Daily Cupcakes - March 5th, 2012

Brian Burke and his son Patrick Burke are trying to raise awareness for the LGBT community in hockey, trying to get slurs out of the NHL. Andi will have a piece on this later today. But, for now, I'll simply provide you with some of Patrick's words.

In its mission statement, the "You Can Play" project says it aims to ensure "equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation."

That ideal comes directly from conversations Patrick Burke had with his late brother.

"When Brendan came out it didn’t change anything between me and him," said Patrick. "It turned into a great moment for us, a great bonding moment for our family because when something like that happens when you’re not expecting it, you have to evaluate: ‘What do I look for in a brother? What do I look for in a friend?’

"We had a very open relationship where I asked him a lot of questions because I didn’t know anything. . . . And hearing some of the stories that young LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) athletes face really touched me and made me want to do something in Brendan’s honour to help those kids."

And another fantastic article about Patrick in the National Post. There is some language that may offend.

So in the last 19 months he immersed himself, from books to psychology journals to religious textbooks to current events. He can summon the results of studies on NCAA athletes who came out (since 2006, backlash appears to have virtually disappeared). He can cite the American statistics on gay bullying, where 66% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) high school students feel physically unsafe in their own school, and the most common place for gay bullying to occur is a locker room. He knows all about gay suicide rates. He knows about Jamie Hubley.

And being a good Catholic boy, he can cite chapter and verse; ask him about Leviticus and Romans sometime. When Halton region Catholic schools banned gay-straight alliances earlier this year, he sent them a letter with a link to the Catechism, which among other things states homosexuals should be treated with respect and dignity. The school board didn’t get back to him.

The Flyers, meanwhile, have approved all his speaking engagements, which are focused on the GForce Sports Invisible Athlete Forums, a talk given to various schools about coming out organized by an all-gay hockey team based in Denver.

As was mentioned in one of the threads yesterday, by amit916, there was a goalie in the OHL that allowed 13 goals. The incredible part? He got awarded the First Star of the game.

It was a game Connor Crisp will never forget.

After allowing 13 goals on 46 shots for the Erie Otters on Sunday, he was named the first star.

The 17-year-old centre — who hadn’t played at all this season, following shoulder surgery — was never supposed to play net. But he got pressed into action as an emergency replacement when starting goalie Ramis Sadikov was injured in the opening minutes of a 13-4 victory by the Niagara IceDogs.

"Well, I’m a road hockey goalie, ball hockey goalie, but that’s the first time I’ve put on goalie equipment and played on ice since I was 5 years old," said Crisp.

CBC has an interesting story, Tomas Vokoun 's agent recently came out and defended him, but does it do more harm than good?

I am sure if you put a group of NHL agents in a room there would be much debate on whether or not they should publically come out and defend a client.

It usually means calling out a coach or an organization with the hope of getting more ice time or a change in the role of a player. One thing for sure is that it takes the player off the hook. When members of the media come calling after a "calling out," the player can say "it was my agent."

Don Cherry is causing some issues again. He's also, apparently gotten onto Twitter! I don't want to quote Cherry, so I'll quote one of the writer's comments.

It’s complete nonsense, and it works.