“Since when do YOU like hockey?” That was my male friend’s response after I told him I felt Montreal Canadiens, goaltender, Carey Price, could benefit from a challenge in net, rather than being handed the number one spot. Unfortunately, I’ve gotten this reaction quite a few times, and rest assured, the guys acting so surprised aren’t neanderthals by any means. They just seem to have a hard time believing that a girl can follow a professional sport like hockey &- and (gasp) actually enjoy it. Well, the times seem to be changing, and female hockey fans (at least in Canada) could very well be part of the evolutionary process.
For some reason, guys automatically assume that when girls say they like hockey it’s because they find a player good looking. Or because they have a boyfriend or male friends who like hockey. Better yet, they think girls just like the atmosphere of a bar on game nights, and that seeing a live game makes for a fun outing.
Dave Stubbs, a longtime Montreal Canadiens reporter for the Gazette, and a contributor to its hockey blog, Habs Inside/Out, says there’s a commonly held view that women like hockey for the social gatherings that accompany it. However, Stubbs said he’s seen a shift away from this attitude recently. “In my view, the level and intensity of interest in NHL hockey in women has greatly changed over the years,” he said in an email. Stubbs credits the growing female fan base, particularly in Canada, to the overwhelming amount of print, online and television media exposure that hockey receives, as well as an increase in the number of women playing the sport.
The idea of women being attracted to the social aspect associated with hockey has evidence to back it up. A 2009 study about Canadian female sports fans by Reginald Bibby, a sociologist and professor at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, shows that women attend sporting events because of social incentives such as Stanley Cup parties and tailgates. The study found that most women at sporting events, regardless of which sport they’re watching, tend to fiddle with their cell phones rather than paying attention to the game. According to Bibby, women are typically introduced to a given sport through a male “missionary” figure that teaches them how the game works.
Nevertheless, the survey indicates that of all the professional sports leagues in the world, the National Hockey League has the greatest number of female fans &- counting 21 per cent of Canadian adult women, and 25 per cent of Canadian teenage girls among its fans. He attributes this to the hockey media frenzy in Canada, saying, “the NHL receives an incredible amount of Canadian media attention, especially in Toronto and Montreal &- readily outdistancing the attention any other professional sports league gets, including the NFL and the CFL. One would expect that some of the extensive media play and aggressive marketing would stick for women as well as men.”
Still, Bibby says people shouldn’t get too excited about these statistics.
“One’s initial impression might be that there are lots of women following the league because there are a good number who do. It’s just that when we actually do our counting, we quite quickly find out that the number of female fans are readily outnumbered by males in every part of the country,” said Bibby. According to his research, 46 per cent of male Canadian teens and 39 per cent of Canadian adult males are hockey fans.
A female blogger, known online under the androgynous handle J.T, is behind the Montreal Canadiens blog entitled, “The H does not stand for Habs.” She says she’s had a fair share of encounters with men who believe women who like hockey are infringing on their typically male domain. J.T explains this by the fact that while men are typically signed up for hockey teams at a young age and watch games with their fathers, women’s socialization into hockey is much different. Unlike men, they tend to make a conscious, personal choice to like hockey as they get older, and for altogether different reasons. This perceived difference, she says, contributes to the “boys’ club” mentality surrounding the sport. This also means that girls are more hesitant about sharing their opinions regarding hockey because they don’t want to be exposed to ridicule by guys who don’t take them seriously.
Habs fan Jessica Bongiovi, 24, explained the difference by saying “when the game’s over, a girl is going to shut the TV off, do something else. Guys tend to watch the post-game show, talk about it with a friend, maybe go online and read an article on TSN. It’s a different type of fan.”
But according to Stubbs, it’s not necessarily a negative thing that women aren’t as fanatical about hockey as men.
“I find it refreshing that fewer serious female fans feel compelled to make hockey a 13-month-a-year obsession and in August sweat about who might be the Canadiens’ third-line left-winger,” said Stubbs.
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