Article by: Matt McQuaid
Brendan Burke, youngest son of Toronto Maple Leafs’ and USA men’s Olympic Hockey Team general manager Brian Burke, was killed in a weather-related car accident this past Friday in Indiana. He was 21 years old.
Burke was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and moved to the Boston area in 1997. He attended Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, Mass. After high school, Burke attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where he was involved with the school’s hockey team as student manager.
Burke came out as a gay man to his father in 2007, the same year Brian Burke won the Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. Brian Burke was notably accepting and supportive of his son’s sexual orientation, attending the Toronto Pride Parade with Brendan in 2009.
“I had a million good reasons to love and admire Brendan,’’ Brian Burke told ESPN in an article late last year. “This news didn’t alter any of them . . . But this takes guts, and I admire Brendan greatly and happily march arm-in-arm with him on this. There are gay men in professional hockey. We would be fools to think otherwise. And it’s sad they feel the need to conceal this.”
Prior to his death, Burke was well known for speaking out regarding gay people in the realm of professional sports, and revisited his alma mater, Xaverian, on a few occasions to speak to students.
“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,” Brendan Burke told ESPN. “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.”
Burke was also considering a career in politics, and interned for Congressman William D. Delahunt last summer.
“Brendan was an incredibly talented and gifted person who was smart beyond his years,’’ said Mark Forest, a spokesman for Delahunt, in an article on Boston.com. “Congressman Delahunt once said Brendan possessed a very special gift and deep compassion for others that would make him an outstanding public servant.’’
A Funeral Mass was held for Brendan on Feb. 9 at St. John the Evangelist Church in Canton.
