Queer Hockey Nova Scotia (QHNS) is a hockey organization by and for queer hockey players in Nova Scotia. QHNS seeks to create a space where all folks, especially those who have been marginalized from hockey, are able to come together to play, learn, celebrate, and connect.

 

QHNS gathers and plays across Mi’kma’ki and operates primarily out of Kjipuktuk, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. We are all treaty people. Acknowledging that we play in Mi’kma’ki is just one way that QHNS is working to respect our relationships to Mi’kmaq communities across this land.

 

We recognize that the sport we play and love has deep roots in the Mi’kmaq community, from stories of Glooscap first bringing the game back to the Mi’kmaq people, to the first written account of ice hockey being played by the Mi’kmaq, to the invention of the hockey stick as we know it today by the Mi’kmaq people. We thank the Mi’kmaq people for sharing this sport with us.

 

QHNS also plays in a province that is home to over 50 African Nova Scotian communities. African Nova Scotian hockey players have been pivotal in the development of the game we love, through leagues like The Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes (CHL), which was founded in Kjipuktuk in 1895.

 

Our sport, at an organizational level, historically has, and continues to, exclude and push out Mi’kmaq folks, African Nova Scotians, and other people of colour. 

 

To learn more about the history of our sport check out the following resources:

• Documentary: The Game of Hockey- A Mi'kmaw Story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxCeeeQcuHM 

• Documentary: Ice Breakers by Sandamini Rankaduwa - https://www.nfb.ca/film/ice-breakers/ 

• Article: Coloured Hockey League - https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/coloured-hockey-league 

• Article: Exploring the long history of Black hockey in Nova Scotia - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/black-history-soul-on-ice-hockey-1.5938941