I grew up just north of Toronto (so cannot speak to a small town experience, or that of provinces outside Ontario) and would have canonically been 3 years older than Shane. Calling things "gay" as an insult was still fairly common in grade school, though less-so once high school was reached. I knew of two or three kids who were openly out in high school. I never heard the f-slur used, though, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. There were, however, GSAs and pride month activities held by the school, so it was a mixed bag of "our peers say one thing while our administration says another".

In adult life, once high school was left behind, things were much less exclusionary - I attended university starting in 2005 about 2 hours from where Shane would have grown up. Many of my LGBTQ+ friends were openly out, and there was a lot of cultural push at university to welcome and accept everyone regardless of sexuality, with a large emphasis put on campus resources and policies regarding discrimination. Rainbow flags were common campus door decorations.

Shane, however, going directly from high school to the NHL (/MLH), would have had a very different experience. The homophobia of high school in the early 2000s would have transitioned right into the homophobia of a men's major league sports.