OTTAWA — Scott Heggart was a big, strapping teenager, who topped out at six foot four. He played football, basketball, softball and hockey.
And he had a secret.
It was hard enough to share it with his mom and dad.
But as a young athlete, steeped in the machismo of sport, where “about the worst thing” is to be a “fag” or a “homo,” there was one conversation that was even harder.
Telling his teammates he was gay.
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke and his son, Patrick, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, have just launched the You Can Play Project to tackle the “casual homophobia” of professional hockey, where there is still no openly gay athlete. The initiative is in honour of Brendan Burke, their son and brother, who came out shortly before he was killed in a car accident in 2010.
Public-service announcements, with 36 NHL players so far signing on, deliver a simple, powerful message that an athlete’s sexual orientation does not matter. “If you can play, you can play” is a seven-word mantra taken from a piece written by Brendan.
The campaign is a small sign of change in the elite level of sport. One day this attitude may trickle down to places like the locker-rooms of the Lanark-Carleton Minor Hockey League, where Scott Heggart risked ostracization and ridicule to do what few athletes before him, professional or amateur, dared to.
His truth telling didn’t play out as he’d expected.
Keep reading HERE.
And he had a secret.
It was hard enough to share it with his mom and dad.
But as a young athlete, steeped in the machismo of sport, where “about the worst thing” is to be a “fag” or a “homo,” there was one conversation that was even harder.
Telling his teammates he was gay.
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke and his son, Patrick, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, have just launched the You Can Play Project to tackle the “casual homophobia” of professional hockey, where there is still no openly gay athlete. The initiative is in honour of Brendan Burke, their son and brother, who came out shortly before he was killed in a car accident in 2010.
Public-service announcements, with 36 NHL players so far signing on, deliver a simple, powerful message that an athlete’s sexual orientation does not matter. “If you can play, you can play” is a seven-word mantra taken from a piece written by Brendan.
The campaign is a small sign of change in the elite level of sport. One day this attitude may trickle down to places like the locker-rooms of the Lanark-Carleton Minor Hockey League, where Scott Heggart risked ostracization and ridicule to do what few athletes before him, professional or amateur, dared to.
His truth telling didn’t play out as he’d expected.
Keep reading HERE.
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