Philadelphia Flyers scout Patrick Burke, son of Leafs GM Brian Burke and brother of the late Brendan Burke, predicts that the National Hockey League will have its first openly gay hockey player within the next two years.
The forecast comes in wake of Burke’s contributions to the “You Can Play” project, founded in Brendan’s memory with an aim to ensure equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation according to reports at Yahoo! Sports.
“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.
“I think our athletes have made it clear they support their teammates. I think management has made it clear through their support of You Can Play. I think fans have made it clear. I think the commissioner has made it clear. I think the league office has made it clear. Everyone knows now the NHL is on board. I believe players will take a little while and make sure we’re not going anywhere, that YCP and the Burke family are here to stay, and within the next couple years they’ll know that this is a league in which they can come out and still play.”
The late Burke was a pioneer for gay advocacy in sports and the first semi-professional hockey player to ever come out as gay. He was tragically killed in a car crash on Feb. 5, 2010.
According to the news source, Patrick Burke says his work on the “You Can Play” project won’t be done until “no single person, player or attitude that defines the sport.”
“People say we don’t need to talk about this or bring light to the issue – basically, ‘who cares?’ And in a sense, we agree. We don’t care. Our policy is, if a player on the Flyers came out tomorrow and I could improve our team by cutting him, I’d cut him immediately. So we don’t care in that regard. But when you look at the culture that exists, it needs changing.”
