NHL Unveils Campaign To End Homophobia With PSA Series You Can Play; Effort Championed By Brendan Burke’s Family

Hockey is joining the drive to end homophobia in sports with a public-service message featuring eight N.H.L. players, including Henrik Lundqvist of the Rangers, Corey Perry of the Anaheim Ducks and Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators. According to The New York Times, You Can Play, the campaign the players will introduce, is another in a series of efforts by hockey’s Burke family to open doors for gay athletes to participate in sports. It is intended to “make locker rooms safe for all athletes, rather than places of fear, slurs and bullying,” said Patrick Burke, a scout with the Philadelphia Flyers and a founder of the project. The message will be shown for the first time during the first intermission of NBC’s Sunday afternoon telecast of the Bruins-Rangers game. Thirty-five NHL players, including award winners and All-Stars, have committed to take part in the project, Burke said. The You Can Play Web site is scheduled to go online Sunday. Several Major League Baseball teams made similar announcements last season, as did NBA players after a series of incidents in which fellow NBA players used antigay slurs. Burke’s younger brother, Brendan, acknowledged he was gay while serving as the manager of the Miami (Ohio) University hockey team. Their father, Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke, marched in Toronto’s gay pride parade with Brendan, and again after Brendan died in a 2010 car accident. “The hockey community rallied behind Brendan because he loved the game,” Patrick Burke said. “The NHL players stepping forward to support You Can Play know that creating a homophobia-free environment will make their teams, and the sport, better.” Tommy Wingels of the San Jose Sharks is involved with You Can Play. “I’m just trying to continue Brendan’s dream,” said Wingels, who played for Miami when Brendan was the team manager. “To have the courage to do what he did was pretty remarkable.” Patrick Burke said that the project was a combined effort by gay and straight athletes and fans, but that the message was mainly aimed at straight audiences. “It is important for straight athletes at all levels to step up and let gay athletes know they will be accepted,” he said, “and to let other straight athletes know that homophobic language and attitude is never appropriate.” No current NHL player has said he is gay, but others beyond the Burkes have expressed support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes. Last year, the Rangers’ Sean Avery lobbied New York State legislators to pass a marriage equality bill. In 2010, the Blackhawks’ Brent Sopel took the Stanley Cup to the Chicago Pride Parade. In a 2006 Sports Illustrated survey, almost 80-percent of NHL players said they would support a gay teammate. “Hopefully, in large part due to my brother and what he started, I think our league is much more accepting and on board with the whole gay-rights issue,” Patrick Burke said. “It may be in part because we’re more international than other leagues, but for whatever reason, our guys are great about this.” Last September, the Philadelphia Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds was accused of directing a homophobic slur at Avery in a preseason game; Simmonds denied it and the league had no conclusive evidence. The You Can Play project seeks to end such incidents. “We call it casual homophobia,” Patrick Burke said. “It’s very rare in the N.H.L. where you have someone who is actually homophobic or bullying someone, but you have guys using homophobic slurs and slang, not trying to mean it in that way. But in general, our players are very supportive.” You Can Play’s advisory panel has representatives from the NFL, the NBA, Major League Soccer and women’s sports, Burke said. The project plans to produce a playbook for coaches, players, members of the news media and administrators at all age levels to create a nonthreatening environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender athletes. But the initiative starts with the NHL “That’s what our family knows best and where our friends are to start,” Burke said.