A Minnesota hockey player watched 'Heated Rivalry.' Then he publicly came out

The TV drama "Heated Rivalry" has become a global sensation. It follows the story of two professional men’s hockey players who fall in love and hide their romance from the world.

For many fans, the fictional story is a huge step for LGBTQ+ representation in men’s professional sports. And it inspired Andover native Jesse Kortuem to publicly come out as gay.

MPR News host Emily Bright spoke Kortuem about growing up gay in the Minnesota hockey community and the impact the show has had on his life and the sport of hockey.

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. 

Based on your coming out Facebook post , hockey is a game you really love. But you also wrote that the hockey rink is a place you felt you had to hide. Can you say more about what in the culture made it so difficult to be fully yourself?

Any hockey player knows that it's such a brotherhood. You're growing up with these friends from such a young age, you're going to summer hockey camps, you're playing fall hockey, spring hockey, winter hockey — and when you're not at practice, you're on a rink in the winter, you're playing pond hockey. So, you really develop these beautiful friendships and this brotherhood, almost.

Part of that hockey culture is also that muted experience. It's a team mentality first, and so you don't want to stick yourself out there. You don't want to be the star. And so, for those reasons, it was also a place where I felt I had to hide who I was, especially given the times in the early 2000s not having a lot of positive role models, especially in the gay world. And yeah, it was a pretty big struggle at that point.

What did it take to find spaces in hockey where you felt like you could be yourself?

There is a series of gay hockey tournaments that takes place throughout the U.S. and Canada. I found myself entering a few of these tournaments about 2015, but never really gelled with the team until I entered a gay hockey tournament in Las Vegas in 2017.

That really was that paradigm shift that I needed to finally feel safe in the sport, where I could bring 110 percent of myself into the locker room and onto the ice. That provided me a lot of safety and a lot of joy while still playing closeted in adult leagues in Atlanta up until 2022.

What was it like to watch “Heated Rivalry” and then see it become so popular?

I think for a lot of people in the gay community, it was finally this positive representation of media. It was such a celebration of everybody: allies, women, men — coming together, watching such a beautiful love story play out on screen.

But also, having lived part of this as my life as a hockey player, it hit deep in terms of knowing the struggles and knowing the struggles of real athletes out there right now that don't get this fictional Cinderella story ending.

Tell me more about what led you to be public, and what kind of response have you gotten?

In years of struggling with my public identities, being gay, it just led me to finally writing something. [My friend Jim] encouraged me to write a super vulnerable, authentic, raw post. And so, because of him, I wrote it. I read through it with my friend Nancy before I posted it, cried and it went out there.

It's been overwhelmingly positive, in honestly the best way possible. Hearing from former teammates of mine, Blaine High School teammates, has been probably one of the best things. To hear from our goalie just saying that he wished he would have showed up better back in the day when I was playing, another teammate said, “You're a great teammate on and off the ice, and (I’m) proud of you.” And even another teammate of mine saying, “Hey, I wish you would have told me back in the day. I would have had your back.”

So, to hear the response from former teammates and have their support means the absolute world to me. Hearing other stories of kids that have been struggling, or that my story encouraged them to have that conversation with their parents; that, to me, is the greatest gift that I could have gotten out of all of this.

I wasn't expecting this level of attention at all with this, but it's been completely humbling, and the fact that my story can help others is a great feeling.

What's something you'd like to see change to make sports more inclusive of LGBTQ+ athletes?

I know there's a lot of research done in the reasons for LGBTQ athletes walking away from sport, and that really starts with creating that safe space. That means going into youth hockey organizations and talking to parents or talking to organizations about what is positive language, and how can we lift everybody up on the ice, and how they show up to practice matters. How they lead on and off the ice matters.

And if that means even reaching a hockey mom or hockey dad right now that's listening to the program. Have that conversation with your son, ask them what kind of language they are using in the locker room. Is it lifting everybody up on your team? Or is there a chance that it could be hurting others? So just be mindful of your language and how you lead. You don't know somebody’s struggles or what they're going through.

What's your advice for other LGBTQ+ athletes who maybe don't feel like they can be themselves in their sports they love?

I know it's a very personal struggle for so many people, but I would just say you will find your tribe. It will get better. Reach out to somebody — a family, friend — that might be that ally for you. Find somebody that you could confide in, just to have that one little opportunity to start that crack in your story, to come out, to maybe lift that mental burden off of yourself.

Having to edit yourself every time you walk into practice, every time you walk into a game, to make sure that nobody finds out this time that I'm gay, or I'm going to react wrong, or I'm going to speak wrong, or I'm going to reveal something about myself that might suspect somebody to think that I'm gay.

That mental toll, that mental burden it takes on a player really starts to impact their performance.

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