Danish Pro Hockey Player Jon Lee-Olsen Comes Out as Gay

While LGBTQ players in professional sports are slowly becoming more visible, coming out is still a harrowing choice for many queer athletes. But sometimes, the need to live authentically outweighs the potential cons.

That seems to be the case for Jon Lee-Olsen, a professionally hockey player from Denmark who came out on live TV last week.

“There’s a risk that some people might shout and heckle me while I’m playing matches,” he said. “It’s something I have to be ready for, and be mature about. But I feel that I’m ready to show that you can be gay and play ice hockey.”

Lee-Olsen chose last week to come out to the world, but he shared the information with his teammates back in August, via text.

“They wrote that they had great respect for the fact that I dared to say it, and that I was still just me,” he said. “I think there’s more openness among us now. Now we can talk freely about the same things from everyday life, without a filter.”

Hockey is one of the sports with the least openly LGBTQ representation on the male teams. OutSports notes that there has never been an openly gay male player in the NHL, and Lee-Olsen is the first pro player in Denmark to come out as gay and may actually be the only out male player currently competing on a professional level at all.

Whether his bravery in coming out inspires others in pro hockey to come out as well remains to be seen, but either way, Lee-Olsen seems up to the challenge his honesty may present.

“It took longer than I expected, but now I’m ready to stand up for myself and others,” he said.