17-Year-Old Elite Canadian Hockey Player Comes Out as Gay

Yanic Duplessis, a 17-Year-Old Elite Canadian hockey player, came out as gay recently. “I just want to share my story, so if someone is going through the same thing I did, I want to help, even if it’s only one person that reads this,” he said in an interview with Craig Eagles of the Out in the Open podcast.

He revealed the circumstances around coming out gay were not ideal. Out in Open reported, “Yanic Duplessis’ worst nightmare came true in late June of this year. He received a text message that changed his life. The passionate hockey loving seventeen-year-old woke up to a text message from one of his friends asking if his secret was true. All he ever wanted was to come out on his own terms, but that was stolen from him.”

“I got outed at a party,” Duplessis said.

A confidential conversation between friends spread like wild fire. Duplessis wasn’t even at the party. “I received the text message Saturday morning, asking if it was true. Let me tell you there was a lot of emotion that came through all at once when I saw that text. I called the person right away.”

“They said, I heard you’re coming out.”

“Oh my God, I said, I’m not ready.”

After the initial shock, sadness and anger which hit harder than a crushing open ice hit, Duplessis came to terms with being outed.

“Honestly I can tell you right now it’s the best thing that could have ever happened.”

“I was planning on coming out after high school and after I was finished playing hockey.”

“Looking back on it now I’m happy that it happened.”

OutSports reported, “Part of what scared him was the culture of a hockey locker room, where he was so nervous about being found out that he avoided showering with the rest of the team.”

“I’m not saying hockey players aren’t nice, because they are, but in the dressing room between the boys, and I certainly don’t want to offend anyone, but in the room people say some things to be cool or whatever,” he said.

“They would say things about being gay or something and laugh at it. I would do the same thing, because I wanted to blend in.”

Duplessis was drafted in 2019 by the Drummondville Voltigeurs in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, which counts among its alumi such NHL stars as Mario Lemieux, Guy Lafleur, Ray Bourque, Pat LaFontaine, Mike Bossy, Denis Savard, Michel Goulet, Luc Robitaille and Patrick Roy.