Brock McGillis, the first openly gay professional hockey player, told PinkNews that he “wholeheartedly” disagrees with the idea that HBO’s Heated Rivalry will encourage more hockey players to come out.
McGillis, 42, played in the Ontario Hockey League and United Hockey League during a nine-year professional career from 2001 to 2010 and came out publicly in 2016. While he now advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in hockey, McGillis said the series — which has drawn attention for its steamy gay sex scenes — is just as likely to keep gay players closeted.
“Nobody’s like, ‘Oh, yeah. This came out and now I’m ready [to come out].’ It’s not happening,” he said. “It’s probably more likely to have an adverse effect on a player coming out. And I hate to be negative because I really enjoy the show. But I also don’t believe that many hockey bros are going to watch it. And I don’t think, if they are watching it, they’re talking about it positively.”
Heated Rivalry, which was recently picked up for a second season, is based on author Rachel Reid’s popular Game Changers novel series and centers on two gay players in a fictional professional hockey league who carry out a secret relationship over eight years while rising as two of the league’s biggest stars. The series was originally adapted for the Canadian streaming service Crave and began streaming on HBO Max on November 28.
Actors Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, the stars of the series, have said they hope the show will speak personally to LGBTQ viewers.
McGillis said that if he had children, regardless of their sexual orientation, he would discourage them from playing hockey, citing the homophobic atmosphere that has long pervaded the sport. He did acknowledge, however, that Heated Rivalry may succeed in accurately portraying the kind of homophobia he and others have experienced in locker rooms.
“The language, behaviors, and attitudes that you get in locker rooms are sometimes homophobic — that starts at a very young age and progresses through your whole life. You’re programmed to feel that everyone will hate you and you’ll lose your career,” McGillis said. “Sometimes I don’t think people recognize what they’re saying or the impact it has. But if you’re hearing that daily, it’s death by 1,000 paper cuts.”
He added that the HBO series “might help the people around [players] understand a little more if they’re dating somebody; hopefully.”
Despite his concerns about homophobia in the sport, McGillis said that if a player did come out, he believes fellow hockey players — whom he describes as “good people” — would be more likely than professional athletes in other sports to rally around their teammate.
McGillis noted that players “didn’t jump out of the closet” after he came out in 2016, or after Luke Prokop, the first openly gay NHL player, came out in 2021.
McGillis also said that the first episode of the series gave him a “panic attack,” forcing him to recall how he kept his own relationships under wraps.
“I was scared. I dated a guy for three years, not a soul in my life knowing,” he told PinkNews. “We had an alias for [me in his phone] in case [his friends] ever saw.”
The United States Tennis Association, the national governing body for tennis in the United States, has quietly banned transgender athletes from competing in women's events.
As first reported by independent journalist Marisa Kabas in her newsletter The Handbasket, the USTA revised its "Player Eligibility Policy" page on October 25 with no prior warning or public announcement.
Under the revised policy -- which applies to all sex-specific junior and adult leagues, tournaments, and competitions, whether Olympic, professional, or recreational -- only athletes who meet the USTA's definition of a woman or girl may compete in events designated for women or girls.
The placid romantic drama Sauna, from director Mathias Broe, confronts provocative subject matter with admirable sensitivity and restraint. Based on the novel by Mads Ananda Lodahl, published in 2021, the film, figuratively speaking, never raises its voice telling the story of Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen) and William (Nina Rask), a cis gay man and trans man, respectively, whose budding romance faces distinct challenges, even within the queer community.
First, the film winds through a concise, if not that creative setup depicting Johan's lonely life. A small town single gay relatively new to Copenhagen, he's sociable and outgoing, and so far unfulfilled by the cold, hard sex sessions with random guys he meets at bars.
Conservative Christians attacked fast food giant Chick-fil-A after a franchisee in Orem, Utah, posted a Facebook message celebrating a young gay couple’s marriage.
"CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HAPPY COUPLE!" the December 3 post reads. "Dougie & Toby recently got married and we are so beyond happy for them!"
The celebratory message quickly triggered backlash from conservatives. The "Chick-fil-A Orem Plaza" Facebook account ultimately restricted public comments to users who had been following the page for more than 24 hours.
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