While growing up, Renee Hess wasn’t into sports, but as an adult she was hooked once she watched hockey.

“It was around 2011,” Hess recalled. “I started reading about it, listening to hockey games. I didn’t really watch them [on television] because it is hard to find them on regular television.”

“I worked up the nerve around 2015 to go to a live game,” the Californian added. “The reason I hadn’t been to one [before] is because I am not a huge sports fan in general.

“Discovering hockey, I dug my heels in,” Hess continued. But after attending a couple of NHL games, she discovered something else: “I would see Black men once in a while, but I never see two Black women together at a hockey game.”

As a result, Hess took to social media. “Being an academic, I started a research project. I created a survey and sent it out on social media to hockey fans who were of color. As I looked through the responses, I realized there were Black women hockey fans, quite a few, but a lot of them didn’t want to go to live games because they didn’t feel comfortable. They either had a bad experience or they were nervous.”

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