Last August, when Patrick Farabaugh conceived the Madison (Wis.) Gay Hockey Associaion, he was hoping for 20 players. Well, he was slightly off.

The MGHA finished its first season on Feb. 18 with 61 players split onto four teams.

They have an informal summer season planned, including a high-profile out-of-state game, and, when season two kicks off in the fall, there could be 100 players, split into two leagues (competitive and development) of four teams each, he said

And more than 90% of the players are LGBT, including a bodyguard, hair salon stylist, nurse, university professors, students, meteorologist and more. There also is a drag queen, a 21-year-old African-American transgender goalie and a star Asian player from California. Players range from 18 to 60.

“We’re just trying to continue on a grander level,” Farabaugh says modestly, having created the premiere gay hockey league in the Midwest, if not the nation, built on diversity and inclusion.

“We’ve kind of been the tool that’s woken up the sleeping giant in the city. A (gay) rugby league has just formed; same with a volleyball league. And an outdoors group, too. Each has been able to catch some of our momentum, which we’re very happy about.”

The mid-February championship was quite a sight, truly a milestone moment for Madison’s LGBT community, perhaps the entire state and maybe even the region. There were about 400 fans in the stands, and two ceremonial puck-drops before the action started. Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton and Supreme Court candidate Linda Clifford shared the honors. The Master of Ceremonies was WKOW Channel 27 news anchor Mitch Weber. The event also featured the Perfect Harmony Men’s Chorus and the University of Wisconsin synchronized skating team.

“The MGHA is a great addition to the ever-growing LGBT ice hockey community,” said Ryan Ruskin, president of the Chicago Gay Hockey Association.

The CGHA will find out first-hand how talented the MGHA is on April 15. The inaugural Border Battle is set for the Allstate Arena in suburban Rosemont, Ill., pitting the CGHA Blackwolves against the MGHA Thunder in the CGHA’s third-annual Wolves Night Out, the CGHA’s largest annual fund-raiser.

The Blackwolves have played a local, gay-friendly team in the past Wolves Night Out games – and won both years. This time, though, it’s a regional LGBT battle for icy bragging-rights, held before the Chicago Wolves’ final 2006-07 regular season game against the Omaha (Neb.) Ak-Sar-Ben Knights.

“We’re very excited for this year’s Wolves Night Out game; it will be a great game and certainly will expand and expose the Midwest’s strong LGBT ice hockey community to a large audience,” Ruskin said. “The MGHA will be a great opponent, especially considering the number of players they have to choose from for their all-star team.”

The MGHA will travel some of its top skilled players to Chicago for the game, but the league’s focus remains inclusion, even for that game.

 “Do we have a chance at winning?  I’m not so sure. But we certainly will attempt to win, and definitely will have fun,” Farabaugh said.

The MGHA has received extensive local mainstream media coverage – print, TV and radio – as well as national (The Advocate) and even international press. The MGHA appeared in Russia in a Russian magazine. “I truly don’t know how that (media hit) came about; that was totally unsolicited, completely surprising. Perhaps it was because hockey is so big in Russia,” Farabaugh said.

The MGHA’s inaugural scholarship program, conceived to encourage players to spend time discovering their individuality and how gay hockey contributes to it, recognized all four essay writers: Bri Deyo, Tim Foster, Basil Strong and Mark Sadowski. Each recipient was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to New York this summer for the annual NYCGHA Chelsea Challenge.

 The MGHA initially was going to honor one scholarship winner, but Farabaugh arranged for all four writers to be honored, thanks to a charitable donation from league fan Norman Tribbett.

“We wanted (the scholarship winners) to be able to fully experience the community on a much higher level, a much grander scale. Our motto has always been, ‘No one left behind.’ Thankfully that was the case with the scholarships, too,” Farabaugh said.

The MGHA has 38 male skaters, 23 females. Of its 61, 49 come from the greater Madison area. They also have five from Milwaukee (75 miles away), two from Racine (100 miles) and two from Green Bay (130). More than half of the MGHA roster was players with less than two years of hockey experience.

“This is the type of league I always envisioned. I just never thought we’d get to this level this fast,” Farabaugh said. “My vision was pretty focused. I really had all of this laid out, but I never, ever in my wildest dreams expected it to happen in the first season.”

Tickets to the Border Battle are $20 and include a seat at the Wolves game plus a between-games reception. To order tickets, call Chuck Jacobson of the CGHA at: (773) 968-7474.  Or, email Jacobson at: thundersnow1974@yahoo.com.  Plus, tickets are available on the CGHA’s website:  www.chicagogayhockey.org.

April 11, 2007