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Luca Haas, the Ottawa Centaurs Darling on Coming Out, Showing Up, and Finding Love
by Jordan Avery
All quotes taken from the video interview have been paraphrased or edited for clarity.
Luca Haas. 2021 Rookie of the Year. Centaurs Darling. The next coming of Hockey Jesus and the League’s new golden boy.
The next face in queer hockey.
From being one of the first to talk to Scott Hunter, the first openly gay NHL player after he came out, to being present at the wedding of hockey prodigy Jack Zimmermann and YouTube star Eric Bittle, I can safely say that I’ve been in the gay hockey trenches. Queer sports history is my thing, and I’m honored to have a place in this moment.
To those who know the lore, a Centaur being next in line to come out wasn’t all that surprising. To those who know nothing about hockey and clicked this article because he’s cute— let me set the scene.
The Ottawa Centaurs, a Canadian NHL team, is statistically the queerest team in the NHL to date, with four openly gay players; two of which are married… to each other. It has proven to be a safe haven within the NHL, which is historically an incredibly bigoted league.
Another gay Centaur just made sense.
Hailing from Switzerland, Luca Haas, currently twenty-one years old, has just finished up his second season in the NHL with a whopping 32 goals under his belt, which is no small feat. Even with his statistics, he is as humble as can be. Luca will always find a way to hype up the rest of his teammates. When he is not playing hockey, Luca can be found in the corner of his favorite coffee shop with his sketchpad and favorite pencils.
During this interview, we talk about a lot of things: coming out, finding community amongst heteronormativity, and what it takes to maintain a relationship at his caliber. That’s right, my loyal readers– Luca Haas is a taken man. And his boyfriend? Well, let’s just say I understand why they requested a full-blown press release.
I wasn’t given much info before we got started. Only the fact that there was a boyfriend and that Luca would be talking about it today. I wasn’t even 100% sure if “The Boyfriend” would be as involved as he ended up being.
We chatted on June 22nd, just two days after the Ottawa Centaurs took home their first Stanley Cup in team history. I’m not quite sure how we were able to fit this interview in, but we did. Haas was adamant we conduct this after they finished the playoffs, no matter what that looked like, and I can finally understand why. He may be hungover, and I may be exhausted from editing this in, *checks notes*, two days, but in the spirit of gay audacity, we’re vibing and thriving this Pride Month.
***
Jordan Avery: Hi, Luca!
Luca Haas: Hello, Jordan!
JA: First of all, congrats on your very first Stanley Cup win! How are we feeling right now?
LH: Exhausted. Definitely still hungover somehow. No, but I’m so incredibly grateful for this team. We all worked hard this season, and it definitely paid off!
JA: It’s been a little over 36 hours since the cup win. What have you done so far?
LH: Well, we all got super drunk that first night, and yesterday we did a shit- wait, can I curse?
JA: I’ll allow it.
LH: Sorry, haha. We did a lot of press yesterday, and they gave us this morning off before we do more league stuff this afternoon. That, plus doing final passes with Pride Tape…
JA: Definitely a full plate!
LH: No matter how long you plan something, there will always be some sort of last minute adjustments you’ll have to deal with.
JA: Preach, man. Speaking of Pride Tape… wow.
LH: [chuckles] Yeah.
JA: Coming back to the part where you publicly came out, we need to talk about those pictures.
LH: Do we really?
JA: Yes. Yes we do.
LH: But I look so awkward!
JA: Baby, your face isn’t even visible in half of them!
LH: That was the point! Shoutout to Ezra and the whole photoshoot team for making me feel comfortable the entire time.
JA: I’ve worked with them for years and they are truly something special over there. Now, can I ask you how this opportunity came about? Like, why now?
LH: Like, why did I choose now to come out?
JA: Sure!
LH: Before, the only person who knew I was queer was my sister. Then, Harris [Drover, Centaurs Director of Communications] sent a text to the team chat asking if anyone besides Troy [Barrett], Cap [Captain Ilya Rozanov], and Hollzy [Shane Hollander] wanted to be in the campaign. I didn’t have to come out.
JA: But…
LH: But I remembered how I felt when I watched [Scott] Hunter with his now-husband on the ice in 2017. Finding out that coming out as a professional athlete won’t be signing a retirement check. It still took a few years, obviously, but we got there.
JA: You did.
LH: The point of this campaign, besides adding more tape designs, is to show young athletes that they do have a place. If my coming out gives a kid the same comfort and courage Hunter’s gave to me, well… it will have been worth it.
JA: There were a lot of young athletes involved in this campaign.
LH: Right? I say “kids” as if we aren’t the same age, but they’re all still in school, and yet they put themselves out there for this.
JA: Have you gotten a chance to meet any of them yet?
LH: Outside of my immediate circle, I’ve only really talked to Nora [Bates, Arizona State Softball] and the coaches for SMH [Samwell University Men’s Hockey], but Scott and Jack [Zimmermann], along with Leah [Campbell] are trying to schedule a meetup this summer, which will be really cool!
JA: Sounds like you’ve really found a community here.
LH: For sure. The campaign is mostly made up of hockey players, so it’ll be cool to meet players in other stick sports.
JA: Stick sports?
LH: Ugh. [thud] Don’t judge me, I’m brain dead!
JA: Not judging!
LH: Anyway, these NCAA players-
A door opens just out of Luca’s frame. A male voice calls out, Babe? and I didn’t realize just how tense Luca was until he loosened up at the voice. It clearly belonged to someone he was close to.
JA: That your boyfriend?
LH: [He gives me a small smile and blushes]. Yeah.
JA: How long?
LH: Just a couple of months.
MJ LaPointe: Hey Luc! Sorry I’m late. We ran a bit long.
To my surprise, Luca Haas’s boyfriend is none other than Centaurs teammate Montgomery James LaPointe, known as MJ or LP to his teammates.
At this point, I was about to ask Luca if he needed to pause this interview, so that his boyfriend could get settled. I didn’t want to throw him in the deep end, but Luca had other ideas:
LH: Nope! None of that! Pull up a chair.
JA: Well, isn’t this a surprise!
MLP: [waves] Hi, Jordan! I’m MJ LaPointe! Luca’s much better looking half!
Haas mutters 'menace’, under his breath, laughing at LaPointe. Their dynamic reminds me of a certain couple that I talked to around this time last year.
MLP: Hey!
LA: I wasn’t the one who changed his Twitter bio before telling his agent.
MLP: Low blow, babe.
LH: Jamie, you tried putting Joanne into an early grave by saying you were the “second best bisexual” as your way of coming out.
JA: We are definitely going to talk about that. The good news is that we can easily freeball the rest of this. Are we absolutely positive we can move on with this interview?
LH: Positive!
JA: Fantastic. Okay MJ- is it cool that I’m calling you that?
MLP: MJ or LP or even just LaPointe works.
JA: Cool. MJ, your coming out was, frankly, chaotic at best. Are you comfortable with talking about that?
MLP: I mean, sure. If you had told me a month before I came out that I would do so, I would have never believed you.
JA: Really?
MLP: Yeah. I love my parents, I really do. We’ve always had this relationship where I could tell them literally anything. I figured out I was bisexual when I was maybe thirteen? And I told my mom immediately. She hugged me, told me that she loved me, and immediately after that, told me to never tell anyone. And as a thirteen year old, that sticks with you. I didn’t realize how unsafe it was until a couple of months later. From then on, I never talked about it. Not even after self-proclaimed bisexual icon Roz married Hollzy. It was easy to be supportive of my friends and teammates, but I couldn’t do it myself.
JA: What changed?
MLP: When Luc came out to me, something finally clicked. He was my closest friend, and if he felt safe telling me- telling the world, maybe I could too. I’ve been in therapy-
JA: Therapy?
LH: Yeah! Roz, and the front office in general are really big advocates for getting the help that we need. Especially with the Irina Foundation, they’re trying to break the stigma around grown men feeling things.
MLP: My therapist has been a huge help. I’ve only been with her a few months, but I’ve felt a huge shift already. She allowed me to feel confident enough to change something as trivial as a Twitter bio. It didn’t f—king matter anymore.
JA: So is that why you didn’t take part in the campaign, or come out the same time as Luca?
MLP: It was a part of it. The other is that there’s a reason I don’t take on sponsorships. There’s a difference between posting an impromptu thirst trap on Instagram and standing half-naked in front of people you don’t know.
LH: You should see him on media days.
MLP: My personal space is my personal space.
JA: So even if you had other options, you still would have come out that way?
MLP: If I had it my way, I would have posted a cute selfie with Luc and called it a day.
JA: Luca? If you had a chance to change how you came out, would you have been more dramatic about it, like your teammates?
LH: Probably not. I’m not my teammates. I love them, but the campaign was the most I could handle. To be completely honest, it was possibly a bit too much. But, like I said before, this way, it allows me to show up for the younger generation in ways I could have only imagined hockey players to. It was worth putting myself out of my comfort zone.
JA: Earlier, MJ, you were talking about your relationship with your therapist. What other support systems do you have, either in your personal or professional lives?
LH: I think I can answer for the both of us when I say our team.
MLP: Yep.
LH: Apparently, according to [Evan] Dykstra, at least some of them have been rooting for us since before we told them that we were dating.
MLP: I still don’t understand. We were being so subtle!
LH: Apparently not, if Dickie of all people figured it out.
MLP: Yeah, that’s just embarrassing. Wait—
LH: What?
MLP: Didn’t you tell me the Tumblr fanblogs have been making gifsets about us since your first game. And your sta—
LH: Next question. We’re not talking about that here.
JA: Everything alright?
LH: Don’t worry about it!
MLP: Yeah, we’re just talking s—t.
JA: Good to know! We’re pretty much out of time so here is my final question for you both—what do you hope this campaign does for viewers?
LH: I hope the kids seeing this are proud. Even if they don’t plan on coming out until five, ten, fifteen years into the future, or at all, I hope these kids know that we are here for them.
MLP: We’re not scary, and we’re not scared. Bring it on, straight people!
Thank you for reading! For more interviews like this one, click the link!
Jordan Avery (they/them) is a sports journalist from Buffalo, New York. Growing up, they played a wide range of sports, but currently has a soft spot for hockey and surprisingly, soccer.