Hockey needs to change inside the locker room, Carnegie trailblazer says

When Brock McGillis received one of seven trailblazer awards at the Carnegie Initiative Summit on Friday, it wasn’t because his work as an activist to bring cultural change to the sport of hockey was done. That work is ongoing.

But the 39-year-old Toronto resident feels there has been progress in the push for acceptance for all in the sport, something that has been both well-received and met with hate.

McGillis and others will discuss how to bring real change to hockey’s culture during Saturday’s summit schedule. McGillis’s aim is to humanize the experience of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC players by having them share their stories in locker rooms everywhere, and with all age groups.

“When we talk about hockey, there’s people on the inside of the locker room and there’s people on the outside, and the outside is evolving quicker than the inside,” McGillis said. “Until we can change that, it’s going to be difficult for a lot of minority people to feel comfortable and safe in the space, and even straight white kids who feel they don’t fit in. If you don’t feel you can conform to the culture, you’re going to have a difficult time in the sport.

“We have to break down barriers of conformity … You have 20 kids on our minor hockey teams, they are together almost all the time. (They) aren’t exposed to many other people, it’s six or seven nights a week, and its become a 12-month-a-year sport. Hockey kids dress the same, walk the same, talk the same … there’s so much conformity within it. We have to break that down a bit, we have to expose them to other people.

“There’s teachers on staff (coaching other sports) where in hockey we have coaches who come in who volunteer, and I’m sure they’re great people but their language and behaviours may not always be … (it can be) what they learned in the culture versus where we are as a society. That gets projected on the kids and it’s a cycle of language, attitudes and behaviours, and it continues to infiltrate generation after generation, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

“If we humanize and we get in those locker rooms and engage and educate, we can shift this. There’s good people, it’s just that they’re a product of their environment.”

McGillis addressed the Buffalo Sabres’ top prospects during rookie camp last fall, and has spoken to minor hockey teams in leagues in British Columbia and Alberta, as well as in schools across Canada.

He says the hate messages continue to flood his social media inboxes, but there is support as well.

“(The hate has) helped me grow,” he said, “and I’ve used every single opportunity to make myself a better activist, a better speaker and a better voice in changing and evolving the culture so that others don’t have to endure any of it.”

The others receiving trailblazer awards Friday were: Alexandria Briggs-Blake, the president of the Tucker Road Parent Hockey Organization in Maryland; Kirk Brooks, the founder of Seaside Hockey-Skillz Hockey; Stephane Friday, of Hockey Business for Hockey Indigenous; Moezine Hasham, of Hockey 4 Youth; Nate Mata, the founder of RGV Roller; and Zarmina Nekzai, the founder of the Hockey Girls of Kabul.