With just a minute and fifty seconds left in the third period, Red Liners defenseman Andrew Sobotka, guilty of a minor penalty, skates to the sin bin. From there he watches anxiously as his team fights to sustain their 4-2 lead. Much to Sobotka’s delight, the Red Liners hold off their competitors and emerge victorious after a grinding third period. As usual, the Red Liners stand out from the competition with their highly skilled play – and their predominantly gay roster.
The Downtown Red Liners are the most competitive of five teams within the 70-member Chicago Gay Hockey Association. Though the organization features both gay and straight athletes, it was founded to provide a comfortable environment for gay hockey players, a community still seeking acceptance in professional sports. Unlike other professional sports leagues where gay athletes have come out to the public, no player within the National Hockey League has shown that same level of comfort.
“Are there gay hockey players in the NHL?” said David Stefanski, a gay defenseman on the Red Liners. “Absolutely, I think so, 100 percent. Couldn’t tell you who they are, don’t even want to speculate, but are there? Yes.”
Some hockey reporters and players believe that media scrutiny might keep a homosexual player from coming out. While public figures like Barack Obama praised openly gay NFL prospect Michael Sam for breaking ground, the media attention he received was overwhelming and intimidating, according to media personnel themselves. They add that often from small towns, players shy away from public attention and also fear that announcing their sexuality will distract from their on-ice performance.
As an institution, the NHL has been vocal in their efforts to keep homophobia out of the league. In 2005, The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association added article 7.2 to their Collective Bargaining Agreement, prohibiting discrimination against any player because of sexual orientation.
In April 2013, the NHL and the players’ union partnered with the You Can Play Project, an organization dedicated to pursuing equality and respect for athletes regardless of sexual orientation. This partnership called for a boost in education, training and resources for players and fans to improve LGBT inclusion.
“So many NHL players have done ads for You Can Play or lent their support to it,” said Matt Horner, 28, author of the hockey blog Five Minutes for Fighting. “It lends a more powerful voice that homophobia is wrong and that there are allies even in this hyper-masculine environment.”
Horner, a Toronto native, started playing ice hockey at the age of 5. In high school, Horner found that homophobic language within the locker room didn’t welcome someone like him who was struggling with his sexual identity. “I ended up quitting for a couple years,” Horner said. “At the time I wasn’t out… so it wasn’t a very healthy atmosphere to be in. It made me not think very positively of myself.”
Over the course of his 10 years working in the front office for the Colorado Avalanche, Brian Kitts, co-founder of the You Can Play Project, knows that language among players and fans alike often discriminates against homosexual players. You Can Play, he says, is trying to eradicate a “culture of silence” and promote a league where its players and its fans are better equipped to forge a welcoming environment.
“You’d be kicked out of any arena in North America for using the n-word,” Kitts said. But derogatory terms for gays and lesbians don’t spark the same repercussions, he added. “A year or two ago, when You Can Play started, I don’t think that there was any movement at all to say choose another word when you hear somebody using that kind of language in either a locker room or a fan seating area.”
Because of the You Can Play Project, Horner believes that the modern-day NHL is beginning to promote a progressive atmosphere, but it’s still a big step for the first player in the NHL to come out to the public.
Sam Carchidi, a Philadelphia Flyers beat reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, thinks that most NHL players do their best to stay out of the spotlight and not draw media attention.
“Most of them come from small towns and they’re down to earth,” Carchidi said. “A lot of these guys, especially young guys coming in, they feel like they want to tow the company line and say what the organization wants them to say.”
Unlike the typical NHL player, former Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov was known for being extremely open with the media and often making eccentric statements. According to Carchidi, Bryzgalov’s openness ultimately hurt his image.
“If Ilya Bryzgalov turned out to be a star here, the fans would have loved him, they would’ve just said that they… loved his personality,” Carchidi said. “But because he wasn’t that successful, they said that his personality was the reason he failed. That’s not the case, but it’s funny how people are perceived.”
Craig Brownstein, co-founder of Puckbuddys, a gay hockey blog “For Boys who Like Boys who Like Hockey,” acknowledged that Sam came out in a highly public way, ultimately earning him the status of a gay athletic icon. Not all players, however, have that same level of confidence, and the way they come out can be made less overwhelming.
“Not every player is going to want to do that,” Brownstein said. “They might just announce it to a team, they might just announce it to the hometown paper. Might tell a coach. Their job is to play, not necessarily be a gay role model or a trailblazer.” However, Kitts stresses the importance of gay athletes to come out to the public, not just to their teams, in order to show young athletes that homosexuality is not a burden or an obstacle.
“If [coming out] helps one kid not kill himself or not walk away from the sport he loves, that should be a good enough of a reason for you as an athlete to come out,” said Kitts.
Surveys show a professional athlete’s decision to come out can change public perception of the entire league. One prominent LGBT marketing firm found that Sam’s decision boosted the NFL’s reputation in the gay community. In a survey of more than 10,000 members of the LGBT community, 23 percent perceived acceptance by the league, up from 8 percent the previous year. The NHL lags behind at the bottom of the pack of professional leagues, with only 11 percent of those surveyed perceiving support and 42 percent still perceiving disapproval.
Despite the notion that the NHL is not welcoming to the gay population, the fact that players have done interviews espousing gay rights and equality even aside from the You Can Play Project reassures Sobotka, president of the CGHA, that the mentality of the league is changing.
“You don’t hear any slurs being thrown around,” said Sobotka. “The culture… if it isn’t there already, it’s definitely shifting to be there very soon.”
Brownstein was pleasantly surprised at how the Washington, D.C. hockey community warmly welcomed Puckbuddys, a sign, he believes, of how accepting and progressive the NHL and its fan base has recently become. “I was talking to somebody who played hockey in high school and college,” said Brownstein. “The guy explains it to me really simply: ‘Traditionally, hockey has always been a game for misfits on both sides of the glass. Of course you are welcomed in.’”