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From what sport will the next player come out?
From what sport will the next player come out?
Hockey? Baseball? Football? Golf?
By Metro Weekly Contributor
on
April 29, 2013
Matt and Ross Duffer, the co-creators of Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things, are responding to cultural backlash over a much-criticized storyline in which teenage character Will Byers comes out as gay.
The penultimate episode, "The Bridge," earned the lowest IMDb score and the harshest audience reaction of any episode across the series’ five seasons. Many fans criticized the episode -- particularly Will’s coming-out storyline -- for sloppy writing, uneven performances, cheesy sentimentality, and its timing within the episode.
The hit HBO Max series Heated Rivalry is drawing more online search interest than many real-life NHL stars, underscoring the show’s breakout popularity beyond traditional hockey audiences.
According to Cyd Zeigler of Outsports, Google Trends data from the past 30 days reveals that searches for the show’s fictional romantic leads, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, consistently outpaced searches for several prominent NHL players throughout most of December.
More strikingly, searches for "Heated Rivalry" briefly surpassed searches for "NHL" itself in late December, coinciding with the release of the Season 1 finale.
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.
