Kathmandu (Pahichan) November 5 – Former Finnish elite-level ice-hockey player Janne Puhakka came out as gay just days before two of the country\u2019s top teams played in a Pride-themed hockey match.<\/p>\n
Puhakka came out as gay in an interview last week with\u00a0Helsingin Sanomat\u00a0<\/em><\/a>because he believes that LGBT+ issues are\u00a0still taboo<\/a>\u00a0in hockey. He also expressed regret that he did not come out while still playing in the Elite League.<\/p>\n Just days after Puhakka came out as gay, elite ice-hockey teams Ilves and TPS faced off against each other in a Pride-themed match to promote LGBT+ acceptance in sport. The match \u2013 which took place on Saturday \u2013 saw players don rainbow colours.<\/p>\n The 24-year-old Puhakka said it would be \u201cideal\u201d if he didn\u2019t have to talk publicly about being gay \u2013 but said that stigma can only be broken by open dialogue.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be ideal if I didn\u2019t have to talk about this,\u201d Puhakka said. \u201cBut as long as people are silent on the subject, we must speak up.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hockey world is somehow lagging behind. We wouldn\u2019t have to go through all this if everyone could be themselves in the locker room.<\/p>\n When someone shares their own life deeper than just surface level, it strengthens the team.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad if even one junior or professional player finds something positive in this interview,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Puhakka has played professional hockey for teams including Espoo Blue and Espoo United in Finland. He is the first ice-hockey player in the country to come out as gay.<\/p>\n He started playing hockey when he was just six years old and gained a place on the national youth team when he was 16, at which point he started to realise that he was gay.<\/p>\n When Pukakka was 20-years-old, he became bothered that he was unable to be openly gay with his teammates.<\/p>\n He also revealed that he used to laugh off homophobic jokes told in locker rooms and on the players\u2019 bench.<\/p>\n The hockey player also revealed that he was pushed even further into the closet by Finnish member of parliament Sinuhe Wallinheimo, who said in 2014: \u201cIt\u2019d be a good idea for a gay player to hide his homo in the booth so as not to offend team chemistry and turn [sentiments] against the team,\u201d\u00a0Outsports<\/em>\u00a0reports.<\/a><\/p>\n Puhakka rejected this idea, noting: \u201cWhen someone shares their own life deeper than just surface level, it strengthens the team.\u201d<\/p>\n Source : Pink News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu (Pahichan) November 5 – Former Finnish elite-level ice-hockey player Janne Puhakka came out as gay just days before two of the country\u2019s top teams played in a Pride-themed hockey match. \u201cI wasn\u2019t good enough to have complete security in my job,\u201d Puhakka explained. \u201cThat brought uncertainty. I\u2019m sure other players fear the issue because …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,621,490,3,11],"tags":[446,524],"class_list":["post-12387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-news","category-slider","category-society","category-world","tag-gay","tag-lgbt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12389,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12387\/revisions\/12389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Former Finnish ice-hockey player Janne Puhakka wants to break stigma by coming out as gay.<\/h2>\n
Puhakka used to laugh off homophobic jokes in the locker room.<\/h2>\n
\nPuhakka came out as gay in an interview last week with\u00a0Helsingin Sanomat\u00a0because he believes that LGBT+ issues are\u00a0still taboo\u00a0in hockey. He also expressed regret that he did not come out while still playing in the Elite League.<\/p>\n