Brock McGillis understands the rigors that come with dedicating yourself day after day to a singular goal. A decade of playing hockey at the collegiate and pro level in both North America and Europe has a way of drilling that sense of commitment and drive straight into one’s soul.
It makes sense then that the retired goaltender channeled those tenets into a cause at the foundation of the sport he loves. Combatting homophobia within the culture of hockey has been McGillis’ main mission since coming out in 2016, and the last calendar year saw his most ambitious effort yet in that initiative.
As the 2023-24 NHL season got underway last November, McGillis kicked off his “Culture Shift Tour,” a 100-day tour across Canada during which he spoke with 120 youth hockey teams in every city housing a National Hockey League franchise.
How about we take this to the next level?
Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The tour’s main focus was to target the hypermasculine cultural touchstones within the sport that helped breed the kind of historic homophobia that McGillis himself experienced during his playing career as a closeted gay man in hopes that those foundations could be reshaped in upcoming generations of hockey players.
“Whether LGBTQ+ or just a kid that doesn’t fit in, if you can’t adhere to the norms, you’re othered in this sport in particular,” McGillis told Outsports last year. “I think the language and behaviors — especially at younger ages — lead people to feel like they won’t be welcomed. That said, I would say that 98% of the players would be incredibly supportive or welcoming to a queer teammate and would be open and willing to evolve language and behaviors as they go.”
The significance of such a tour took on added resonance due to its timing alongside the NHL’s controversial decisions regarding Pride jerseys and Pride tape on hockey sticks ahead of the 2023-24 season.
McGillis is keenly positioned to tackle the issue of homophobia in the sport for which he holds such deep affection. The “Culture Shift Tour” marks his largest singular effort to combat hateful rhetoric and feelings within hockey, but it comes after nearly a decade of LGBTQ advocacy on his part.
During that time McGillis has worked with multiple NHL teams, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres and Chicago Blackhawks, leading workshops addressing homophobia for team personnel. The organization he helped launch in 2022, the Alphabet Sports Collective, created a distinctively queer space within the sport for LGBTQ players to find support and community when the greater culture of hockey fails to do so.
Through his work, McGillis found several ways to utilize his own story to push hockey forward, continuing a long tradition in queer populations of turning moments of detrimental impact into tools of change. For evidence of this transformative practice, one only needs to hear about the litany of messages he receives from queer players, parents and others around the sport sharing how his talks and presence have impacted them.
“This woman wrote to me saying that her son’s best friend had seen me speak during one of these talks,” McGills told The Athletic. “And this boy told her that I changed the way he saw the world. And I changed his life.”
Correspondences like that exhibit the true power of McGillis’ commitment to his mission. Even if the laborious task boils down to changing one mind at a time through his work, it represents progress in an environment that he knows can be better.
“It’s about becoming that shift-maker and creating these environments where people feel comfortable to be themselves,” he said. “So many adults have come up to me and said they quit hockey growing up because of the culture. For queer kids and other marginalized groups, that locker room can be a reminder of all the oppression you experience.”
McGillis expressed his desire to hold another tour during the 2024-25 NHL season, adding 100 talks in U.S. cities to the docket. It’s a daunting task, but McGillis has proven over time that the size of the challenge doesn’t give him qualms. The man who once made his mark by saving goals now welcomes the call to save the passions of LGBTQ hockey players from extinguishing and the sport he dedicated his younger years to from its cultural pitfalls.
