It was here that the man sexually assaulted Bob. He was 11.

“For years, I couldn’t go back. There were too many horrible memories for me,” Thompson says over the phone.

Today he is openly gay, but it was a difficult journey, especially after the assault. “That’s why I think I had such a hard time understanding my sexuality. It was associated with something terrible from my past that nobody talked about at that time.”

Thompson continued to play hockey competitively through his adolescence, but as he got older he felt increasingly uncomfortable with the talk and rhetoric that went on in the locker room.

At the University of Guelph, he played in a house league, struggling to figure out who he really was. After graduation, Thompson was depressed, so he offered himself an ultimatum: “Either I figure it out or I commit suicide.”

He chose the former, and took an impromptu trip to California.

“I rented a car and drove around, and I ended up in my first gay bar,” Thompson laughs. He socialized with the locals and when he mentioned he was from Toronto, they were ecstatic. They told him that there were some great sports leagues in Toronto for gay men.

When Thompson returned home, the first thing he did was join a gay volleyball league. There were basketball leagues, softball leagues and swimming groups, but no hockey.