When Tradition and Taunts Collide: Gay Hockey Fans Criticize Garden

The New York Slimes ^ | March 21, 2008 | KATIE THOMAS

[Comparative Advantage]

During the final 10 minutes of many Rangers home games, the spotlights focus on Section 407 as Larry Goodman, a longtime season-ticket holder, pumps up the crowd with a goofy dance.

Kevin Jennings said he stopped attending Rangers games for a month because of homophobic epithets shouted at players. As Goodman’s routine is broadcast on the giant monitors above the ice, a familiar chant picks up momentum. “Ho-mo Lar-ry!” the crowd shouts. “Ho-mo Lar-ry!”

The chant is one example of what several gay hockey fans describe as a toxic atmosphere during Rangers games and that Madison Square Garden, which owns the team, is not doing nearly enough to address their concerns.

Kevin Jennings, a Rangers fan who is gay, said he stopped attending home games for about a month this season because he felt so uncomfortable with the homophobic epithets that are shouted to the players.

Ray Stankes, 50, of Bayside, Queens, said he canceled season tickets he had had for 25 years in part because of the antigay environment.

“This is a place where I grew up, and I never really felt uncomfortable at the Garden,” Stankes said. “I didn’t wear it on my sleeve that I’m gay. If I take a friend who is also gay who, for lack of a better term, is not as masculine, I’m always sitting there a little tense. Like, is somebody going to say something to us? And it’s made it not quite as fun as it used to be.”

Other fans recalled that the crowd booed when the name of the New York City Gay Hockey Association, a recreational league, flashed briefly across the jumbo screen.

[OeOeO]

"It’s a pervasive problem,” said Jennings, who is the executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a nonprofit group that promotes tolerance of gays and lesbians. “I took my godson a few months ago. I won’t take him again. He’s 6. I don’t want him looking around and seeing other men engaging in this behavior and thinking this is the way you behave.”"

[CatQuilt]

Good catch! That has to be him...how many gay Kevin Jennings could there be?

[CatQuilt]

Oh the irony!

[Richard Kimball]

Like a hot dog treats a bun.

[Alouette]

I didn’t wear it on my sleeve that I’m gay.

Search the Internet, I'm sure there are darling iron-on sleeve patches to match all your outfits.