Ron MacLean apologizes for puzzling on-air remark that one LGBTQ advocate sees as ‘teachable’ moment for hockey – Toronto Star

Sportscaster Ron MacLean has apologized after hockey fans were thrown for a loop over a comment made Tuesday night that some interpreted as homophobic.

“I regret and apologize for what happened last night,” MacLean, host of “Hockey Night in Canada,” wrote in a statement posted on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

During an intermission segment of the Sportsnet broadcast of Tuesday night’s Toronto Maple Leafs-Montreal Canadiens playoff game, analyst Kevin Bieksa was chiming in remotely and had a shelf of photos behind him, one of which featured a man drinking rum without a shirt.

MacLean quipped, “You have a photo of a guy with his tarp off, you’re definitely positive for something.”

Viewers on Twitter were puzzled by the comment, some wondering if it was a joke about an athlete failing a drug test, a comment on HIV status within the LGBTQ community and/or simply an inappropriate joke about the gay community.

MacLean explained that he was referring to the rum, and throwing back to a comment Bieksa made earlier about being the most positive guy on the commentator panel.

But, he continued, that he still has a responsibility to viewers to get his words right:

“The idea of language of intention, of personal responsibility, I have seen those concepts used as broad exoneration. It’s not enough. We have a contract with you, the viewer, that in us you see yourself.”

MacLean said he reached out to several “guiding lights in the equity seeking arena” and appreciates “the power of the voices who spoke to me last night and this morning … It’s how change works.”

One of whom was Brock McGillis, the first openly gay professional men’s hockey player.

He tells the Star, “there’s an opportunity here for a teachable lesson.”

While this didn’t have the same malice as some people may have assumed, McGillis said, “The language in hockey has deeply rooted ties to misogyny, to heterosexism, to homophobia, and because of that people see this and that’s automatically where they’re going to go.”

McGillis has appeared on MacLean’s show in the past speaking about LGBTQ issues in hockey. He spoke with MacLean last night after the comment stirred controversy.

“I don’t think the intent was malicious. I don’t think the intent was homophobic,” the former Ontario Hockey League player said, but there was a bit of homo-negative language, which McGillis said is all too common in the sport.

McGillis recalls the slew of off-the-cuff locker room talk that affected his self-image and career.

“All those things, you know, made me feel like I couldn’t be myself, made me feel like I was bad or wrong, and made me feel like I couldn’t be gay and play the sport I love,” he said.

His professional career was ultimately cut short, and “That’s why I do what I do now in the hopes that we can shift the culture and overhaul a culture that is in desperate need of it,” he said.