When Steven Thompson and Joey Gale started the Seattle Pride Classic in 2020 (moved to 2021 due to COVID-19), it was the world’s largest LGBTQIA+ hockey tournament. This year it had 20 teams, which required scheduling, supporting, and suiting up a whopping 280 players.

For this year’s fifth edition (which took place June 6-8), a “social conference” was introduced, in which only exhibition games are held and there are no team eliminations or winners. This simpler approach was often requested by a growing number of participants.

“I was raised in Michigan, so I’ve been skating since I was ten,” said Lexi, a wing player for Edie’s Enforcers, a team in the social conference. “You can play in leagues that have Stanley Cup levels of pressure anywhere, but here, it can be just all about the fun.”

When launching the Seattle Pride Classic, COVID-19 was a citywide concern, and the founders knew that the more players they brought together, the harder it would be to ensure everyone’s safety. So they chose to start small by creating four teams that had a total of 56 players, with each team named after an Queer icon.

After the first year’s success, Thompson and Gale found that there were consistently more players interested in joining than there would be open slots on any given team. This meant that the Pride Classic had the opportunity to expand over the last five years, now reaching 20 teams.

On the competitive side, the generous spirit of the tournament left enough room for two winners, who had their names etched onto a pair of silver trophies, each decorated with rainbow hockey sticks.

“We all grew up without something like this in our lives, and as adults now, we want a space where it feels safe to come out and play with each other on the ice, with teammates who understand who we are,” Gale said. “There’s also something instinctive, almost intuitively joyful about celebrating Pride, and you see it on the rink and in the locker rooms. You see it on people’s faces.”


For more information, visit seattlepridehockey.org/classic.