re the post happy pride to the nhl player who was thinking about coming out: is there a story there or is it just a hypothetical? sorry im new here 💀
yeah so there's a few main sources for this:
in 2015 patrick burke said that the organization (you can play) "has spoken with gay players in the National Hockey League, gay staff members, gay media members."
the legacy of brendan burke documentary mark tewksbury says he spoke/has spoken with many gay hockey players and that the teams know they're gay and it's just all kept under the rader. he goes on to state that they "were there" and the next day it was going to happen and that a "high profile" player was going to come out and then backed out the afternoon before the press conference. [direct link]. i would highly recommend watching the whole documentary (it came out in 2010).
more recently tom harrington (cbc sports reporter) says he worked with a go-between with a gay player and was working on building trust towards an eventual interview and interaction with that player (he said 25 years ago so probably 2001?-before the tewksbury story) but then the player changed their mind before it went any further or ever identified himself privately to harrington. i would assume this was a different player than the one tewksbury spoke with but would not want to speculate any further than that.
so yeah like gay players exist and have thought about coming out before,,, its not just a hypothetical