Boston's Northeastern University athletics say "You Can Play"

Northeastern University student-athletes and administrators join together in support of the You Can Play project, in the fight for respect in sports. Watch their You Can Play video below.

En français / University of Ottawa athletes say "You Can Play" (version bilingue)

The University of Ottawa's athletes stand for all athletes regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity in this video for You Can Play. The video is the first You Can Play video to feature French language and the first by a Canadian university.

Watch their You Can Play video below.

UCLA figure skaters and ice hockey players say "You Can Play"

UCLA ice hockey players and figure skaters join together in support of the You Can Play project, in the fight for respect in sports. Watch their You Can Play video below.

You Can Play infographic of NHL participants

The website "Sixteen Wins" has made an infographic showing stats on NHL players involved in the You Can Play project.


Visit the You Can Play website HERE.

University of Connecticut ice hockey team leaders issue the You Can Play captains' challenge

The captains of the University of Connecticut men's ice hockey team issue a challenge to other captains in this You Can Play video.

NHL players Jordan Eberle and Brian Elliott say "You Can Play"

From You Can Play:

NHL All-Stars Jordan Eberle of the Edmonton Oilers and Brian Elliott of the St. Louis Blues team up for respect for all athletes and fans - regardless of sexual orientation.

Oilers forward Eberle, a native of Regina, Saskatchewan, just finished his second season in the NHL with 76 points - his personal best.

Blues goalie Elliott, a native of Newmarket, Ontario, had a career-best season leading the NHL in save percentage and goals against average. Both Eberle and Elliott made their all-star debut at the 2012 NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa where their You Can Play messages were filmed.

These two deliver the simple but meaningful message, “If you can play, you can play.”

---

A look at the You Can Play project

"The Hockey Writers" website presents the You Can Play project:

For an athlete, sport is a passion. An escape. A chance to be who they really are for a portion of the day. So if an athlete can’t be all of these things in their natural environment, what’s the point? The makeup of the athlete shouldn’t matter. If they can play, then they can play.
Founded last fall, the You Can Play Project aims to showcase and celebrate athletes for who they truly are, including putting an end to homophobia in sports.

“For too long, athletes have been judged on things in addition to talent, skill, work ethic, and that includes sexual orientation,” said Brian Kitts, co-founder of the project. “You Can Play is really interested in promoting athletes as pure athletes; stripping things down to the basics of your work ethic, your talent, your skill, and whether you can help your team succeed.”

Kitts, along with Glenn Witman and Patrick Burke, developed You Can Play after meeting at an event in Denver. Witman, founder and president of G-Force Sports, an organization that aims to give a voice to the invisible LGBT athlete, and Burke, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers and full-time student, collaborated with Kitts on a cause that is hugely important to all parties.

Keep reading HERE.

Northfield-Mount Hermon student athletes say "You Can Play"

Northfield Mount Hermon is a private secondary school in Massachussetts. The student athletes and athletic staff of the school have made this You Can Play video.

Gay Games Ambassador Billy Bean talks about coming out in pro sport after launch of Play the Game

From WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio:

Earlier this month, the National Hockey League released a public service announcement in support of LGBT rights. It aired during the equivalent of hockey's prime-time -- a New York Rangers/Boston Bruins game -- and was one of several that will feature over 30 NHL athletes as part of a campaign called "You Can Play." The project was founded by Patrick Burke, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, whose late brother Brendan Burke was the manager of a college hockey team, gay and out.

"The messages are very simple, yet meaningful," said Patrick Burke. "It's variations of the idea that all they care about is winning, all they care about is having the best teammates and it doesn't matter if the best teammate happens to be gay or straight."

But many feel the sport -- and sports in general -- have a long way to go in accepting gay athletes. Female athletes have had an easier time dealing with the stigma attached to being gay, says former #1 Grand Slam Tennis Champion Rennae Stubbs (now a commentator for ESPN), who will join us on Eight Forty-Eight today to talk about her experience.

For some, there's also added pressure from the gay community, who want sports stars to come out, but who may not understand the environment thoroughly. That's a sentiment expressed by former major league baseball player Billy Bean, in his book Going the Other Way: Lessons from a Life In and Out of Major League Baseball. Bean came out after retiring.

Stubbs and Bean will be joined by Bob Cook, a sports blogger for Forbes magazine, who help shed some light on the subject. To give you a peak at his thoughts: "I won’t spoil the whole segment, but the answer has to do, I think, with what players hear from day one in youth sports."

http://feeds.feedburner.com/848podcast

Hockey's new battle against homophobia

The Atlantic reviews that status of homophobia and the fight against homophobia in ice hockey, including the actions of people like Sean Avery, Patrick and Brian Burke, and Jeff Kagan: 
When Adam Knoerzer and his partner were in Los Angeles to see the Pittsburgh Penguins play the L.A. Kings, last November, they found themselves sandwiched between two, seemingly incongruous parts of hockey culture. To their left was a lesbian couple, supporting the Kings. To their right was a father-and-son duo cheering for Knoerzer's Penguins, all the while talking about "what a fag the PA announcer was," Knoerzer recalls. For Knoerzer, a self-described beer-drinking, TV-screaming, show tune-hating, hockey guy who came out a decade ago, it remains a jarring, telling experience.

"It was so bizarre being in between lesbians on my left and a father and son on the right, who are unabashedly trashing this guy because they think he's a gay and a queen," Knoerzer, 27, says. "When the Penguins scored, [the father] would give us high fives. I kept thinking, 'Would you give us a high five if I told you that this is the man I love?'"

This experience highlights the tensions that still exist among hockey fans when it comes to homosexuality. It has been a little more than a year since Sean Avery, the lightning-rod of an NHL player and gay marriage advocate, spoke out in support of gay teammates in hockey. Avery's endorsement was just one of several recent milestones in the discussion concerning the sometimes complicated relationship between players, coaches, and fans of hockey and the gay community.

"We've created an atmosphere where players can come out in support of LGBT issues," says Brian Silva, interim executive director of Marriage Equality New York. "But we're still not at the point where anyone from the LGBT community feels comfortable playing."

Keep reading HERE.

LA Blades gay hockey club says "You Can Play"

The Los Angeles Blades gay ice hockey club have made this "You Can Play" video.


Visit the You Can Play website HERE.

Patrick Burke interview on You Can Play and more

An interview in The Hockey News with Patrick Burke on You Can Play and the coming out NHL player:

For less than a year, Philadelphia Flyers scout Patrick Burke, son of Leafs GM Brian Burke and brother of the late Brendan Burke, has been working with professional hockey players on the You Can Play Project, founded in Brendan’s memory and tasked to ensure equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation. Yet he’s already convinced the hockey world will have its first openly gay professional player in the very near future.

“Within the next two years, I predict we’ll have an openly gay National Hockey League player,” Patrick Burke said. “That is my personal belief and numerous people, including people within the charity, disagree with me completely. It’s my opinion only, but I think I’m right.

Keep reading HERE.

Playing ice hockey in two leagues, in and out of the closet

In Xtra, a gay ice hockey player tells his story of being closeted in his mainstream league and discovering gay hockey:

I play on two hockey teams. Members on one team know I’m gay. Members on the other do not.

The players on the straight team are of high calibre. I count some of them amongst my closest friends. None has ever given me the impression they would reject me if they found out I am gay. And yet I cannot be sure of that unless I tell them.

Before and after each of our games, I sit in the locker room listening to their stories — stories of partners and children and women they are dating. I don’t contribute to these stories. I don’t feel secure doing so.

As I have felt a distance growing between these teammates and myself, I thought it might be easier to walk away from them, and the team entirely, rather than risk rejection.

But I love hockey. So before giving it up for good, last fall I decided to check out Ottawa’s gay hockey club to see if it could replace what I felt was missing on the straight team. This wasn’t an easy step.

Even as a gay man I had reservations about walking into a gay locker room. I felt anxiety, perhaps even fear, of what I would find on the other side of the door. I asked a friend whether that trepidation was rooted in homophobia. He countered, suggesting I hadn’t been fearful of homosexuals, rather I had been fearful of a possible truth: that what I thought could happen in a gay locker room actually did and that the negative stigma toward homosexuals in sport was well-founded and would thus be directed at me. Guilty by association.

So let me tell you what I found on the other side of that locker-room door. There were no Speedos or pink boas. Nor were there towels being slapped at exposed body parts. Instead there was just a group of guys lacing skates, taping hockey sticks and telling stories. Fun stories and serious stories — of partners, children and men they were dating. The same stuff straight locker rooms are made of. Game on.

Keep reading HERE.

Impact of You Can Play

"You Can Play" is a new campaign to fight homophobia in hockey. It's an initiative welcomed by players such as Dave Bossmin (you will recall his editorial we reported on HERE) of the Ottawa-Gatineau Gay Hockey Association. A CJTV News feature interview for Centretown News by Jason Chen, Nic Pollock and Robert Snow.

Sportscasters say "You Can Play"

The Sports Network's James Duthie, Darren Dreger, Pierre LeBrun and Bob McKenzie express their support for You Can Play. TSN's broadcasaters also promise to cover LGBT athletes fairly and honestly, and not to treat sexual orientation as a story in and of itself.

Keph Senett on campaigns against homophobia in sport

In Xtra.ca, Keph Senett asks if campaigns are having an impact on homophobia in sport in Canada and beyond:

While more professional athletes have come out of the closet in the past year than in the past decade, an expert on homophobia in professional sports says it is still the last great bastion of institutionalized homophobia.

In 2011, dozens of athletes publicly came out across a spectrum of disciplines, ranging from swimming to cycling to soccer. Momentum gathered as several high-profile organizational figures — such as Phoenix Suns president Rick Welts and ESPN radio host Jared Max — followed suit, and straight allies like wrestler Hudson Taylor, of the Athlete Ally foundation, and rugby player Ben Cohen, who founded the StandUp Foundation, helped put the anti-homophobia message on the international agenda.

The same year, Major League Baseball got involved at the franchise level when the San Francisco Giants participated in Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project, and by the end of the season a total of eight MLB teams had produced videos for the campaign.

Former basketballer Charles Barkley was vocal in his ondemnation of homophobia in sports, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network ran its Think B4 You Speak campaign on television during a National Basketball Association game in May.

Gains were made even in the world of soccer, which has been heavily criticized for its lack of organizational support for an anti-homophobia strategy. In 2011, the United Kingdom’s The Justin Campaign, which advocates against homophobia in the sport, secured official endorsements from both The Football Association and the Union of European Football Associations.

Indeed, if a spectator dropped in for the 2011 sports season only, it seems likely that he or she might conclude that homophobia in sport is an antiquated issue, a throwback to a different, less enlightened time.

But according to Caroline Fusco, an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, professional sport remains a stronghold of homophobic attitudes.

“Sport as a space has been one that has really been there for the production of a certain kind of hyper-masculinity. Particularly when you think of pro sports, the big ones: hockey, football, baseball. These all tie in to the rugged notion of masculinity, and these attitudes remain — that gay men aren’t masculine,” she says.

Strategies like Brian and Patrick Burke’s You Can Play campaign, which is aimed at the National Hockey League, are trying to change that. Advocates go after the highest-profile names they can secure to create messaging that challenges that notion.

It’s an effective method. The events of 2011 seem to suggest a sea change in the sporting culture. But is the endorsement or coming out of a collection of high-profile sports figures a reasonable measure of the state of homophobia in sport? Is it the best way to tackle homophobia?

Marc Naimark, vice-president of external affairs for the Federation of Gay Games (FGG), seems to think not. “The Federation of Gay Games [has] continued to offer opportunities for LGBT athletes to be active in sport in a safe environment while engaging straight athletes in clubs or at sports competitions,” he says. “When we consider sheer numbers, that is far more significant than the elusive out pro athlete.”

Keep reading HERE.

Equality Forum announces National Sports Panel

Equality Forum has announced the composition of its National Sports Panel. 

National Sports Panel

Saturday, May 5, 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.

Doubletree by Hilton Hotel
237 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA
MAP

FREE

This panel explores the challenges facing openly LGBT athletes in college, amateur, and professional sports.

		Brian Kitts (Moderator)  Board Member GForce Sports
		Brian Kitts is a Managing Partner of the You Can Play Project and a Board Member of GForce Sports, two organizations promoting equality for LGBT athletes. He  teaches sports management at the University of Denver.
		Patrick Burke (Panelist)  Cofounder You Can Play Project
		Patrick Burke is a Cofounder of the You Can Play Project, which promotes respect for LGBT athletes in sports. A scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, Burke is a dedicated straight ally in the fight for equality.
		Nevin Caple (Panelist)  Founder Br{ache the Silence Campaign
		Nevin Caple is a former college basketball player and Founder of the Br{ache the Silence Campaign, created to advance LGBT inclusion in intercollegiate athletics and stop high school bullying.
		Jason Magnes (Panelist)  Chair Penn Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia (PATH)
		Jason Magnes is a junior at University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Penn Tennis Team. One of two out male varsity athletes at Penn, he is the leader of the student group PATH.
		Lee-J Mirasolo (Panelist)  Assistant Coach Princeton University
		Lee-J Mirasolo is an Assistant Coach for the women’s ice hockey team at Princeton University. An out player in high school and college, Mirasolo is an advocate for athlete openness in all sports.
		Brandon Stoneham (Panelist)  Soccer Player Adelphi University
		Brandon Stoneham is an openly gay Division 1 soccer player at Adelphi University. By telling his coach and team that he’s gay, Stoneham joins a growing number of student athletes who are, in his words, “redefining normal.”

Tommy Wingels makes "You Can Play" video

John Amaechi on CNN on role as Special Olympics Ambassador

In this CNN Sport interview on breaking stereotypes in sport and promoting respect and inclusion, Special Olympics Ambassador and former NBA star John Amaechi, says: "As a person who played professional sport for a lot of my life, I saw sport through jaded eyes, I saw it as a job, something that was incredibly painful frankly to be involved in physically, and then I get to be involved in Special Olympics and you suddenly see sports as it should be".

First "You Can Play" video with Bruins and Sabres captains

Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara and Buffalo Sabres captain Jason Pominville speak up for the You Can Play Project, promoting respect for all athletes. Filmed during the 2012 NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa.

Slovakian Chara is the tallest NHL player ever, at 6'9", speaks seven languages and has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. Pominville is a native of Repentigny, Quebec and has dual American-Canadian citizenship, and is a Lady Byng Memorial Trophy nominee (most gentlemanly player).