Brendan Burke, openly gay son of Toronto Maple Leaf General Manager Brian Burke, is killed in car crash

In early December, Brendan (pictured with the Stanley Cup won my The Anaheim Ducks)  came out publicly in a moving article by John Buccigross on ESPN.com.

They were in a good place together, father and son, an example to a lot of families with gay children.

A file photo of Brendan Burke, who died after a car crash in Indiana on Friday. Jodi Hilton for The Globe and Mail

Also in that ESPN article, older brother Patrick Burke had said of Brendan: “He’s incredibly brave. He went back to our all-boys high school and gave a speech about the struggles gay teenagers go through and got a standing ovation from 200 kids who spend half their time insulting anyone different than them. In so many ways, I look up to him for who he is and what he does.”

“Obviously, there are gay players in hockey right now, just no openly gay ones. And there are gay people in management, whether they’re scouts or front-office people or coaches. We just don’t have any openly gay ones right now. I think it will be a challenge for the first person that comes out, because they’ll be putting themselves under a microscope.”

“The scary thing for me is that it might be Brendan, if he chooses to go into hockey. I don’t think it’s fair the face of homosexuality in hockey should be a 20-year-old college kid, but Brendan is more than willing to be the guy, which awes me. I think it’s a matter of when, not if, players and management start coming out.”

And finally, here is what Brendan himself said about the positive reaction to his coming out: “Imagine if I was in the opposite situation, with a family that wouldn’t accept me, working for a sports team where I knew I couldn’t come out because I’d be fired or ostracized. People in that situation deserve to know that they can feel safe, that sports isn’t all homophobic and that there are plenty of people in sports who accept people for who they are.”