Hockey player Jesse Kortuem, who has played in several professional leagues but has never made it to the professional level, says watching the HBO show inspired him to come out. fierce rivalrya romance centered around a closeted gay hockey player.
on facebook postKortuem grew up in Minnesota as the youngest of four children, and while he played hockey from an early age, he recalled struggling to reconcile his love of the sport with his sexuality.
“For any hockey player, the sound of the rink and the feel of the cold air are undeniable. The slap shots, the puck hitting the boards, the skates scraping the new ice, the high-pitched sound of the puck hitting the post bring immeasurable relief,” Kortuem wrote. “But for a long time, the rink didn’t feel like a place where I could be my whole self. For too long, I felt like I had to hide parts of myself.”
Kortuem struggled with feeling different, but never felt able to open up about her sexuality due to a lack of positive representation and fear of social ostracism. At the age of 17, despite his love for the sport, he walked away from hockey citing “myriad reasons”.
Courtuem returned to hockey as an adult, playing for teams in New York and Atlanta.
“On the outside, I was still a top-tier player. On the inside, I was still a kid hiding in Minnesota,” he wrote. “Like many closeted athletes, I didn’t take that opportunity because revealing who I really am to the team would instantly change everything and their opinion of me could bring negative attention to the team as a ‘gay player.’
“I spent every week in the locker room with men I admired, but I still didn’t feel safe enough to tell them who I really was. Even when the conversation turned to wife, family, and dating, I would quickly change the subject. When the time came, I would just tell them I was single, even if I was seeing someone.”
In 2017, when Kortuem was debating whether to quit hockey altogether or remain retired while continuing to play in the straight league, he decided to sign up for hockey. sin city classican LGBTQ hockey league tournament held each January in Las Vegas, but like many gay sports leagues, it included many straight players.
Courtuem currently plays for the Cutting Edges Hockey Club, an LGBTQ hockey team in Vancouver, Canada, where he has formed friendships with gay players from teams across the region. Recently, the club hosted the Winter Classic in Sun Peaks, British Columbia, and during that event he finally reconciled his identity and realized that “there’s room on the ice for all of us.”
At the end of his post, Kortuem offered words of encouragement to athletes who are still in the closet or struggling with their emotions, saying they are not alone and that “you will get through this. You will be okay.”
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
