written policy that’s visible in stadium also does is inform cis people that there’s no place for their intolerance. You want to really pull out all the stops? Have all gender facilities as well. This type of washroom builds on family washrooms you sometimes see at malls or amusement parks. It’s necessary for parents to take their kids of any gender to the washroom and it’s necessary for trans people to feel safe and welcome in a washroom.

Say you’re with some cis friends who wanted to go to the new 19+ (or 18+, 21+ depending on location) bar that are all the rage in ballparks and rinks these days. If you’re a trans person who looks younger or if everyone is being carded to get in, it’s a no-go for a lot of trans people. If you’re cis, you think “they’ll just check my license for my age”. If you’re trans you have to worry not about age, but if they glance at your gender and your name. If your id doesn’t match your identity, there’s further interrogation. Hopefully you’re friends aren’t assholes (but no guarantee, a lot of allies are all talk when it comes to support but fail miserably on the follow through) and are ok with just finding your seats. Having to out yourself to gain access to spaces that are allegedly welcoming is unacceptable and in many cases (such as an amped up, possibly intoxicated, sports crowd complete with dude bros) is simply not safe.

You’re in your seat now, but the challenge has just started.

This off-season is the same, but different.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the Senators off-season moves, you’ve heard the headlines before: goalie controversies, unpopular trades/roster decisions, and terrible branding. The specifics and particular players change, but the subject matter is the same.

A few months ago it all would have worn me down.

I would have simply tuned out the endless twitter debates, not clicked on the latest hot take. I might have written something generic and not betrayed much of my own thoughts. It was what I could manage at the time. I didn’t have the energy to debate the minutia of Sens fandom or rehash old marketing ideas. I was interested in those things before and suspected I would be again, but during the season those things didn’t matter that much to me. The Streak helped, but it felt like an endlessly negative season. Being a Sens fan mattered to me more this past season than in previous years. It made such a difference to me this season that I didn’t want to keep writing, to be so immerse in something so negative. I didn’t want anything more than what we had during The Streak: Sens games that mattered, different things to talk about, and burgers before every game. I thought I’d take a prolonged break from writing about the Sens.

But something changed. I started to have ideas I wanted to write about again.

Bryan Murray and company decided not to extend Erik Condra in the final days of June and then doubled-down on the decision by not matching the offer he received from Tampa on July 1. The decision was a polarizing one and widely panned on twitter and various Sens blogs. Sick as I am of debating the particular merits of Condra, what interested me about the fallout were the larger questions it raised about Sens management. For those who have seen the Corsi light, it was particularly distressing to see another example that Murray and friends haven’t said the same vows. When you think about the game in a certain way and the team you love doesn’t, you start to wonder if it’s the best fit.

Last week the Senators revealed the team’s 25th anniversary logo to unsurprising vitriolic anger. It’s indisputably a crap design but the anger flows more from the organization’s continued resistance to creating quality team iconography on a permanent basis. Time and again Sens fans have vocalized what they’d like to see from the organization and only once have they delivered. Fans commit to teams through a variety of organic and inorganic actions. Rather than stimulating connection, the Condra departure and 25th logo fostered negativity and just furthered separation between the two parties. Not the most significant events, just the latest in a long line of missteps.

Identity is hard.

The Hamburglar might have been the name behind The Streak, but the identity of the Cameron-era Sens was that third line, its DNA was Condra’s game. The Sens have struggled to carve out a sense of self over the last two decades situated between two historically obnoxious franchises. The organization has compounded the issue through continued marketing and design failures.

Even when there aren’t millions of dollars at stake, identity is hard. For me, being a Sens fan is defining in a way that has much needed permanency.

Identity, defining and accepting it, has preoccupied my mind for as long as I can remember. This task got more pressing over the past year. As the urgency of the task increased, as the need to come forward and explain myself to my friends grew greater, things which defined me without the need for further explanation – school, art, fandom – grew even more important.

When you’re in transition, the things that aren’t – no matter how insignificant – matter quite a deal. Those things are comforting, those things are stabilizing. Those are things you can hold up and show acquaintances and friends that you’re the same person, that you’ve always been you.

It’s not just a transition for you, but also the people in your life. The way other people see and perceive you is adapting. Every relationship you have changes and is challenged. You’re still you and the things that make you who you are, like being a Sens fan, take on greater significance. Not just for anchoring who you are, which they undoubtedly do, but, at least for me, being a Sens fan has opened me up to the kind of support that’s necessary for me to do this.

There have been some changes this off-season. I didn’t think I’d return to writing about the Sens for a while. It had just become too difficult to write about the team I love when the byline didn’t fit. I thought it would take a lot longer to have the right name there, months and months of small steps. But this team didn’t just provide me with stability, it also offered community. I’ve been overwhelmed with the acceptance, love, and well wishes I’ve received. That reaction helped me get back to something I love doing the way I wanted to do it.

I’ve always been me. Now the byline’s right.