The queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry is taking over North America, airing on Crave Canada and HBO Max, but how similar is the real-life NHL to this popular show?
While there has been significant progress made by out athletes in many North American sports, as Outsports recently pointed out, the National Hockey League is still the final of the four major North American men's sports leagues with no current or former players who have come out.
Heated Rivalry follows professional hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), who play for different teams in a fictional version of the NHL. As the two superstars face off on the ice and build their rivalry, they also start a secret romance. As Hollander and Rozanov's relationship gets deeper, the two men must face the pressures of masculinity, toughness, and being in a pro sports league where gay players stay closeted.
Similarly, the real-life NHL has a culture that has never produced an out gay player, even one who came out after they retired.
Jason Collins made sports history when he came out as gay in 2013, becoming the first NBA player and first active athlete in one of North America's four major men's sports leagues to come out publicly.
There have been over 30 college and pro football players who have come out as gay, including former NFL players Dave Kopay, Jerry Smith, Ray Simmons, Wade Davis, and Ryan O'Callaghan, who all came out after retiring. In 2021, Raiders player Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out.
Major League Baseball has had several players come out after retiring, and several whose sexuality was widely known by their peers when they were playing. Los Angeles Dodgers star Glenn Burke, often credited with inventing the high five, was out to his teammates and coaches while playing and came out publicly in 1982.
Billy Bean, who played pro baseball in the 80s and 90s, publicly came out as gay in 1999, and in 2014 was named MLB's first ambassador for inclusion.
In 2022, former MLB player TJ House came out as gay, making him the third pro baseball player to do so.
While the NHL still has no out gay players, active or retired, there is hope. The Professional Women's Hockey League has 30 out queer players playing this year.
There is also an NHL prospect, Luke Prokop, who is out as gay. He was drafted 73rd overall in the 2020 NHL draft by the Nashville Predators, and in 2021, he came out as gay. Since being drafted, he's played in several minor leagues, and currently plays for the Bakersfield Condors, an affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers, of the AHL. If the 23-year-old makes the NHL, he will be its first out player.
Other NHL veterans say that while there have been no out players, it's very unlikely that no gay players have ever been in the league.
Former NHL star Sean Avery told Rolling Stone that while he doesn't "know firsthand of any gay players past or present," he does "think I must have had a gay closeted teammate at some point in my career."
"Heated Rivalry’s success should open the door for the first gay NHL player, if there is one," he says.
