Coachella Valley | Where hockey did not exist

(Palm Springs, California) For hundreds of miles, Highway 10 from Phoenix to Los Angeles in the southwestern United States looks like a postcard scene.

Two lanes in each direction cut through barren, sandy land. At sunrise and sunset, far behind the cacti and sparse vegetation, the mountains that cut the horizon create breathtaking scenes. We open our eyes, in search of the coyote and the roadrunner (great roadrunner in French).

As we arrive in the Coachella Valley, the decor gradually becomes more industrialized. Large retail and restaurant chains appear, between the giant advertisements of lawyers appealing to victims of road accidents.

Then, unexpectedly, an arena. Planted right on the service road, right in the middle of a region where the heat is described as unbearable four months a year.

This amphitheater is the home of the Coachella Valley Firebirds, a new franchise in the American League and academy of the Seattle Kraken.

The Press went there, a week before Christmas, on the occasion of the team’s inaugural game, to discover a market where there is no tradition of hockey.

Eclectic

For the Quebec public, the only referent linked to the Coachella name is its famous music festival, one of the most important and influential on the planet. Spontaneously, we will have in mind the image of a crowd of young people partying, in a chic hippie atmosphere, with flowers in their hair and light outfits for the occasion.

Defining the region by this single event, however, would be the equivalent of reducing Montreal to its Grand Prix weekend. The 51 weeks of the year when the festival does not take place, the city of Indio, which hosts it, regains its anonymity.

California’s Coachella Valley is just under 200 miles east of Los Angeles in the Colorado desert. About two hours by car are enough to reach the Mexican border. Its county seat is Palm Springs, known for its spas, golf courses and retirement communities. Driving towards its city center, between the palm trees and the opulent houses, one does not feel exactly in hockey land, let’s say.

The impression does not change when, a good 25 minutes after passing the arena, we reach the heart of the city. The main quadrilateral is as touristic as possible, where restaurants and shops of all kinds follow one another, where you will find luxury items such as cheap souvenirs.

On the eve of the Firebirds’ first game, this Saturday morning couldn’t be more peaceful. A stone’s throw from the commercial streets, an suspended car forms the centerpiece of an open-air exhibition at the museum of contemporary art located next door. A little further on, onlookers take pictures of themselves in front of a giant replica of Marilyn Monroe.

A clamor attracts the attention of the representative of The Press. On a terrace that can be seen partially from the street, a hundred people are having lunch in front of a drag queen show. On stage, Anita Rose gives full meaning to the name of the event she hosts, the “Bitchiest Brunch” [le brunch le plus malicieux]. The public, filled, asks for more.

In conversations with residents, the word “eclectic” is the word most often heard when talking about the region. If the snowbirds Quebeckers traditionally opt for Florida, those from the west of the continent choose Palm Springs. According to the US Census Bureau, 32.4% of its permanent population is aged 65 and over, twice the national average. The trend is similar in neighboring towns.

The area also has a large Hispanic representation, which makes up a quarter of the population of Palm Springs and two-thirds of that of Indio, the most populous city in the valley.

“We are an interesting mix of blue-collar workers, farmers and retirees,” summarizes, laughing, Matthew Royer. This knife sharpener, crossed at the Palm Springs public market, returned to his land after studying on the Pacific coast.

“And tourists! he adds to complete his list. It’s not a metropolitan area at all, although there are a few festivals… People want to come and experience things here. Eight months a year is paradise. But June to September is hell. It’s over 40 every day. So yeah… it’s a weird mix! »

gay capital

This “mix” has not yet reached the end of its description. Palm Springs is also a true gay capital nationwide.

In the early 2000s, Ron Oden became the first openly gay African-American mayor in the nation’s history. In the 2018 municipal elections, the population elected a city council composed entirely of members of the LGBTQ+ community. A first here too. “Potholes don’t have a gender,” trans counselor Lisa Middleton told The Daily Mail. Guardian shortly after his election.

By some estimates, up to half of Palm Springs’ population identifies as LGBTQ+.

Sunny Bella Harmon, a coffee shop worker in her early twenties, moved here last year. At his request, we use the masculine to designate him.

After growing up in Fresno, a rural town north of Los Angeles, he sought to settle in “a place with more acceptance”, let alone at the end of Donald Trump’s four-year presidency. Never, in his native region, would it have occurred to him to walk around in public holding his girlfriend by the hand.

“I think it’s important for queer people not to just go to the big cities,” adds the man The Press met in a cafe. While taking out the trash, earlier, I saw drag queens smoking a cigarette outside. They were magnificent. No one looked at them askance. »

JoAnn Lopez made the same observation when she and her wife moved to Palm Springs in 1988. In the midst of the AIDS epidemic at the time, an HIV prevention worker “always felt at ease” in this living environment.

At the time, however, the presence of an older, more conservative population created a certain divide. “It was more ‘them’ and ‘us’. But that has completely changed since then,” adds this retiree who, when we met her, was about to tackle an afternoon of board games at the “Desert LGBTQ Community Center”, established a stone’s throw from the downtown.

Before being left with her group of friends, Ms.^me Lopez proudly points out that she has her tickets to the hockey game the next day. It is, after all, the pretext that brought us here.