I lost my hockey career over a decade ago, being pushed out of the industry for daring to name my harasser — something that was well documented at the time. My name was attached to it and while the tweets are gone, I still have the screenshots of the harassment tucked away in a cloud folder with backups just in case I need it. For whatever it may be.

I tried entering the industry again at one point, going the analytics route, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I would constantly get flashbacks to the trauma I endured because of the sport and decided to do my version of quiet quitting — quitting without saying a word. The Irish goodbye of quitting.

It’s not a secret I worked for the Sharks, or that they were the team I rooted for growing up. When my second hometown of Las Vegas got its own NHL team, I contemplated ditching the Sharks for a while instead of having two teams, but it was hard, because I cared so much before. Hundreds of therapy sessions later, I realized I needed a clean break from the Sharks because I couldn’t help but associate my trauma with my time there. I decided to become a Vegas Golden Knights fan completely and say “that’s my hometown team.” Words that ended up meaning more to me as I reconnected with the hometown I didn’t really return to for almost 15 years.

But even calling myself a Golden Knights fan doesn’t mean I’m returning. I paid attention very casually last season, mostly through scoreboard watching. The sport itself is still an open wound for me. Through the endless news items about sexual assault trials and bullshit victim blaming commentary, I can’t wade through it without remembering the treatment I received.

I think a lot about a Sports Illustrated column I came across much later after it was published. A hockey writer had her thoughts included in this Richard Deitch column — thoughts about the harassment in hockey. Thoughts that deliberately excluded me.

With three male hockey reporters and bloggers fired in four months for social media harassment, sexism in hockey journalism is a culture problem that goes way beyond the poor choices of a few. 

The creepy Twitter messages sent by Adrian Dater, Steve Lepore and Harrison Mooney to various female fans and bloggers highlight that women in hockey are treated as a novelty. In the NHL, women are more likely to be ice girls than analysts, online we’re avatars instead of fans.

My harasser was named here. I was not named below.

Maria Camacho and Toni McIntyre exposing Dater's and Lepore’s unprofessional actions is a huge stride for women in hockey. Their willingness to publicly call these men out unfortunately opened them up to more personal attacks, but more importantly showed that harassment is not, and never will be, acceptable. Hopefully, more women will feel empowered to speak out about their own harassment and their right to be hockey fans.

It’s a fucked up feeling of rejection that’s gaslit me into thinking that I did something wrong. That I did something in a way that wasn’t following whatever protocol it is to name sexual harassment.

Logically, I know it’s the result of former friends launching a campaign against me at the time: “believe all survivors but don’t believe Jen.” I had hunches that was what was happening and I had it confirmed years later.

I never wanted to leave hockey at the time. I wanted to keep blogging. There was just no way for me to stay in the hockey community I had made without the people who I thought were my friends not wanting to show friendship. I got more harassment as a result of actually choosing to speak up. It’s hard to forget which now prominent hockey writers made jokes about me, or which ones hated that I said the quiet part out loud.

I feel like this is a blog I write and revise often, with more details trickling in whenever I remember it. Whenever hockey season starts back up again and I cannot stand to be around it. Whenever these memories enter my mind against my will because that’s how C-PTSD works.

It says even more that the landscape of hockey hasn’t changed since all of this first happened, and may only be getting worse.