Created by Ngozi Ukazu, Check, Please! is the story of Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater and baking enthusiast, as he navigates through his college years on a varsity male hockey team full of big, supportive, and emotional jocks.
What does the hockey team mean to Bitty?
Among queer people, you will frequently hear the phrase “chosen family,” a group of people, unrelated by blood, who have come together as a surrogate family. That is exactly what the Samwell men’s hockey team has become for Bitty, and considering his upbringing, this is perfectly understandable. Bitty’s comes from a conservative area in the U.S., where queer people are generally mistreated. He is an only child in a family he doesn’t feel comfortable coming out to because odds are that his parents could be biased against queer people due to their own upbringing. On top of that, his dad is the local high school football coach, which is the sport of choice of queerphobic, heteronormative American hegemonic masculinity. Getting out of this enviornment was Bitty’s priority and, as mentioned in Year 1, Samwell is the “#1 most LGBTQ-friendly campus in America for the last three years.”
Ironically enough, Bitty’s doesn’t find himself in the most traditionally queer space at Samwell. He is thrown head first into the very bro-y world of hockey. Nevertheless, be it thanks to Samwell’s open-mindedness, the team’s overall attitude, or Bitty’s irrefutable charm, the hockey team becomes not only a queer space but Bitty’s home. The chapter’s 3rd panel is the clearest proof of this. The collage of friends and experiences made up by the pictures on Bitty’s phone is a testament to his chosen family. They are the people with whom Bitty can be fully himself with, without having to worry about societal expectations and the fear of rejection that underlines his relationship with his parents at this point in the story.
Credit: Ngozi Ukazu
A collage of pictures on Bitty’s phone: Jack kissing Bitty, Ford and Tango eating pie, Ransom and Holster, Lardo wearing a hockey helmet, Whiskey and Ransom holding up a pair of pucks, and close-ups of Dex, Nursey, and Jack, among other pictures.
Bitty’s narration: I’ll say this, even with all of its ups and downs, it’s been a good year. And this year especially, I’m so proud of what the team has become. I guess if you told me I would be — …could be part of a team like this as a frog, I wouldn’t have believed you. I hate to get all wistful, but it’s nice to reflect sometimes. And if you don’t stop and do it now? Well! The next year’ll fly by too.
Credit: Ngozi Ukazu
Three consecutive panels of Bitty playing hockey. Bitty is skating down the boards with the puck, an opposing player coming up behind him. The player bumps Bitty, the panel has a red background and is jagged on the top and bottom. Bitty is left kneeling on the ice, trembling.
Bitty’s narration: It’s about having each other’s backs. Because they’ve taught me I can be strong just how I am.
This chosen family hasn’t only been a safe space fo Bitty, it’s been one of nurture and growth as a loving family should be. Panels four through six depict this wonderfully as Bitty recovers from being lightly checked. The chance of living his truth to the fullest without any fear allows Bitty to develop in way that being repressed would have never. Repression involves living under constant anxiety and worry, fearing that the slightest slip could give your true identity away. It takes one’s focus from the inward and places it on the external, on people’s opinions and one’s safety from others. This is the world Bitty left behind in Georgia and the total opposite of what he found at Samwell.