Luke Prokop, NHL’s first publicly gay hockey player recalls Heated Rivalry relationship: ‘I could really resonate’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Luke Prokop made history when he came out as the National Hockey League’s first publicly gay player in July 2021. Writing on Instagram at the time, he declared: “Today I am proud to publicly tell everyone that I am gay.” With little to no visibility of queer men in the NHL, Prokop made a profound impact on LGBTQ+ sporting culture – one that has since rippled into mainstream pop culture, most notably with the arrival of 2025’s hit gay hockey series Heated Rivalry. And as Prokop tells Attitude, his own story does not fall far from Rachel Reid’s depiction of secret love off the ice.

Five years later, in 2026, Prokop is ready to tell his full story. Following four years of filming with Upper Canada Films under unprecedented circumstances, including a “scary” heart operation and a break-up, the ice hockey star is gearing up for the release of his first documentary, The Hockey Player.

The tell-all film explores loneliness, locker-room language and moments of self-doubt through the lens of a gay athlete navigating one of the world’s most traditionally masculine sports.

In his exclusive interview with Attitude, the Bakersfield Condors defenceman opens up about past relationships, a turbulent father-son bond, and his thoughts on the acclaimed hockey series Heated Rivalry.

Attitude: Firstly, what does it mean to you to hold the title of the first publicly gay National Hockey League player?

Luke Prokop: It’s pretty cool. I am very proud of the title. It’s something that’s been a long time coming for our sport. Other professional sports leagues have had players come out while they were playing, or come out after they played, and no one’s done it in hockey before. I’m just happy that I can help pave the way for the next generation of players who can feel comfortable with themselves and go to the rink and play the game that they love.

But I also understand that it’s a big responsibility too, and I want to make sure that I’m taking the time out of my day to, if I get questions or if people want to share their story with me, that I’m approachable and available to them. So it’s a lot sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Can you tell me about your coming out story?

It all started throughout COVID. I kind of had thoughts that I might be gay since I was 14; those thoughts started to come about. And then throughout the rest of those next couple of years, kind of understanding what it really meant and the impact that it would have on my career and my family. COVID was really the time that initiated everything for me. I was always really close with my family, but when you’re stuck in a house and you can’t really do anything for months, you become even closer, and at that point in time I started doing a lot of self-reflecting, and thinking about what I wanted my career to be, who I wanted to be. I wanted to be able to live my true self and be authentic.

Me and my sister developed a really amazing relationship during COVID, and she was the first person I came out to in April 2020. It went fantastic. I knew with her it was going to be great because she’s like the most non-judgemental person ever. But in the back of your mind, you’re always thinking like, oh, if this doesn’t go well, what’s going to happen? But it went really well. And from there on it was honestly, I know for myself I’m very lucky, because it was kind of a smooth process. After that I told my mum, and then I started to tell my friends, and every single time I told someone I got the confidence that this was the right thing to do, and to keep doing it.

So probably after four months of coming out to my friends and family, then the idea is, okay, well now I have hockey. So I came out to my agent. I don’t even want to know what they thought at the time, just because it was so new to them, and they’ve been in hockey for so long, and I don’t think this had ever been approached to them before. And they loved it. They were really happy for me, but they also said now you have two options and we’re going to let you decide which one you want to do. Obviously one was to come out publicly and the other one was to kind of keep it closed off and just tell the people that you think really matter in your life.

Right after that conversation, I mean they gave me like a full year to think about it, but it was not long after that I already knew that I wanted to come out publicly. I think for myself there were a lot of rumours going around about me since I’d come out to friends. There were a lot of rumours in the hockey world. And I just kept on thinking about them, and I didn’t have a really good hockey season that year, and I just wanted to put that all to rest. So I knew it would help me personally, but also I knew that it wasn’t just me going through this same thing. I know there were a lot of other people out there that were probably in the same situation that I am, and still are. My whole thing was I wanted to help as many people as I could by coming out and being visible to them. So that was why we did the public statement the way we did it.

And obviously it blew up. I didn’t expect it to be like that. And it was super positive too. I mean normally I feel like with coming out posts and anything related to the queer community there’s some backlash normally. But for me it was insanely positive. It was way better than I thought it was ever going to be.

In the trailer, your dad reflects on whether hockey would have been something he supported if he had known you were gay earlier. What was that relationship with your dad like growing up before and then after coming out?

Yeah, that was the most difficult one. My dad, the way he grew up… I was still very accustomed to him using homophobic language and not even thinking that his son could be gay. And so that was the person that I wanted to really go well with. It’s in the movie, so I don’t want to speak on it too much. But I didn’t get to tell my dad the way I wanted to tell him. And so that’s something that I kind of still regret, but also, at the same time, it made it a bit easier for me because I didn’t have to have that awkward conversation with him. But he’s been amazing ever since, honestly, really supportive. He’s always asking about my personal life. It was always hockey before. It was very just a strict: “How was your game? How was your practice?” Giving me critiques and not asking about how I was doing as a person. And since I’ve come out to him, our relationship has grown a lot in that sense. And he’s someone that now I can go talk to about anything.

The documentary touches on your relationship for the first time. What has it meant to you to share that part of your life publicly?

Yeah, it’s a bit of an interesting topic now because we’re no longer together. But when I can go back and, because I remember doing that interview at Christmas time and I think before I was always a little bit nervous or maybe even afraid to admit that I had a boyfriend, and he was an amazing guy, and he made me feel so confident and comfortable, and so being able to say that on camera was a big thing for me. And I still remember how I felt after I said it. I was kind of giddy and had butterflies just talking about it. And being able to talk to my parents about him and talk to my friends about him, I’ve never really been able to do that before.

So it was a really cool thing, except when we broke up that was almost the first thing I went to, because I knew it was in the movie. And I was like: “Hey, like what are your guys’ thoughts on this? Should we take it out? Do we even have time to take it out?” And we didn’t. I don’t know if I really would have if we did. I didn’t really get to make that decision. So we kind of just had to leave it in the movie. But I also kind of wanted to leave it in the film to remember those times with him and remember how I felt after I was able to say that on camera.

You’ve spoken about feeling pressure at times as a gay man in professional hockey. Why is that?

I mean, there’s no one else out there. It’s a very blue-collar sport that doesn’t have a ton of appreciation for the queer community. It’s very physical, it’s pretty violent at times. Some guys get away with a lot in the media and then their personal lifestyle that comes out about them and you don’t really see any repercussions for them.

I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to do really well because I wanted to make it to the NHL and be visible to those people. But I also knew that it probably wasn’t gonna be the smoothest path for me to get to the NHL either. There were gonna be a lot of people who put up roadblocks in my way. And without them directly saying it, I knew they were there. My family knew they were there. Some of my close teammates knew that they were there, just with situations that I was put in.

So I think I’m at a point now where I don’t really care about that stuff. I just kind of go about my business and I know that some people are okay with it, some people aren’t.

You were diagnosed with ectopic atrial tachycardia (EAT), a heart rhythm condition. Did you ever doubt you’d be able to return to the game?

It would have been February/March of 2025. In terms of heart surgeries and heart diagnosis, that’s the safest one. It’s very minimal. It’s an easy procedure. Obviously though, it’s a little scary. I’ve never had a surgery before. It was on my heart. So there were a few questions on what the return to play would have been like, and the doctors assured me that I wouldn’t have any issues. The only thing that could happen is it could come back again. But it hasn’t since. I haven’t felt it since. I was actually skating a week after I had the surgery.

The medical staff in Milwaukee, they took really good care of me. And they took it seriously too. So I was in really good hands and everything went super well. So once I met with a medical team and we kind of went over the diagnosis and the procedure, I didn’t have any doubts that I wasn’t going to be able to go back on the ice.

I guess have you felt any repercussions from the surgery or do you think you’re back to where you were before?

No, honestly, I think I’m better. For me, because what would happen is my heart would just get really fast without doing a lot of work, just randomly. And so now that I don’t have that, I feel like I can stay at a high heart rate for a longer period of time and it’s not affecting my body as much anymore. So I think the surgery actually helped me a lot.

Have you watched Heated Rivalry? What are your thoughts?

I think initially I was very hesitant to watch it at the start because of me being the only professional player that’s out in the men’s game, I didn’t want people who didn’t watch a ton of hockey to associate that with me right away. I’d heard about what the show was gonna be about, and obviously I watched the first two episodes, and I’m like, holy crap, like this is not at all what I’m like, and I just didn’t want people to associate that with me.

But actually, the third episode with the storyline with Scott Hunter and Kip Grady, that was one that I could resonate with more because when I was playing hockey before I came out, I did have a boyfriend, and trying to meet up and hang out with him and having a different name for him in my phone – it was a girl’s name, and all those sort of things that they did in their episode, I could really resonate with. Those were some of the experiences that I did have when I was coming out.

But I think it also was just really good for visibility and to bring the attention and the awareness that I think hockey has been lacking for a very long time. And just bringing attention to people high up in hockey that there are gay players, there are gay fans, and you need to kind of adapt the game to be able to welcome those players.

Assuming you’ve watched the documentary, what was the most challenging thing looking back at three years of filming?

Oh gosh. The idea of what my producer first approached me with the idea of how he wanted the film to go, he kind of laid it all out for me, and we had to adapt to that. So we had to change the way we wanted the film to be because he, in his mind, it was gonna be like two years and the last year of filming, or the last time they would film, it would be my first NHL game. And obviously I haven’t played an NHL game yet. So we kind of had to adapt. You still kind of get that progression of hockey and how hard it actually is, even though you are a professional, how hard it is to play in the minor leagues and to get up into the NHL.

It’s kind of what you see more so now in the movie. I think something that I didn’t realise was going to be a very important part, but we’ve already touched on, is the relationship with my dad. And so I think not just a lot of gay kids will be able to relate to that with their relationship with their father, but a lot of straight kids will be able to as well. I think as a high-level athlete, sometimes especially our fathers put a ton of pressure on us, and maybe they don’t see how that’s impacting us.

I think I talk about it, but when my dad watches that, and then he realises, okay, maybe I did screw up, or maybe I was too hard on him, and things like that. So the relationship with me and my dad I think is something that a lot of people are gonna relate to, whether they’re gay or not.

What was the most rewarding?

I think just being able to know that we’d been filming this for four years. At one point, we didn’t even know if we were going to be able to finish it, because we needed money from brands and sponsors, and we pitched the idea to them and they really liked it, but they would never commit to it.

And then finally, I think with the success of Heated Rivalry, all those brands kind of came back and wanted to get on board with it. So being able to see all the hard work of my producer and director and editor and everyone that put so much time into it and travel, because I wasn’t just in one location. This was filmed in Seattle, it was filmed in Atlanta, it’s filmed in Milwaukee, it’s filmed in Edmonton, it’s filmed in Toronto. They had to go to a lot of places to come and see me to make this work.

So just all the hard work that went into the movie and seeing how well it turned out is probably the most rewarding thing.

The Hockey Player, presented in partnership with OUTtv, is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video from Monday 29 June, and will be available on OUTflix later this year.