Colgate University men’s ice hockey team partnered with the Office of LGBTQ+ Initiatives on Sunday, Oct. 19, for an open skate that brought together student-athletes and the broader campus community during LGBTQ History Month.
The Raiders welcomed all students to join them and practice ice skating. The event featured personalized merchandise, food and an inclusive space to meet new people. Junior hockey player Antonio Fernandez shared his experience at the free skate.
“It’s been a lot of fun seeing everyone smiling and putting what they have going on in their life aside to be out here and have a good time,” Fernandez said.
The Office of LGBTQ+ Initiatives partnered with Colgate’s Athlete Ally Chapter — a national organization that promotes inclusive athletic communities — for the event. Director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives Lyosha Gorshkov worked alongside Taja Dotson, assistant director of leadership and development in athletics, to have a male team recognize LGBTQ History Month, which falls during October.
“The vision is to have more male teams bring awareness and understanding that we take pride in making inclusive spaces, and that, truly, sports are for everyone from different backgrounds, one’s lives, different identities and sexualities,” Dotson said.
Often serving as the advisor for Athlete Ally, Dotson helps support the members’ ideas for programs and initiatives. The chapter noticed how mostly women’s teams got involved in their pride event, so Gorshkov and Dotson shared the idea of reaching out to men’s teams for a collaborative event with the Office of LGBTQ+ Initiatives. The chapter hoped to foster more recognition for LGBTQ+ people among male-dominated sports. Sophomore Lydia McMullen, co-leader of Colgate’s Athlete Ally chapter, emphasized the importance of expanding queer initiatives to new communities.
“It is super important that everybody feels like they are heard,” McMullen said. “It is debilitating if you have issues where you cannot talk about your sexuality and you have to be behind closed doors about it all the time. I think that everybody should be comfortable in their own skin. It is really important to have events like this for people to meet other people and be able to represent who they are.”
The men’s hockey team was very receptive to the idea and thrilled to work alongside Gorshkov to support this initiative. Assistant Men’s Ice Hockey Coach Anthony Walsh described the process of bringing this idea to life.
“It started naturally,” Walsh said. “We talked about different ways to just get these guys involved in different parts of the community that they might not normally be in.”
Walsh discussed the importance of bringing together men’s sports and the queer community. He described how hockey guys tend to stick together and become insular. Since there are many on the team from differing backgrounds, they sought to integrate both the team with the community, and the community with the team. A few players in particular discussed the plan with Gorshkov to meet new people.
“I played on the hockey team at Yale, which I think is a very similar environment here,” Walsh said. “I felt like we stayed in our group a little bit too much. I think with hockey guys, you can tend to do that.”
Walsh added how hockey previously lacked diversity in terms of identity. Therefore, Walsh wanted to make sure the team stepped up this year to be supportive of queer individuals, especially with October being LGBTQ History Month. The team recognized that these collaborative events are a great way to balance their commitment to hockey and inclusivity.
“I think it was a good chance for us to just show that, one, we’re supportive; two, to learn a little bit more; and three, for people who don’t normally interact to just have some fun in a casual setting,” Walsh said.
Sophomore Jack Brandt, a member of the men’s ice hockey team, shared similar enthusiasm for the event and appreciation for Gorshkov’s leadership.
“Lyosha’s been awesome, organizing this and trying to get more people here and different demographics,” Brandt said. “We feel privileged to be able to interact with students and bring new people out here.”
Junior MG King, co-leader of Athlete Ally and swim athlete, described the importance of the event, particularly to queer athletes.
“We’re focused specifically on students in athletics because I think that’s a very unique experience,” King said. “There’s already such a divide between student athletes and non-student athletes, so adding queer identity makes it harder to find people to whom you can relate to, and whose experiences are similar to yours. So having a designated space, not only at Colgate but across the country, is very nice.”
In light of the current political climate, King also emphasized the importance of athletic teams uniting to demonstrate support for queer athletes and to remind them that allies exist beyond their own circles. Similarly, McMullen also mentioned how members of sports teams are also part of the queer community, so it is crucial for people to be able to have an outlet for support, even if it isn’t within their sport.
“The biggest thing is just bringing awareness,” Dotson said. “It’s normally the women’s teams that put on a lot of the pride awareness games, but you don’t really see the men very often. It’s just kind of breaking that stigma and that barrier that I think is important.”
Dotson hopes other teams, especially men’s sports teams, will follow in the footsteps of men’s hockey and support LGBTQ+ Initiatives.
