Toronto Marlies support gay athletes and fans with first-ever You Can Play pledge

They're being called trailblazers. Last week, the Toronto Marlies broke new ground when they became the first team to sign the You Can Play pledge.

You Can Play is the social activist campaign was launched in March and founded by Patrick Burke (the son of Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke) to address homophobia in sports. (It was inspired by Patrick's younger brother Brendan Burke, an ice hockey team student manager who garnered media attention for coming out but died in a car crash in 2010.)

The Canadian professional ice hockey team, which plays in the American Hockey League, made this You Can Play video below, which was released on November 19.

According to reports, the team was originally just going to make a video but they wanted to go further, prompting Burke to draft a pledge.

The Marlies' coach and players signed two copies of the pledge. One has been placed in their locker room and the other has been placed in the concourse at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto.

The pledge includes the statement that "racist, sexist, and homophobic comments have no place in our arena".

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Georgia Straight's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.