Pride Month spotlight: Harbour Lights promotes game, fun in Australia

This June, the NHL and the NHL Players' Association's joint Hockey Is For Everyone initiative will celebrate Pride Month. All 32 NHL Clubs, alumni, and current players will participate in pride events, including parades, across North America. As part of Pride Month, NHL.com will share stories about the LGBTQI+ hockey community. Today, a look at Harbour Lights Ice Hockey Club in Sydney, Australia.

Stuart Ridley didn't know if there were any LGBTQI+ hockey teams in Sydney, Australia, or even enough players to form one.
So, when Ridley and his son, Dash, scoured the internet in 2020 and found Australian LGBT Ice Hockey, a Melbourne-based group more than 500 miles to the southwest, they were surprised when they received a swift reply to their email inquiry: "We've been waiting two years for someone from Sydney to contact us. We'll help you start a club."
In 2021, Ridley co-founded Harbour Lights Ice Hockey Club, the first LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) club in Sydney and New South Wales state. The club promotes diversity and inclusion while providing a fun and competitive safe space free of judgment and stereotyping for players of all levels.

"For LGBTQI+ people, there's a bit of an attitude that we can't play, that hockey is not for us," Ridley said. "We're trying to change that, obviously."
Ridley and Carl Jackson, Australia LGBT Ice Hockey's president and the co-founder of Melbourne's Southern Lights Ice Hockey Club, said their efforts drew inspiration from the success of North American groups like the Madison Gay Hockey Association in Wisconsin, the New York City Gay Hockey Association, the Chicago Gay Hockey Association and the Montreal Dragons.
"My youngest is playing hockey and they're having a hard time because there's a fair bit of discrimination and bigotry, that somehow because you're LGBTQI+, because you're queer, you're weak or can't be trusted or whatever," Ridley said.
"They were going to quit hockey, so I started showing them, 'Here's what's happening with Chicago, here's what's happening with Madison, here's what's happening with NYC, here are all these amazing groups.' The more we looked, the more we found."

Starting a team, especially a team representing a marginalized community is always a difficult task but knowing it has been done in North America helped fuel the drive to establish Harbour Lights. Ridley, with the help of Jackson and others, got started in January 2021 by posting interest forms on Facebook and Instagram. The social media campaign generated 60 responses within a month, and a website was created for players to register.
While getting people to sign up was one thing, getting them onto the ice in the throes of a pandemic was another.
As some of Sydney's lockdown rules eased, the manager of Ice Zoo, Ridley's local rink, suggested that Harbour Lights throw a party -- adhering to social distancing rules -- followed by a hockey game in March 2021 to coincide with the city's annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras celebration.
"If you wanted to dance to great music and celebrate queer culture, it was at the ice rink," Ridley said. "We had drag queens and other performers, some of us DJing. Then we played a game. Some people had played (hockey) before, some people had started playing just two months before."
Today, Harbour Lights boasts more than 100 members who play ice and inline hockey. The club is holding weekly training sessions ahead of its Pride Month Invitational June 25 for beginners and experienced players.

Ridley said Harbour Lights has attracted several LGBTQ+ players who quit the sport years ago because they felt that hockey culture was homophobic and unwelcoming.
Daniel Delisle began skating with Harbour Lights last year after he stopped playing ice hockey as a teenager on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, about 25 years ago.
"I thought it would be a one-off thing, like one game, but it was so much fun," Delisle said. "It was so good to be back playing, and everything had changed. Like, it was [a] really inclusive, supportive environment. It was a blast."
Ella Licari is a goalie for the Sydney Sirens of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League who became the league's first transgender woman in 2016. She played with Harbour Lights during their inaugural skate and wished that clubs like it and Southern Lights existed early in her hockey career.
"It would have been a lot easier for me," said Licari, whose partner, Alice Buchanan, co-founded Harbour Lights with Ridley. "I played at a very high level early on … but I didn't necessarily feel a lot of safety or welcoming in the sport. I would be the quiet one in the change room. I wouldn't really socialize with people. The culture didn't really fit with me, so it was very difficult. Unfortunately, I don't think I was ever really able to be who I am today."
Harbour Lights plans to showcase itself to the world when it hosts a hockey tournament during Sydney WorldPride from Feb. 17 to March 5, 2023.
"Our hope is the more visible (LGBTQI+) hockey players are, the more that play at the highest level, it becomes truly accepted," Ridley said.