Role Model

Role Model opens with Troy Barrett arriving in Ottawa carrying more personal baggage than just his hockey gear. He's just been traded from Toronto after calling his former best friend and teammate Dallas Kent a rapist in the middle of practice, which, for the record, was the right thing to do, even if it blew up his entire life.

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Ottawa is supposed to be a fresh start. Instead, Troy spends his first few weeks playing badly, drinking too much, and being rude to Harris Drover, the team's social media manager, because Harris is openly gay and Troy is not ready to deal with what that stirs up in him. He eventually apologises, they film a Q&A video together, and Troy starts bringing Harris lattes multiple times. It is not subtle.

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The feelings are hard to ignore and even harder to act on. Troy is closeted, grieving a recent breakup from a secret relationship with an actor who left him for someone else, and still working through years of performing a version of himself he doesn't actually like. Harris is warm, funny, and has Pride pins on everything. They dance around each other through Christmas lights on Taffy Lane, a near-kiss in Harris's office, and a team plane that loses an engine mid-flight; And it's that last one that breaks the dam. His teammate Ilya Rozanov tells him “What you wanted on that plane. Go for it.” After the plane scare, Troy brings Harris cookie dough ice cream and spend the night together. However, Troy panics and pulls away the next morning.

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Luckily, he doesn't stay away for long. A formal date, a walk back to Harris's apartment, meeting Mr Neck-Neck, and Troy is finally letting himself have something real, though he still asks to slow down while he figures out who he wants to be outside of the walls he's built. What helps is Ottawa Centaurs: a team with a healthy locker room, a captain in Ilya who already clocked that Troy is gay and comes out to him as bisexual during a walk in New York City like it's nothing, and teammates who are genuinely good people. Troy starts posting on Instagram in support of assault survivors. The NHL Commissioner calls to threaten him, but Troy keeps posting.

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At the end, Troy comes out to his mother, his coach, and then his whole team in the locker room (and kisses Harris in front of all of them while the team cheers). His toxic father shows up at the arena and Troy, for the first time, doesn't flinch. He introduces Harris as his boyfriend and tells his father to leave. That night is Ottawa's Pride Night game against Toronto, complete with rainbow stick tape and a support for Troy from the arena. Troy's mum surprises him after the game. He and Harris share their first fully public kiss. Dallas Kent gets arrested. Troy and Harris get their happy ending, and Troy realises that 'there's nowhere else he'd rather be' other than in Ottawa with Harris.