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It was nearing four in the morning when the New York Admirals won the Stanley Cup. In a living room in Zurich, seventeen year old Luca Haas was barely keeping his eyes open on his teammate’s couch.
His team had gotten together to watch the game, desperate to see if Hunter could do it. The table was piled high with snacks and half eaten pizza’s, empty bottles of beer and cans of soda alike.
Nine gangly teenagers were piled on a couch and scattered under blankets on the floor. Thomas was asleep in the corner of the couch, the hood of his LA hoodie pulled over his eyes. Dom and Matteo were dancing around the coffee table, quiet after their initial cheers were hushed by Florian on account of his parents being asleep right upstairs. Pascal was texting his New York girlfriend in all caps, while Sven and Mo were already watching replays of the game winning goal on Sven’s phone. Luca sat on the couch, laughing at his teammates’ antics, when Nathan suddenly punched his shoulder and sat up straight.
“Holy shit- are you guys seeing this?”
Seven pairs of eyes turned to the television, where Scott Hunter stood on the ice with his arms around a man in a denim jacket. He was saying something too quietly for the camera to pick up, but their heads were close together and then-
“Woah-“
“What the fuck?”
“He’s gay?”
Someone laughed.
The man in the denim jacket glanced nervously at the camera. Scott Hunter grinned like he’d won two trophies that night, and pulled him right back in for a kiss.
“Ah, gross- Cut away!”
“I can’t believe Hunter’s fucking gay- the hell?”
“Is that even allowed?”
Luca just stared at the screen, where the camera was finally cutting away to two baffled looking commentators in a studio. It was as if his brain had shut off the moment he’d looked up and saw Scott Hunter holding onto the man in denim’s shoulder as if he were a lifeline. His heart was in his throat as the room around him dissolved into chaos. He vaguely registered the conversation around him slowly dissolving into chaos. Someone- Sven, maybe- suggested it was kind of hot when the tv replayed the kiss again, and someone threw a pillow at him, knocking over a beer bottle onto the rug below.
Luca registered none of it, barely heard the comments and chirps bordering on accusations now being levelled at Sven for thinking two men kissing was hot, didn’t register Florian panicking over the beer seeping into his parents’ rug.
Luca was focused on the television, his mind racing as the idea of Scott Hunter being gay settled somewhere inside his chest like a hot chocolate drank too fast on a freezing day. Burning, slightly nauseating, but comforting at the same time.
“Shit,” he whispered, mostly to himself. He was leaning forward, watching the reporters recap the game with obvious awkwardness.
“You good?” Nathan asked quietly, leaning in slightly while the rest of the boys were occupied with each other. Nathan was the only one who knew about Luca, the only person other than his mother who he’d told that he was gay. He’d done it over a Big Mac after his boyfriend of six months had broken up with him and Nathan had found him crying like a baby in the locker room of the hockey rink.
Luca glanced aside at his linemate, and gave a small nod. Nathan grinned, and put an arm around him to pull him in under the guise of roughhousing.
“This is fucking major, man,” he said, loud enough for only Luca to hear, “Is it weird if I say congrats?”
Luca laughed at that and tried to shove Nathan off.
“Fuck off,” he just said, because that was an acceptable response, but Nathan understood. He ruffled his hair, and sat back onto the couch as the tv went to commercials.
In the corner of the couch, Thomas snored away. The light in the hallway turned on, and a disgruntled man opened the door to the living room. Fifteen minutes later, the television was turned off, and Luca was lying on a mattress on the floor, a stream pulled up on his phone. Eight other boys were scattered around the living room, either asleep or on their own phone.
On the tiny screen, he watched Scott Hunter talk to reporters. He was grinning like a mad man, and he kept glancing to the side as if distracted.
“I was just celebrating a little with my boyfriend,” Hunter said.
“Gay? Yes, I’m gay,” he followed up, like it was no big deal, as if he wasn’t the first active player in the MLH to come out publicly. Luca caught himself exhaling deeply as Scott Hunter declared his love for the man in denim with a dopy smile.
A WhatsApp notification popped up on his phone.
Nathan
I’m glad you won’t be alone when you make it there.
Luca rolled over, trying to find Nathan in the darkness. The other boy was on the other side of the room, looking up from his phone at Luca and giving a thumbs up.
Luca
lol I haven’t made it to the MLH yet nor will I ever meet hunter let’s be real
Nathan
You will bro, we all know this. But idk this is fucking major. I think Hunter might have changed shit for players like you.
Luca
yeah, maybe.
Nathan
I got your back dude, always
Nathan’s screen switched off, and he rolled around in his sleeping bag.
Luca pulled the interview back up, rewinding and watching Scott Hunter proudly talk about his boyfriend again, and again. Nathan’s message nagged in the back of his mind. Luca knew he was good. He played for the Swiss national junior team, and had won a medal at the last World Championship with them. He knew there were scouts muttering his name, that there was a chance, a real chance, of him going pro at the highest level in North America.
Luca also had known he was gay since he was thirteen years old and saw his friend kiss a girl behind the clubhouse of the local football club next to his sekundarschule and felt a seething jealousy towards the girl. That he was very gay was only confirmed when a year later, he was the one kissing a boy against that same clubhouse wall. Luca had, until now, also firmly believed that those two things were not compatible. He’d been called schwuchtel, faggot, homo, a girl for liking art class at school, for having too soft hands, for skating too close to someone, for hitting the puck not hard enough and for hitting it too hard. He doubted things were better in the MLH, no matter how many Pride night games Luca secretly watched at four in the morning.
And yet, Scott Hunter had just kissed his boyfriend at centre ice after winning a Cup.
It was five when he pulled up Instagram, and searched for Hunter’s account. He pressed the “message” button with shaking fingers. It was five thirty in the morning, a blackbird whistling outside, when he pressed send on a message he was sure Scott Hunter would never read, anyway.
Luca Haas @lucahaas_
Hi mr. Hunter. My name is Luca Haas and I play hockey in Switzerland. I’m seventeen years old and I am also gay, I’m pretty sure. My teammates and I just watched you win the cup (congratulations! You played really well!). I really hope to play in the MLH one day, and I think it was really brave that you kissed your boyfriend. Maybe one day I can also kiss my boyfriend and play in the MLH, that would be really nice. Not that I have a boyfriend now, but that’s not important. My friend and teammate Nathan said that maybe you changed things, and I think he is right. So if I ever get to play in the MLH, it is nice to know that maybe I can be myself. I just wanted to tell you thank you, even though you’ll probably never see this. So, thank you, for doing this.
In New York, the next morning, Scott Hunter sat on the couch, scrolling through his inbox. Kip was curled up against his bare chest, lazily playing some kind of game on his own phone.
“There’s so many messages,” Scott said absentmindedly, and Kip glanced up at him.
“Good or bad?” he asked, putting his phone down and scooting up so he could look at Scott’s screen.
Scott hummed non-committedly, randomly opening a message from a Pittsburgh player asking to meet up after a game next season.
“Both, I think,” he said, “There’s uh- there’s players. League players. From other sports too.”
“Oh?” Kip asked, tapping another message and closing it immediately when it was from a very angry ‘fan’.
“Yeah, uh, some sent pictures. Not that I looked,” Scott quickly added, just handing his phone to Kip and letting him scroll while he busied himself with pressing soft kisses to his boyfriend’s hair. Kip snorted, leaning into his touch.
“It’s fine, I know you’re mine,” he said, so easily it made Scott’s heart do a flip and squeeze itself together all at once. He couldn’t believe he’d almost let all of this slip between his fingers. He could barely believe he actually got to have all this.
“This one is sweet,” he said, pulling up a longer message and holding it up for Scott to read. It came from a kid in Switzerland named Luca, a nervous jumble of words and compliments. The message was very sweet, and for some reason it made Scott’s eyes burn.
“Oh- hey, baby.” Kip noticed, because of course Kip- his wonderful, kind, smart, perfect Kip- noticed everything.
“I didn’t do it for this,” Scott admitted, voice small, “I kissed you for us, cause I wanted to. But…”
“But it’s not just for us,” Kip finished, pressing their foreheads together. Scott pressed his lips together, and nodded. He truly hadn’t thought about it, when he kissed Kip- sure, he was the first, but he hadn’t realised that would also make him some sort of icon. An example for young gay hockey players all over the world, and that maybe scared Scott more than knowing there were probably paparazzi hiding outside of his apartment building right now.
Kip kissed him, and Scott dropped his phone to the couch.
It was five in the evening in Zurich when Luca rolled over in his own bed reaching blindly for his phone to check the time. He was exhausted; he hadn’t slept more than three hours before Florian’s parents had gently kicked them all out of the house. His sister was playing a videogame in the room next to him, and he could hear his father talk to someone in their yard. A dog barked in the distance, and Luca’s phone chimed with a notification.
He almost dropped his phone on the floor when he saw what it was.
Scott Hunter
@ScottHunterHockey
Thank you. Keep playing hard, and I’m sure we’ll see each other on the ice someday.
Luca did not scream. Maybe he yelped, a little bit, loud enough for his sister to pause her game and yell if he was alright, but he did not scream.
It was ten fifteen at night in Ottawa, three years later, when Scott Hunter put an arm around Luca Haas on the ice. A few feet away from them, Ilya Rozanov was holding Matti Jalo by the front of his jersey, trying to get a fist in his face. Luca stood frozen, clinging to his stick like it was an anchor.
“Good to see you in the MLH, Haas,” Hunter said, and Luca could feel his face flush red. He glanced up, eyes wide, and Scott Hunter was looking at him. He grimaced when Jalo managed to knock Ilya’s helmet off, and Luca forced himself to stop staring at Hunter and watch the fight evolve instead. “I uh, I’m glad you made it.”
Luca was pretty sure he was gaping like a fish, and quickly closed his mouth. He should probably say something.
“Thank you, mr. Hunter, sir,” was what came out, and Hunter jostled him a little.
“Christ, you’re making me feel old,” he said with a laugh, as the refs finally managed to separate Ilya and Jalo. They were being led to their respective penalty boxes, still yelling profanities at each other. Hunter let go of Luca, but didn’t skate away immediately.
“I’ll find you after the game, give you my number,” he said, eyes widening when he saw Luca’s dumbfounded expression at the implication, “Jesus- no, fuck, not like that. You’re way too young- just, we gotta stick together, you know.” He gestured vaguely, but Luca knew what he meant. So he just nodded, and shook off his glove. A linesman was immediately at his side, startling Luca a little, but he held out his hand to Hunter. Hunter looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but then took his own glove off and shook his hand with a shake of his head.
“Enjoy the rest of the game, Haas,” Hunter said as he put his glove back on, and skated back to the bench. Luca stood there for a second, staring at Hunter’s retreating back, before Zane Boodram clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“Thought Roz was the only one who got you starstruck like that, rook,” Bood joked, and Luca groaned. They were never going to let him live that one down. “Come on, we have a game to play.”
Thirty minutes later, the Centaurs lost the game, and Luca was sitting in his stall, looking at that Instagram message from years ago. He thought back to the scared teenager in his teammate’s living room at five in the morning, and wondered what that Luca would think if he could see him now.
That Luca would be pretty proud of him, Luca thought as he closed the Instagram app to open a message from William. It contained a long string of red heart emojis, and Luca couldn’t help but grin down at the promise of a consolation prize later that week. He sent four kissy face emojis in reply, and his heart lurched when William immediately read the message. Yeah, he thought, looking up from his phone when Holmberg smacked him with his towel. That Luca would be very proud of him indeed.