Ask all the questions you want about whether the NHL is a big-time league, but it just made a big-time decision. On Thursday, the NHL and the NHL Players' Association officially partnered with the You Can Play project – an organization geared toward eliminating homophobia in sport.

The NHL isn't the first league to officially pair with You Can Play – that was Major League Soccer, last year – but it is perhaps the most symbolically significant right now, in two ways. First, while You Can Play is geared toward ensuring "equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation," much of its heart lies with hockey.

Second, the NHL's move may act as a harbinger – a catalyst, even – for much wider change in North American sport.

Patrick Burke, son of former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, founded the organization after his younger brother, Brendan, was killed in a car accident in 2010. Brendan, a manager for Miami University's RedHawks, came out shortly before he died, and was widely welcomed as being a pioneer for gay athletes in sports, but particularly in hockey. It was something of a testament to the sport that Burke's coming out was so well received. It didn't mean that homophobia in the sport – even the casual, negative usage of the terms "fag" or "gay," both ubiquitous in locker rooms everywhere – suddenly disappeared. But it was something.

Thursday's announcement, though, is something else entirely. The NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, said in a statement:

Our motto is 'Hockey Is For Everyone,' and our partnership with You Can Play certifies that position in a clear and unequivocal way. We are delighted to reaffirm through this joint venture with the NHL Players' Association that the official policy of the NHL is one of inclusion on the ice, in our locker rooms and in the stands.

The NHL has had its own problems with headlines about alleged player homophobia. In 2011, Rangers forward Sean Avery alleged that Flyers' forward Wayne Simmonds had uttered a homophobic slur during a game. Despite his reputation as a pest and an on-ice nuisance, Avery was to that point one of the league's most vocal proponent for gay rights. At the time, the NHL interviewed Simmonds and decided not to levy a fine for the alleged incident. "Guys say stuff, it's the heat of the battle of the game," Simmonds said at the time. "It's not things said to hurt people. Sometimes it just happens."

Exactly the problem. As Brian Burke said at the time of the Simmonds incident:

These terms are acceptable and habitual and that's got to change. It doesn't make them less offensive to our gay fans. We wouldn't tolerate if he said the n-word; he'd get suspended. There are some other words that are equally hateful and offensive.

Partnering with You Can Play is, at its base, an effort to break that habit.

Earlier this year, the NFL was embarrassed shortly before its most vaunted event, Super Bowl Sunday, when the San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver said he wouldn't welcome a gay teammate. He later apologized and underwent league sensitivity training.

Culliver's thoughts aren't shared by all NFL players. The Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has publicly defended gay rights, most recently in an editorial for CNN. "It's not right that our insatiable lust for sports coverage creates an atmosphere where someone would willingly subordinate his life to a backward and bigoted worldview in order to stay employed," he wrote.

Last week, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo said in an interview that there are perhaps four current NFL players who are ready to come out, and are trying to organize themselves to do so on the same day. One imagines if that were to occur, the NFL would have to seriously address any issues of exclusion. And quickly. It can now look to the NHL as a guide.

"The NHL sets the standard for professional sports when it comes to LGBT outreach and we are incredibly grateful for their help and support," Burke, who is now a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers, said Thursday.

This is exactly it: this decision isn't about forcing people to change their views on the spot – that's probably impossible. As it was when Brendan Burke came out, joining with You Can Play is not going to mean that tomorrow, all the homophobes in the NHL or in hockey rinks around the continent will have either vanished or experienced a 180-degree turn in their views. But it sets a standard. It's a mark in the sand, drawing a clear distinction between what's acceptable and what's not, and establishes core ethics. From now on, the team – the collective hockey nation – will go forward in a particular way. There will always be problems and disagreements, but the values have been set down, and that's a very important step.

So, maybe the NHL can't always be proud of its commercial success, its television ratings, or its somewhat lowly status in the pecking order of North American sports. But it can surely hold its head high as the first large, established league to take a stand in favour of LGBT rights. In the long run that will likely prove to be a much more important statistic.