‘I Was the One Who Had to Change’

Barone can close his eyes and still see the enraged coach and how his lips shaped when he fired those awful words. It was last April, in an arena outside Salt Lake City.

He isn’t sure if the coach said what he did because Barone dates men, but the coach’s intent did not quite seem to matter. He had used the language and used it publicly. It wounded Barone that the coach was only fined for his behavior.

Barone had learned to bury his feelings. Months earlier, while he was refereeing a game in Alaska, an ECHL player directed an anti-gay slur at another player on the ice. This was no uncommon gesture, though when Barone asked the player’s coach to take care of the situation, the coach dismissed him. “Oh, come on, Dre,” the coach said, according to Barone. “Don’t make this about you.”

Barone, upset, could only skate away.

But in Utah, in the minutes before the next game of the series, Barone still could not shake things. He allowed himself to revel for a moment in the allure of vengeance. When the puck dropped, Barone thought about ejecting the coach immediately. “If the league’s not going to suspend you,” he said to himself, “I will.” (Through his team, the coach did not respond to requests for comment.)

In the end, Barone knew it was the wrong thing for a referee to do. Such a reaction would have distracted from the message, and it could have made the story about Barone. It was never supposed to be about him.

Once his ECHL season concluded, Barone retreated into a darkness. Defeat took hold of him. Over breakfast in Toronto one morning, Beba observed that her son, usually so outgoing and vibrant, had changed. “He was so quiet,” she said. “He was so pensive.”

Not long after, Barone opened his laptop on the couch.

“I never understood why people stay in abusive relationships for so long, but now I do,” he wrote. “Simply because it took me ten years to realise that it was indeed an abusive relationship.