Culture of hockey: Q&a with brock mcgillis, the first openly gay pro hockey player

[albertGQ]

https://thehockeynews.com/news/artic...-hockey-player

This is a great read. I highly recommend.

Kudos to Brock

[kermitology]

Really impressed with the kids who demanded 50 pushups for calling things gay.

[sempuki]

Brendan [Burke] and I became friends, and it was such a relief, because I could finally tell somebody I was gay. I could also talk to somebody about hockey. I finally had somebody I could talk to about my breakup, you know? It was the first time I’d been truly in love, and I’m heartbroken, and I have nobody to talk to. I’m also depressed and dealing with a lot of stuff on top of that, and from the age of 17 or 18 until I was 23, I had suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts. I was drinking heavily. And now my only friend who knows everything, I had this one friend, and it was Brendan.


And then one day, Brendan sent me a text message. And it said, “I can’t wait for the day that you’re out to your family like I am to mine.” And I didn’t answer him. [...] I was afraid that, if they knew, they’d become more sensitive to the language used in locker rooms and around the game and stand up to it. And in the process, I would be outed, which would jeopardize any opportunity I had moving forward.


So when Brendan said that, I didn’t answer him. And two days later he passed away in a car accident. Those ended up being the last words he ever said to me. That’s why I speak.

...

[sempuki]

The summer before I came out, a hockey mom called me. She said, “Brock, I want to set you up on a date.”


I was panicked because I was like, “I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to out myself.” Because I was living in Sudbury, and I was working in hockey, and I feared that if people found out, especially up there, I would lose any opportunity I had, and people would not want to work with me.


So when I got that call I panicked, but then I was kind of curious what she thought my type might be. So I decided to ask her.


I said “What’s her name?”

And her response was: “Steve.”

I said, “What?”

She said, “Brock, you’re gay.”

Imagine living this kind of life, looking over your shoulder every day afraid someone might know who you really are...