Lake Placid, NY – In a recent interview with The Village Voice, legendary figure skating coach Frank Carroll shocked many by claiming that professional men’s figure skating is "ready and willing to welcome an openly straight skater."

"Sure, skaters can be, well, a little bitchy, to say the least," Carroll said. "But they are a diverse enough group now that I think they could handle it." Carroll has experience with skaters who are rumored to be–of all the crazy things–straight, having coached Michelle Kwan since 1992.

Carrol’s statement comes on the heels of two other shocking revelations: the first made by an unnamed Oneonta, NY woman who claims to have had an "ongoing sexual affair with a well-known male skater on the east coast," and the second by NY Post gossip columnist Neal Travis, who recently wrote that "there is a persistent rumor around town that one allegedly flamingly gay skating star who spends a lot of time in leather bars and S&M clubs is actually heterosexual, and has started to think about declaring his bizarre sexual orientation.''

Travis declined to reveal his sources, but hinted that the "inned" skater in question was either 1988 Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Champion Brian Boitano (picture right), or 1996 U.S National champion Rudy Galindo.

Upon learning that rumors about his sexual orientation had been circulating, Galindo met with the media on Tuesday night prior to a performance of Birdcage On Ice. "I'm not straight. I'm gay as fruit cocktail in heavy syrup...I can't control what people think. I date men. Period."

"Here, watch," Galindo then said, and immediately snapped-to in a tight-bunned, flamboyant salute (picture left).

While Carroll’s belief that men’s professional figure skating is open-minded enough to accept a skater who actually prefers the company of women, four-time gold medalist and current ABC broadcaster, Scott Hamilton, disagrees.

"I’d like to believe that we live in an enlightened age, and what goes on in a professional sports locker room stays in the locker room," Hamilton said. "But those can be truly nasty places. He [the inned skater] would be an outcast. They’d poke fun at his shoes, his hair, his choice of program music…they’d pounce on the poor breeder like a pack of hyenas."

"I’m talking unspeakably biting, sarcastic hyenas," he added warily. "Those are the worst kind."

Coach Carroll with former protege, Michelle Kwan.

Rumored heterosexual Brian Boitano.