Sports
Puck buddies
New blog ‘for boys who like boys who like hockey’
The evolution of the blog has been an amazing thing. What once began as online diaries has evolved into a vehicle for change, information and entertainment.
The entertainment industry peruses blogs to get thoughts about what the general populace would to see in their movies and television shows. They recently changed the outfit of “Wonder Woman” in the upcoming movie reboot because of public outcry against the preview pictures that were released.
Members of the sports community have been known to use blogs to rally around their favorite teams and to deride their opponents. It seems that almost every professional athlete has blogs written about their performances and their hotness.
Even criminal investigations and crime-related news stories have the blogging community abuzz about details of high profile cases.
Enter Doug Johnson and Craig Brownstein. In 2006, they and a few associates began blogging about the Robert Wone murder. Wone was a straight man murdered in the Swann Street home of three gay men who were all present on the night of the murder.
Their blog whomurderedrobertwone.com covered all aspects of the trial and the investigation. Brownstein says, “It became the bible of the case.” The Wone murder case remains unsolved.
Johnson and Brownstein were also Washington Capitals fans and in the middle of a December 2010 Caps game, Brownstein turned to Johnson and said, “You’re my puck buddy.” The line prompted them to do some research and within a few weeks they created the hockey blog, Puck Buddys.
“It kind of started as a goof,” Johnson says. “We were trying to mix a blend of gay culture, sports, politics and hot guys.
Brownstein says straight hockey bloggers quickly became fans too.
Soon after they began blogging on the site, rabid fans began posting silly comments and the site grew into a national repository. Local straight bloggers such as russianmachineneverbreaks.com also welcomed the new gay twist on hockey blogging.
Even Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis has come on board, blogging and tweeting about Puck Buddys. When asked if he was surprised by the amount of straight women who post on the blog, Brownstein says, “That was to be expected since we are talking about icecakes.”
Icecakes? “That would be hot hockey players,” Johnson says.
Over the course of 2011, the site began to evolve into a reverse blog. Johnson and Brownstein are still posting, but they have added about 16 gay hockey bloggers from around the country who are contributing posts about their own teams.
“The amount of attention we have received has been incredible,” Johnson says. “We receive e-mails from several branches of the National Hockey League (NHL) teams such as media relations, group sales and operations.”
Just this past week, Puck Buddys was named 2011 Hockey Blog of the Year by Yahoo! Sports calling the site, “(Expletive) hilarious.”
Up next for Puck Buddys is a series of interviews on Zach, a gay high school hockey player. Zach has been skating since he was 3 and moved up through the youth hockey ranks and now plays for a perennial Midwest high school powerhouse team.
The first interview with Zack was posted Jan. 8 and the series will be a must-read for any sports enthusiast.
Meet up with the Puck Buddys at any of their Caps Watch parties at Nellie’s Sports Bar. You can follow them on Twitter at @PuckBuddys. Their blog site is puckbuddys.com.
More than a dozen LGBTQ athletes won medals at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that ended on Sunday.
Cayla Barnes, Hilary Knight, and Alex Carpenter are LGBTQ members of the U.S. women’s hockey team that won a gold medal after they defeated Canada in overtime. Knight the day before the Feb. 19 match proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
French ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron, who is gay, and his partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry won gold. American alpine skier Breezy Johnson, who is bisexual, won gold in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, was part of the American figure skating team that won gold in the team event.
Swiss freestyle skier Mathilde Gremaud, who is in a relationship with Vali Höll, an Austrian mountain biker, won gold in women’s freeski slopestyle.
Bruce Mouat, who is the captain of the British curling team that won a silver medal, is gay. Six members of the Canadian women’s hockey team — Emily Clark, Erin Ambrose, Emerance Maschmeyer, Brianne Jenner, Laura Stacey, and Marie-Philip Poulin — that won silver are LGBTQ.
Swedish freestyle skier Sandra Naeslund, who is a lesbian, won a bronze medal in ski cross.
Belgian speed skater Tineke den Dulk, who is bisexual, was part of her country’s mixed 2000-meter relay that won bronze. Canadian ice dancer Paul Poirier, who is gay, and his partner, Piper Gilles, won bronze.
Laura Zimmermann, who is queer, is a member of the Swiss women’s hockey team that won bronze when they defeated Sweden.
Outsports.com notes all of the LGBTQ Olympians who competed at the games and who medaled.
Sports
US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey
Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday
The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.
The Olympics will end on Sunday.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.

