Game On Magazine 2017 Game On Magazine - Regular Season Edition | Page 108

MOM
THE GOALIE
B Y S C O T T TAY L O R
Photos by James Carey Lauder
It started four years ago as a
challenge at a social event in
St. Adolphe, Man. Seems a
group of women in the small
Manitoba town just outside
Winnipeg were never invited
into their husbands’ hockey
conversations.
Mother of three and small
business owner, Bahia Taylor,
was 37-years-old when she
and her friends decided to
start playing hockey. Although
she had never played before,
she was determined to find a
way to both understand and
be respected for her opinions
whenever her son Nigel, a
goaltender, and her husband
Jim, a coach and devoted
Winnipeg Jets fan, started
to discuss the proceedings
during televised Jets games.
At 37, this self-proclaimed
non-athletic woman, who
tried to opt out of Phys
Ed classes throughout her
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school years, decided to
become a hockey player. “It
all started at a social event
with our spouses, standing
in a circle having a drink and
just socializing and the guys
started talking about hockey
and the women kind of looked
at each other and said, ‘I can’t
contribute to this conversation
in a meaningful way,’ and we
realized this happens at home
at the dinner table,” Bahia
said, laughing as she spoke.
“There was an audible eye-roll
if I tried to talk about hockey
with my husband and kids
and right there we all decided,
‘We should play hockey.’
“That group challenge turned
into 24 women in their late 30s
and early 40s, many not even
able to skate, getting on the ice
with some of our husbands as
our coaches. That was in 2014.
I skated maybe five times in
my entire life and it was almost