It was the spring of 2006 and Brock McGillis was sitting in his apartment in The Hague, Netherlands, depressed and reflecting on how a promising career had come to this. He was overseas, isolated, battling injuries on a near-constant basis, and supremely unhappy. For someone who was expecting a linear path to the NHL, his dream had taken a sharp divergence.



The then-22-year-old goaltender was practical about what he felt were his prospects:



“I was likely to end up dead,” McGillis said. “You can’t drink almost daily, (with) that much depression and that (many) attempts at suicide, without it eventually catching up to you. I think it was inevitable I was going down that path.”



McGillis opened his computer, began browsing an internet dating site and found scores of middle-aged men — some who were married, some with kids and families — who were secretly seeking out relationships with other men. He didn’t judge those...