THE OFFICIAL HOME OF
THE CUTTING EDGES-
VANCOUVER'S LGBTQ+
HOCKEY ASSOCIATION
OUR STORY
How it all began
The Cutting Edges have come a long way in more than three decades. Before us, Vancouver’s only other LGBTQ+ hockey team was the Real Puckers, a short-lived roster of barely acquainted players hastily assembled for Celebration ’90: Gay Games III and Cultural Festival (August 4-11, 1990). That year in Vancouver, hockey was included for the first time as a Gay Games sport. But co-organizer Daniel Gawthrop had such a hard time filling the Real Puckers roster that he almost gave up on his dream of starting a gay hockey team that would last.
Enter Vancouver Sun news reporter Kevin Griffin. While covering the Gay Games on assignment, Griffin was attending a Real Puckers match at Britannia Rink when he recognized Gawthrop, who had worked at the Sun the previous year. After Celebration ’90, the two journalists began working together to build a team for the next Gay Games. But they had to start over again from scratch: in 1994, that meant postering billboards at places like the West End Community Centre and Little Sisters bookstore, phoning friends who hadn’t played in years, and even trying to persuade strangers in bars to come out and play.
The team name was inspired by a casual comment during a discussion about how to keep the players together after the ’94 Games. When it became apparent that the new team would have to join a regular league—and thus play against straight opponents—one player said: “That would be really cutting edge.” A logo was designed and jersey orders were placed. Then we took Manhattan: after barely meeting the registration deadline, the brand-new Cutting Edges flew to New York City with a roster of only eight players to participate in Unity '94: Gay Games IV and Cultural Festival (June 18-25, 1994).
A boost from “Hockey Night”
An early summer heat wave was suffocating the Big Apple when we first boarded the subway carrying our bags and sticks. Travelling south to Coney Island, we competed in a rink located a hundred metres from the famous parachute drop. In five games, the vastly outnumbered Cutting Edges managed to tie once, but all four losses were by relatively close scores. And we had a great time. At Gay Games IV, we were still riding a wave of unexpected publicity from two weeks earlier, while the Canucks were playing the Rangers in the Stanley Cup final.
Three minutes into his “Coach’s Corner” intermission segment for Game Three, CBC Hockey Night in Canada’s notorious Don Cherry read aloud Gawthrop’s published comments about him and Pavel Bure. He also noted—and with interest, instead of his usual sarcasm—that the Vancouver writer’s team would be playing in the upcoming Gay Games in New York. Griffin responded with a team press release thanking Canada’s best-known redneck for giving queer hockey national exposure. Cherry then read that release on the air during Game Four’s “Coach’s Corner,” for the first time mentioning the Cutting Edges by name. One of our players, watching the broadcast from his parents’ home, accidentally came out to them by exclaiming, “Hey, that’s my team!"
The exposure boosted our recruitment efforts after the Games. By the time the 1994-95 rec league season began at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Rink, we had enough players for a team. From the first league meeting, where we informed UBC officials that the Cutting Edges were gay, we had something to prove. At first, other teams didn’t take us seriously. But once we put our game together and began winning, we quickly earned respect: having proven we could play, we clearly belonged. Soon we were sharing after-game beers with our opponents, and the Edges became just another part of the larger hockey community. Our joining a straight league turned out to be a learning experience for everyone.
Building our profile
As word got around, we developed a healthy list of spare skaters and on-call goalies. Over the years, the club expanded to add more teams: at one point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we had four teams in different divisions at UBC. In the 2024-25 season, we reached that number again after launching our first development team for new players.
We played every season at UBC until the COVID-19 pandemic, returning briefly before moving to Burnaby’s Scotia Barn (Eight Rinks) in 2022-23.
Meanwhile, as part of the network of LGBTQ+ teams in North America, we competed at tournaments in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal as well as in Seattle, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Denver. We eventually hosted our own tournaments in the Lower Mainland, as well as sending teams to Gay Games V in Amsterdam (1998), Gay Games VI in Sydney (2002), and the first Out Games in Montreal (2006). We also became a popular presence at Vancouver’s Pride parades. Our early appearances featured a rollerblading routine that was interrupted to mimic a hockey fight: first dropping our gloves and then…kissing each other. In more recent years, we began a partnership with the Vancouver Canucks, a few times welcoming Canuck players to our parade contingent and later participating in Canuck Pride Nights at Rogers Arena.
The Cutting Edges became a registered society on March 10, 1998. After electing our first board of directors, we began sponsorship relations with several organizations and donating to good causes. Since then, succeeding generations of LGBTQ+ players and allies have joined the club, many taking on leadership roles with their teams or the board. To launch our thirtieth anniversary season, we formally recognized the diversity of our membership by changing the club description to better reflect our inclusive philosophy.
We are proud to be Vancouver’s LGBTQ+ hockey association and proud of our history over the first three decades. We look forward to many more years of turning heads with our play, our community presence, and—oh yeah—those rainbow-taped sticks!
