AHL play-by-play announcer Shaya 'overwhelmed' by support upon coming out

During June, the NHL and the NHL Players' Association's joint Hockey Is For Everyone initiative will celebrate Pride Month. All 32 NHL Clubs, alumni, and current players will participate in pride events, including parades, across North America. As part of Pride Month, NHL.com will share stories about the LGBTQI+ hockey community. Today, a look at Jason Shaya, an American Hockey League play-by-play announcer who came out as gay in October.

Jason Shaya laughs now about the sleepless nights, fretful phone calls and anxiety he experienced before the announcement he feared would negatively impact his life.
Shaya, the play-by-play voice for Utica of the American Hockey League, came out as a gay man in a story on the TSN website in October and he braced himself for a barrage of hurtful reaction.
It never came.
"It was overwhelmingly supportive," Shaya said of the response. "I was bowled over. I didn't know the response would be something like that. I thought it would be a moment, and we'd just go through it. I have been approached as much by people that I knew and know who were supportive as much as by people I didn't know who've come up to me and said, 'Here's why your story affected me.' I was overwhelmed by that."

The 41-year-old Detroit native had been contemplating coming out for a while and watched others in the hockey and sports world do it last year, including Nashville Predators defenseman prospect Luke Prokop, hockey player agent Bayne Pettinger and NFL player Carl Nassib.
Shaya said nothing has changed for him professionally since coming out. He's said he's still viewed by his employer, peers, players and fans as a hockey broadcaster, and not as "a gay hockey broadcaster."
"I think that's the coolest thing because, at the end of the day, Shaya is Shaya," said Utica president Robert Esche, a former goalie who played 186 NHL games for the Phoenix Coyotes and Philadelphia Flyers from 1998-2007. "I mean, it was business as usual for him. He's a terrific broadcaster, he does a great job."
Shaya said the biggest change has come in his personal life, a turn for the better.
"In many, many ways it was liberating for me for not having to consistently conceal who I am in one aspect of who I am," he said. "That was like putting down a very heavy bag I had been carrying for a very long time."

Patrick Burke has noticed the weight off his friend's shoulders. Burke, NHL senior director of player safety who co-founded You Can Play in 2012, and whose late brother, Brendan, came out in 2009 as a manager of the Miami University (Ohio) hockey team, spoke regularly with Shaya when he was formulating his decision.
"I see someone who is much more comfortable, much more confident and just focusing on his craft and his passion," Burke said, "instead of having to focus on the unanswered questions of, 'What would happen if I came out? Who would support me? Would this be an issue?'"
Burke is the son of Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations Brian Burke.
"Imagine sitting there prepping for a game and also wondering whether you can tell your co-workers about someone you're dating or if you're able to bring your partner to a work function," Patrick Burke said. "Removing that stress and allowing Jason just to focus on calling the best game possible, it seems to me, it had a great effect on him in a very positive way."
Shaya said he was aware as a teenager he was gay but concealed it. Instead, he focused on hockey and chasing his dream of becoming an NHL play-by-play announcer. That came true when he filled in for John Forslund on Carolina Hurricanes broadcasts when he was employed by Charlotte of the AHL. He made his NHL debut in November 2017.
Esche hired Shaya in January 2021 after he was let go by Charlotte in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic. He had been a broadcaster, media relations specialist and occasional practice goalie for the franchise for 13 years.

When Shaya began to seriously consider coming out, he reached out to Pettinger and Patrick Burke for advice. He remembers one particular phone call he had with Burke the morning the TSN article was published.
"He was my rock during the whole thing, and that morning I'm basically cursing him out: 'I hate you so much for putting me in this position,'" Shaya said. "He was laughing it off, going, 'OK, you hate me now. Let me know what you think about me in a few hours.'
"He knew that I would be totally fine, more than fine, and he was absolutely right. But in the middle of that moment before it happened, I was rife with anxiety and afraid that I had just not only committed career suicide … I had probably ostracized myself from everybody."
Looking back, Shaya said he has no regrets about his decision, buoyed by the outpouring of support from family, friends and colleagues in and out of the hockey community.
"I'm far more at peace with myself in my personal life, more at peace than I have ever been before," he said. "There's only one more goal for me to accomplish and that's to be the best (fulltime) broadcaster in the NHL. I think I'm really good at it, and that's the next step I want to take."