Piper follows former teammate Eero Mäkinen, who came out after photos surfaced of him with his partner. Mäkinen was traded in the following months before retiring from the league.
The Aces released a statement expressing support. Piper is expected to play in tonight's home game against Utah.
The locker room was quieter than usual, but not silent. Guys were still getting dressed, taping sticks, and going through their routines. There was something underneath it, though, a carefulness that hadn't been there before.
I pulled my jersey over my head and tried to focus on the game. Utah. My old team. Half those guys had been my teammates, had seen me in the locker room every day, and none of them had known. Or maybe some of them had. Maybe they'd talked about it after I left.
"Piper." Hendricks, one of the defensemen, stopped by my stall. He was a big guy from Minnesota, quiet, and kept to himself. We'd barely spoken beyond game talk in all the time we'd been teammates.
I looked up.
"Good statement," he said.
Then he walked away.
I went back to my tape. Across the room, guys were carefully not looking at me. Some of them had probably known orsuspected. Guys talk. Guys notice things. But knowing andknowingare different.
Colton dropped onto the bench next to me. He was twenty-two, a rookie, called up from the AHL three weeks ago. He had too much energy and not enough fear, which made him either a future star or a future cautionary tale.
"Dude," he said.
"Colton."
"That's so cool. Like, actually cool. My cousin's gay. He's gonna lose his shit when I tell him I play with you."
"Great."
"Can I get a picture with you? For him. Not now, obviously. After the game."
I looked at him. He was completely sincere. There wasn't an ounce of performance in it.
"Yeah," I said. "After the game."
He grinned and bounced off to bother someone else.
The tunnel to the ice was the same as always: concrete walls and rubber mats, the distant roar of the crowd already filtering through. I'd walked this tunnel a hundred times, and it had never been different.
It was different now.
Coach gave the usual pregame speech. Nothing about my announcement or the news cycle, just hockey. I was grateful for that. The last thing I needed was a moment, a speech about bravery or pride. I just wanted to play.
We filed out for warmups. The arena was loud, louder than a Sunday night game should be. I kept my eyes on the ice as I stepped through the gate, focused on the cold air hitting my face, the familiar give of the surface under my blades.
Then I looked up.
There were signs. I'd expected that. I'd braced myself for slurs, for Bible verses, for the worst of what people could be. But thefirst one said PIPER PRIDE in rainbow letters, held up by a woman in an Aces jersey. Next to her, a kid who couldn't have been more than twelve had a sign that said WE SEE YOU.
I looked away and started skating.
Warmups were muscle memory. Stretch, skate, shoot. I fell into the rhythm of it and tried not to think about the cameras that were definitely pointed at me, the commentary that was definitely happening in the broadcast booth. They'd be talking about my statement, my history, probably dragging up Ro's name for comparison. I couldn't control that. I could only control the puck on my stick.
Utah took the ice on the other side. I spotted Murph doing his usual warmup routine, head down, focused. I wondered if he'd seen the news.
His stick had pride tape wrapped around his stick. He wasn't making a show of it, wasn't waving it around or drawing attention. It was just there.
I kept skating and didn't look at him again.
Back on our bench, I grabbed my water bottle and scanned my own team's sticks lined up in the rack. Most of them were plain, the usual black tape jobs. But Hendricks had pride tape on his. So did Colton, which made sense given how excited he'd been earlier.