As far as I can determine, the Yankee Doodle Damsels frolicking at the futbol fest Down Under are permitted to sing but not dance.
I arrived at that conclusion because numerous members of the United States Women’s National Team have been toasted like so many campfire marshmallows for declining to warble the Star-Spangled Banner pre-match. (And here I thought it was a futbol competition, not an audition for The Voice. Who knew?)
“These morons on the women’s soccer team continue to embarrass us on the national stage,” went a bleat from American journalist and media personality Megyn Kelly. “They won’t sing the national anthem. Half of them won’t put their hands over their hearts. Even the ones who are singing are half-assing it. They clearly don’t want to be doing it. I mean, they look like they don’t even want to be there. It’s like some sort of inconvenience to be representing the U.S.A. It’s shameful. These girls are shameful. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
But wait.
A few among the YDDs were also observed in full guffaw and—gadzooks!—doing a jig scant seconds after a dreary, you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me, nil-nil saw-off vs. not-so-mighty Portugal, a stalemate that thrust the Americans from the group stage and into the knockout kickabouts at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia/New Zealand. Apparently, a post-match do-si-do is also frowned upon.
“I’m all for positivity, but at the same time, the cheering, the dancing, I’ve got a problem with that,” gasped USWNT legend Carli Lloyd.
Many others have joined the chorus.
“I wonder if the US team—I’m hesitant to write ‘our team’—is aware, or even cares, that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, for self-respecting Americans to waste their time on them,” is how New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick put it.
Meantime, longtime journalist Jason Whitlock of Blaze Media described the Yankee Doodle Damsels as a “group of overpaid, spoiled, and entitled women who claim they’re underpaid and underappreciated and that they represent a racist, homophobic, and sexist country. I despise them. I want them to lose.”
Then it got nasty.
Megan Rapinoe
Whitlock reserved a special level of animosity for aging-out forward Megan Rapinoe, calling her “the ultimate pimp,” a “fraud” and “toxic,” and referencing “her shallowness.” Both Mushnick and Kelly provided the accompanying vocals, the former calling Rapinoe “vulgar” and the latter informing us that she has “poisoned the entire team against the country for which they play.” (Interesting to note that Kelly neglected to produce a sliver of evidence to support her accusation, but why let the facts get in the way, right?)
Anyway, if you’ve been trying to follow along at home, you either hate the Americans or you hate the Americans. And Rapinoe serves as the lightning rod for the hostility.
In his peculiar, spiteful essay that is part misogyny, part Title IX (“one of the greatest hustles in the history of pimping”) and an uncommon amount of Rapinoe-bashing, Whitlock puts her directly on the spit seven times, with nary a mention of any other member of the national women’s soccer side. The way he has it figured, whatever misadventure befalls the Yankee Doodle Damsels, it’s all on the gay forward with the big yap and the blue, short-cropped hair.
It’s as if Whitlock awoke one morning to discover Rapinoe in his kitchen, peeing on his Corn Flakes while her accomplices loitered outside on the team bus.
But here’s what I find myself wondering: How much, if any, of the anti-Rapinoe rhetoric we read and hear is rooted in her sexuality?
I know Whitlock, Kelly and Mushnick solely through their scribblings and commentary, thus I can only speculate on state-of-belief (you know, the same way they speculate about the American’s toxicity and narcissism), and I’m not prepared to suggest one or all three of them is anti-LGBT(etc.). Perhaps it’s a subconscious thing, though, because Rapinoe hasn’t been among the starting 11 for any of the Yankee Doodle Damsels’ three skirmishes, nor has she seen much of the pitch in a substitute role Down Under. She’s barely a spoke in the U.S.A. wheel. Still, the non-singing, the dancing…hey, why not blame the loud gay girl, right?
And maybe that’s what’s really at play here. It isn’t so much that Rapinoe is gay, it’s that she’s a loud lesbian. Put a microphone under her nose and a Pride parade breaks out: “Go gays! You can’t win a championship without gays on your team!”
But why is that leftover sound bite from 2019 considered obnoxious and objectionable?
I mean, didn’t Joe Willie Namath guarantee a Super Bowl win for the New York Jets? Ditto Mark Messier and the Stanley Cup for the New York Rangers? Both men were admired for their bravado (although a great many initially snickered when Joe Willie made his boast).
Yet when the loud lesbian says you can’t win without gays, she’s met with scorn and ridicule, and it hasn’t eased in four years. Even if her message was/is accurate.
Again, I can’t measure the undercurrent of anti-gay bias in the media, but it’s my experience that homophobes walk among news snoops. It’s just that most aren’t daft enough to say it out loud. They’re usually subtle.
Megan Rapinoe has had no influence on the pitch during the current kickabout, and who among us knows what goes on behind the Americans’ changing room doors? Perhaps she’s been performing Satanic rituals at halftime, or poking pins into a Lady Liberty doll, and she has her 22 younger Yankee Doodle Damsels hoodwinked into playing along.
In reality, Kelly, Mushnick, Whitlock and others of their ilk have produced zero evidence to support the notion that Rapinoe, a part-time player, has poisoned the U.S. water supply Down Under.
If she’s guilty of anything, it’s losing the final foot race with Father Time, the same fate that awaits all athletes.
So why demonize her? Because she’s a loud gay icon.
A Monday morning smorgas-bored…and adios to November and let those sleighbells ring…
I have sometimes wondered if sports editors and scribes consciously ignore female sports, or if it’s simply because they’re wired that way.
You know, like it’s a sexism gene that carries a built-in bias.
I mean, because it’s scientifically accepted that male athletes are bigger, stronger and faster—as are the major pro sports leagues—it seems to me that there’s an automatic reflex to play a guys’ story at the front of the sports section and relegate the women’s article to the back pages, if not spike the thing.
Consider hockey as a prime e.g.
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League was ignored out of business. There was scant game-day, or off-day coverage, in print or on air. Only when the CWHL turned out the lights did mainstream media sit up and take notice. Basically, they attended a total stranger’s funeral and gasped, “Oh, what a shame.”
When the Toronto Six of the National Women’s Hockey League anointed Digit Murphy head coach, it was like a tree falling in the forest. No one there to hear it? Guess it didn’t happen.
When the NWHL outlined its blueprint for a 2021 crusade last week, trumpeting a six-team tournament Jan. 23-Feb. 5 in a Lake Placid, N.Y., fan-free bubble, it was a three-paragraph brief on the last page of a 12-page sports section in the Toronto Sun. I found no mention of it on the Toronto Star website. That, even though there’s a franchise in the Republic of Tranna.
When was the last time we read anything about the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association and its Dream Gap Tour?
Let’s face it, unless it’s Canada v. U.S.A., Ponytail Puck is an afterthought in mainstream media. Why is that? Is it because the decision-makers know the finest female players in the world strain mightily to beat teenage boys at the Midget AAA or prep school level? And since they don’t cover Midget AAA or prep school level shinny, the women don’t warrant coverage either? Or is it the sexism gene?
Whatever the case, if Canadian newspapers aren’t prepared to write about the best female shinny players on the planet, what hope is there for other sports?
Oh, sure, female Olympic athletes are granted their due every two years, but none of the boys on the beat cover rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming by choice. They hold their noses and do so because it’s a small, inconvenient price to pay for an all-expenses-paid trip to Greece or Tokyo or London or Rio.
Olympic Games aside, it’s almost as if a female athlete or women’s event must include a circus side-show element to attract serious attention.
Sarah Fuller and her one and only kick.
We’ve seen plenty of the novelty acts, like the Kendall Coyne Schofield skedaddle and the 3-on-3 game during National Hockey League all-star hijinks, and Phil Esposito using Manon Rheaume as a publicity stunt in goal. And, of course, most recently we watched Sarah Fuller become the first female to participate in an NCAA Power 5 football game on Saturday.
It was as if Sarah had discovered a fool-proof vaccine for COVID-19, the way folks carried on, but she didn’t actually do anything other than breathe, unless one considers a 30-yard pooch kickoff and walking off the field without touching a foe a remarkable athletic accomplishment. But, hey, there were 21 male football players on the field and one female soccer player, so her presence certainly warranted ink and air time, and Sarah received more of each than any female footy player in a non-World Cup or Olympic year. Eat your heart out, Megan Rapinoe.
But, sans the carnival-barker component, mainstream media doesn’t seem interested, and it’s a sticking point they struggle to get past.
Early last month, SE Steve Lyons of the Winnipeg Free Press wrote about “being as equitable as possible” in terms of female/male coverage. So how is he doing since then?
Let’s just say that, to date, he talks a good game, but doesn’t deliver.
His Freep published 30 times in November. Copy/pics strictly about female athletes were featured on the front page of the section just five times—curler Kerri Einarson, retired volleyball player Tammy Mahon, WNBA, a pic of Kim Ng (the story was on the inside pages), and an Andrea Katz column. Total stories/briefs devoted to women in 30 days: 13/7.
That’s equitable like an Archie comic is deep reading material.
Over at the Winnipeg Sun, the picture is much more bleak. Females (curlers) found their way to the sports front once—repeat, once—in 29 editions. Total stories/briefs devoted to women: 9/1.
Pick up a daily newspaper—any newspaper—across our vast land and it’s the same.
Andrea Katz
Lyons has taken a step toward correcting the imbalance of sports coverage in the Drab Slab, bringing Katz on board to focus on the distaff side of the playground, and she made her first appearance on Saturday. The actual column failed to tell us anything many of us didn’t already know, but one assumes (hopes) it will become more informative and shine a light on our fabulous female athletes.
Credit to Lyons. It’s a starting point, which is a whole lot more than I can say for the lord and masters at Postmedia.
Here’s a prime example of the sexism gene at play: On Nov. 20, the Drab Slab ran golf stories on Tiger Woods and his son Charlie, the RSM Classic in Georgia and a brief on the Joburg Classic in Johannesburg. Meanwhile, there wasn’t a single word on the LPGA event that featured Canadians Brooke Henderson and Alena Sharp. Two days later, there was a full story on each of the men’s tournaments, while the Pelican Women’s Championship was a sports brief.
Initial reaction to Sarah Fuller suiting up to handle kicking chores for Vanderbilt on Saturday: Seriously? Vanderbilt has a football team?
Jason Whitlock
As much as Sarah’s participation in a major men’s college football game was newsworthy and hailed as a significant moment, many on social media dismissed the occasion as Tom-foolery and at least one prominent American jock journo, Jason Whitlock of Outkick the Coverage, gave it a long, hard crapping-on. “I don’t believe she played football,” wrote Whitlock, who’s scribbled for the Kansas City Star, ESPN and Fox Sports, among others. “She scored a point in the culture war. The people who believe the only difference between men and women is in how they choose to identify consider Fuller a poor woman’s Jackie Robinson. She broke big time football’s gender barrier. But did she? Sarah Fuller received a standing ovation for kicking the ball 30 yards or so and high-tailing it to the sidelines to be greeted by the winless head coach using her to save his job. This wasn’t Jackie Robinson 2.0. It was Make A Wish. Treating Sara Fuller like she’s a special-needs kid does not uplift the cause of equality.” Harsh, but not entirely inaccurate.
By the way, if you’re wondering why Vanderbilt recruited Sarah’s right leg rather than someone from the school’s men’s soccer side, there is no men’s soccer side. It was shut down in 2006.
It was a bit of the old, a bit of the new for the Drab Slab last week, with SE Lyons pulling his buddy and former columnist Paul Wiecek out of moth balls and introducing Katz on the same day. Nothing wrong with bringing Wiecek back for a cameo appearance. The guy can write. And he actually managed to scribble an entire essay without taking a cheap shot at Jacob Trouba, so I guess he’s mellowed since walking away from the columnist gig a couple of years ago.
Paul Friesen
Fabulous series from Paul Friesen of the Sun on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ journey to their 2019 Grey Cup win. It was a very readable, insightful, nine-part epic, even if there was no rhyme nor reason to the way the geniuses at Postmedia handled it. I believe they published Part One at the start of the pandemic and delivered the final installment this past Friday. Seriously, it took less time to film all the Rocky and Godfather movies combined. In reality, the Friesen series began on Oct. 9 and concluded on Nov. 27, and we had to guess on which days it would appear. Sometimes it was one day between installments, other times it was eight or nine days. Shabby. But oh so Postmedia.
A huge tip of the bonnet to home boy Don Duguid, one of my favorite people. The former world curling champ and longtime gab guy for the People’s Network has been appointed to the Order of Canada, and I trust that meets with everyone’s approval.
Just wondering, when the Winnipeg Jets brought Dave Lowry on board last week, did they hire their next head coach at the same time?
I saw highlights (if you want to call it that) of Charles Barkley playing golf the other day, and I’m lost to find an accurate description for Sir Charles’ swing. But a milking cow trying to climb a tree comes to mind.
Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson.
Mike Tyson informed news snoops that he smoked a joint or two prior to his fiftysomethings fist-fight v. Roy Jones Jr. on Saturday night. It’s also been reported and confirmed that anyone who actually paid to watch the two boxing fossils fight was also on drugs.
Loved this tweet from Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader-Post on the Tyson-Jones Jr. tiff: “This fight will be scored by using the 10-point rust system.”
Peanut Joe and Big Angie.
I didn’t watch Tyson-Jones Jr., but you’ll never convince me that it was a more entertaining old geezer dust-up than Joe Kapp v. Angelo Mosca, two Canadian Football League legends who’ve never exchanged Christmas cards. If you missed it, Peanut Butter Joe offered Big Angie a flower; Big Angie told him to “stick it up your ass.” Big Angie attempted to cocobonk Peanut Butter Joe with his metal cane; Peanut Butter Joe lashed out with a right fist to the jaw. Down goes Big Angie! Down goes Big Angie! A Grey Cup week classic.
December arrives on the morrow, so I grant permission to one and all to begin playing Christmas tunes.
Clara Hughes
This from Steve Simmons of Postmedia Tranna: Former lickety-split champion of the track, Donovan Bailey, is “Canada’s greatest modern Olympian.” Really? Let me count the ways Bailey, a two-time gold medalist, falls short:
Clara Hughes: Only Olympian in history to win multiple medals in both the Summer and Winter Games—1 gold, 1 silver, 4 bronze.
Cindy Klassen: Six medals—1 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze.
Hayley Wickenheiser, Jayna Hefford: Five medals—4 gold, 1 silver.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: Five medals—3 gold, 2 silver.
Charles Hamelin: Five medals— 3 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze.
Marc Gagnon: Five medals—3 gold, 2 bronze.
Francois-Louis Tremblay: Five medals—2 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze.
Lesley Thompson: Five medals—1 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze.
Caroline Ouillette: Four medals—4 gold.
Jennifer Botterill, Becky Kellar, Meghan Agosta: Four medals—3 gold, 1 silver.
Kathleen Heddle, Marnie McBean: Four medals—3 gold, bronze.
Gaetan Boucher: Four medals—2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze.
Eric Bedard: Four medals—2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze.
Victor Davis: Four medals—1 gold, 3 silver.
Denny Morrison: Four medals—1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze.
Adam van Koeverden: Four medals—1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze.
Penny Oleksiak: Four medals—1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze
Kim St-Pierre, Cherie Piper, Colleen Sostorics, Gillian Apps, Charline Labonte: Three medals—3 gold. Danielle Goyette: Three medals—2 gold, 1 silver.
Carolyn Waldo: Three medals—2 gold, 1 silver.
Rosie MacLennan: Two medals—2 gold.
Either Simmons doesn’t consider any of the above to be “modern” Olympians, or he can’t count.
Why the Winnipeg Sun continues to run Simmons’ Tranna-centric copy is an ongoing mystery, and it continues to get up my nose. In his most recent alphabet fart, he prattled on about attendance at Blue Jays games, the Maple Leafs payroll, Auston Matthews, Blue Jays play-by-play guy Mike Wilner, the Blue Jays pursuit of free agents, Terence Davis of the Tranna Jurassics, Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster contract situations with the Jurassics, the Toronto FC payroll, sports gambling in Ontario, Serge Ibaka leaving the Jurassics, a new ballpark for the Republic of Tranna, and the Argos losing the 1971 Grey Cup game. This is what Postmedia believes people in Good Ol’ Hometown want to read on a Sunday morning? The Winnironto Sun? Spare me.
And, finally, the RCR has topped the 50,000 mark in views for the year, which is my cue to retreat for a spell. I shall return Christmas week and not a day sooner. Unless, of course, stupid happens before Santa touches down. In the meantime, thanks for dropping by.
I’d say them’s fighting words, except the last time we fought the Americans it was a rout and we really don’t want or need to burn down the White House again, do we?
Okay, grasshopper, I believe we need to take a Zen timeout. A mindful moment, if you will. Breathing in, say, “Jason Whitlock is an ass clown.” Breathing out, say, “Don Cherry is an ass clown.”
Breathing in, Jason Whitlock is an ass-clown. Breathing out, Don Cherry is an ass-clown.
There now, grasshopper. Don’t you feel better accepting the reality that there are ass-clowns on both sides of the vast North American divide?
We’ve long known about Cherry, of course, because the Lord of Loud has been sitting in his Hockey Night in Canada bully pulpit for 30-plus years, repeatedly reminding “you kids out there” that there is only one proper way to play shinny, and that’s the chip, chase and toothless “CANADIAN WAY!”
We have heart. We have soul. And they don’t.
Who are “they?” Everybody else. Especially Russians, who, according to a classic Cherry rant, “suck and they always HAVE SUCKED” and they have “ZERO” heart. So there.
As for those other “they” countries, which apparently includes the province of Quebec, their players wear face shields and have all their teeth. You cannot possibly have heart and soul if you’ve arrived at the National Hockey League level with a full set of tusks. So there.
There are, of course, mobs of hosers who sip Grapes’ Kool-Aid (Cherry-flavored, naturally). The Baron of Bombast has them convinced we win hockey matches because we want to win. Players from the “they” countries don’t want to win.
But whoa, Nellie.
Now we have Jason Whitlock telling us it isn’t so. At least not with our basketball players. Our hosers of the hardwood play hoops like the “they” hockey countries play hockey. Without heart. Without soul. With all their teeth.
“Andrew Wiggins is from Canada,” Whitlock, an ESPN columnist of substantial rank, says of the Canadian kid chosen first by the Cleveland Cavliers in the recent National Basketball Association draft. “Canadian athletes…perhaps don’t want it as much as some of the Europeans and certainly the American players.
“This is what a lot of NBA people believe, that American-born and even some of the European players that come (over to play in the NBA). They have more intensity, more of a hunger for the game. They’re not as laid back. Look, Canada’s a laid-back place, which is probably a positive thing. There’s positive-ness to not taking basketball and being so intense or being so bottom-line driven as we are here in America where it’s work, work, work, work, work and just go-get-go-get and that’s all we respect. But I’m just telling you, this is the conversation with basketball people: Does he have that ‘dog’ in him? Does he want to be the greatest all the time? Does he know how to give that consistent effort all the time? And they think that’s a question that a lot of players from north of the border have to answer.”
I’d say them’s fighting words, except the last time we fought the Americans it was a rout and we really don’t want or need to burn down the White House again, do we?
I mean, what’s to be gained in going off on Jason Whitlock and his sprawling generalization of the Great White North as a nation of slackers? I suppose I could paint all Americans with a brush that colors them loud, rude and obnoxious, but that would make Donald S. Cherry a closet American. Besides, I know an American who is not loud, rude and obnoxious. With any luck, I’ll meet another one before I’m ashes in an urn, eh.
I must confess I’m not offended by the utterances of Jason Whitlock. There might even be a thimble of truth in what he’s saying. We are a laid-back lot, are we not? We don’t rev our engines over any silly, little thing. It has to be an important issue. Like who owns the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme. Or why we have scratch-and-sniff $100 bills that smell like maple syrup.
How can our NBA players be expected to concentrate and want to win with such weighty matters preying on their minds?
Little wonder our Steve Nash only won two NBA most valuable player awards. Surely slacker Steve would have brought home more than two measly MVP trinkets had he not been a laid-back Canadian. Mind you, that’s still one more MVP award than either Kobe Bryant or Shaq ever won. But, hey, who’s counting when you’re slagging an entire nation?
Look, Jason Whitlock is a very good writer but also a blowhard. He has described himself as “fat black man” and he often works race into his print rantings. He once tweeted an extremely crude comment about the size of NBA player Jeremy Lin’s penis, then, in a forced, faux mea culpa, claimed his “immature, sophomore comedic nature” was the product of listening to too many Richard Pryor albums when he was a fat black kid.
Oh, isn’t that so American. Blame the black guy. Perhaps Don Cherry can blame the McKenzie Brothers the next time he says something stupid on HNIC. Coo, roo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo.
Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old, comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she doesn’t know when to quit. She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C.
The River City Renegade 
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