I f’ing love that Heated Rivalry is having its moment. I love how loudly queer joy is being celebrated. That matters. It always has.
I also want to hold space, hand in hand with that celebration, for those of us who didn't get the version you're watching.
As a closeted gay kid, hockey was my world and the place I learned how to survive. I played at a competitive level for over twelve years, sometimes for two teams at once, travelling between cities, spending hours on buses, chasing ice time. Early mornings, long road trips, missed sleep, bruised bodies, and quiet devotion.
On Christmas Eve, after everyone went to bed, I pressed play knowing it might be hard. I didn't expect it to break me.
I didn't make it through the first episode. I ended up on the floor, unable to breathe, shaking in the glow of the Christmas tree, carrying a panic attack that followed me through the night. It wasn't the show. It was how close it came to so many things I had buried. The fear, the joy, the love, the internalized homophobia.
Because once, a long time ago, I love a hockey player. A real one. A boy on his way to the big leagues. It lasted the better part of a year, but we lived in shadows, held together by tension and tenderness, desire and fear, the awkward softness of boys trying to love in a world that doesnt want them.
And then a series of events, very bad timing, cruelty, fear, and homophobia, ended it. Not gently. Not cleanly. But in the kind of heartbreak that doesn't just hurt. It rewires you.
There was no coming-out moment. No cottage. Nobody to hold me. No parent taking blame. No safety net. No soft landing. Just pain and loss.
And to this day, nobody ever knew. Not my friends. Not my teammates. Not my family. I navigated all of it - the grief, the fear, the confusion, because the closet is a profoundly lonely place. I went on writing tests, working after school and smiling, being the life of the party at family functions and house parties. Shame is efficient like that. It teaches you to disappear, to endure quietly, to survive without witnesses. Eventually, I left hockey, not because I stopped loving it, but because loving it came at the cost of being safe.
I'm sharing this because for a brief moment, I am seeing that we may have a future where boys can love boys.
These stories matter. Visibility matters. Showing that athletes can love freely at the highest level matters. But so does remembering the generations who had to choose between the game, their safety and themselves.
Ten years ago I started writing a story I never thought anyone could ever care about, but last night, I started again, 15 pages in, with steady hands and a strong heart. Not for closure. Not for comfort. But for the kid who wore #4, with KENNY stitched across his back.
The kid who made the human mistake of loving deeply and quietly. The kid who learned early how to survive in silence. Who carried isolation like armor and shame like a second skin. Who believed his story was something to hide...until now.
My hands shake as I post this, and have already considered deleting it three times. Please be kind in any comments. We are never alone. This time of year and nostalgia can be very melancholic. You have people that love you, even if you haven't met them yet. Please take care of each other and please be active in creating spaces where all athletes are safe. xo
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