When you’ve been taking in oxygen for 73-plus years, you’ve seen some fads.
You know, things like Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. The Pet Rock. Hula hoops. Hacky sacks. Mood rings. Lava lamps. Davy Crockett coon-skin caps. Rubik’s Cube. ThighMaster. The Macarena. Lava lamps. Waterbeds.
Some of them lasted about as long as summer wages, while others had considerable staying power.
I mention these now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t items because there’s a faddish feel to the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
I mean, the upstart PWHL is clearly the flavor du jour and, judging by the smiling faces in the crowd, it’s quite evident that parents don’t have to drag their kids to the rink kicking and screaming. Our little people can’t get enough of their female hockey heroes.
The demand has been significant, with these head counts to date: Toronto 2,537 (sellout); Ottawa 8,318 (world record for professional Ponytail Puck); Boston 4,012; New York 2,152; Minnesota 13,316 (new world record). That’s not to ignore a boffo TV audience for the New York-Toronto opening act (2.9 million on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet).
It all adds up to a feel-good story and, notably, early indications tell us that media is all-in on the PWHL.
It’s been sunshine, lollipops and a sprinkling of fairy dust since the rollout began in the Republic of Tranna on New Year’s Day, with the first five skirmishes of the season airing on both linear TV and online, and there’s been no shortage of attention from the print side.
Indeed, The Athletic reports that scant seconds after the Montreal-Ottawa game at The Arena at TD Place in the nation’s capital last Tuesday, home side head coach Carla MacLeod encountered a gathering of two dozen news snoops and seven TV microphones.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “This is incredible. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Meanwhile, Ponytail Puck was front page of the newspaper in Toronto, Ottawa and Boston. Not just front page of sports. Front page of…the…newspaper.
PWHL predecessors—Canadian Women’s Hockey League, Premier Hockey Federation—were never favored with that level of interest. Any reporters who attended CWHL games came dressed as pallbearers.
Question is, what does the media do once the PWHL’s new-car smell has worn off? Do those Page One articles, top-of-the-hightlight-show mentions and live broadcasts on multiple channels disappear?
I mean, as the new kid on the jock block settled in comfortably during the past week, I couldn’t help but recall a Winnipeg Free Press editorial from last February.
The opinion piece spoke to an increasingly nasty dispute between Soccer Canada and the country’s national women’s side, and it was quite scolding in tone, mentioning “ugly gender inequalities” and arguing that “Women’s sport has chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”
It cited a 2021 University of Southern California/Purdue University study that found 80 per cent of televised sports news and highlight shows in the United States included “zip, zilch, nada” mention of female athletes.
Let’s set aside for a moment the reality that the Freep was a pot looking for a kettle to call black (its record on the female file is dismal; see below). Let’s deal strictly with the female/male across-the-board imbalance we see on our flatscreens, in our newspapers, online and on digital platforms.
Most studies tell us that females receive 4-6 per cent of overall sports coverage, although Waserman’s The Collective indicates a more accurate figure is 15 per cent.
Either way, the freshly minted PWHL is trudging uphill in a quest to stake out a plot on a sports media landscape divvied up mostly on the whims of men, many of whom have been brainwashed into believing female athletes are second-hand Roses best kept on the periphery, if not out of sight. (Unless, of course, some cleavage is showing, in which case the Postmedia tabloids will find ample room for a lede and sidebar, right beside the Sunshine Girl.)
It’s a tough haul for any new jock op to make a go of it, but more so on the distaff side of the playground where, as the aforementioned Free Press editorial accurately summarized, female athletes/teams have “chronically been devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”
So let’s be clear on one thing: The PWHL needs the sports media. It’s not the other way around.
The PWHL is like that new chew toy you bring home for your dog. Ol’ Yeller is keen to gnaw on the thing the first few days, but he soon loses interest and goes back to chewing the couch cushions. A lot of sports editors/directors are like Ol’ Yeller.
Put it another way: You can still buy a Cabbage Patch Kids doll today, but it isn’t the riotous bit of business we witnessed 40 years ago, when body armor was a requirement for any parent brave enough to face the toy store mobs in search of the ugly, little things. People actually suffered broken limbs in the chaos (true story). But who even talks about Cabbage Patch Kids these days?
Perhaps this first-week, widespread media embrace of the PWHL is a signal that attitudes are adjusting and that sports editors/directors won’t be quick to abandon this iteration of Ponytail Puck.
Maybe, just maybe, Ol’ Yeller has learned a new trick.
As mentioned above, an example of the great female/male divide in sports coverage can be found on the pages of the Free Press, or as I like to call it, the Drab Slab. As much as they talk a good game about their attention to female athletes/teams, they’re miserable slackers on the female file. Here are the numbers for articles/briefs exclusive to female and male sports for 2023:
Male: 3,892 M (324 per month ave.)
Female: 696 F (58 ave.)
Local female: 192 (16 ave.; average of 10 for the last nine months of 2023.)
Here’s something else: In seven of 12 months, half or more of the total e-editions contained 0 local female coverage. Yes, zero. As in “zip, zilch, nada.”
And yet they have the balls to talk about “ugly gender inequalities” and how female athletes have been “devalued and dismissed, and often ignored entirely.”
If they recognize it’s wrong, why the hell don’t they do something about it?
In the department of Things You Thought You’d Never Hear, I give you Daniella Ponticelli, play-by-play voice with the PWHL. After a late, third-period goal by Laura Stacey in Montreal’s OT win over Ottawa, an excited Ponticelli delivered this gem: “And how about that? First person she gets to hug, her teammate, her linemate Marie-Philip Poulin. Of course those two are engaged and it’s just an incredible moment to share.” It was also an incredible call by Ponticelli, who humanized the occasion by referencing the off-ice relationship between the two gay women. Loved it.
Just a thought: I don’t recall play-by-play pioneer Foster Hewitt ever describing a fiancé-fiancé goal during his time in the Gondola (Google it, kids).
Not so lovely are numerous juvenile comments online that make sport of the sexual orientation and/or question the gender of PWHL players. The specifics of the ugliness won’t be repeated here, but suffice to say some people truly need to get a life.
Count me surprised that the PWHL hasn’t mandated neck protection. Players are required to wear full cages to guard against facial owies, but they’re one skate blade away from a ghastly neck wound (or worse). Doesn’t make sense.
If you’re scoring at home, the eye-popping 13,316 head count for the PWHL Montreal-Minnesota do-si-do at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Saturday was a better number than 12 of Winnipeg Jets home dates this season. It tops the average attendance at the Little Hockey House On The Prairie. But, hey, no one wants to watch Ponytail Puck, right?
Again, if you’re scoring at home, women take care of business quicker than the men: All five PWHL skirmishes in the past week were less than 2 1/2 hours from faceoff to final buzzer, whereas nine of last night’s 12 NHL games took more than 2 1/2 hours to complete. The difference isn’t great, but it gives fans at an NHL game ample time for an extra beer run.
A brief comment about the actual PWHL on-ice product: There aren’t enough players with a shoot-first mentality. So many in prime scoring position, so many dumb passes. Shoot the puck, ladies.
There’s been much chatter about the Jennifer Botterill-Jamal Mayers-Sam Cosentino natter the other night on Sportsnet, whereby the trio discussed the merits of the men’s hockey “code,” which, albeit unwritten, is a twisted version of the golden rule and states one must do unto others what others have done to you. In other words, poke out a foe’s eye if said foe has already plucked out a teammate’s eye.
Naturally, Mayers and Cosentino threw in with all advocates of goon hockey, saying two-handed head-bashing with a club is an admirable bit of business to be celebrated rather than scorned. They sounded as dopey as they looked, especially Mayers.
Botterill, meanwhile, pooh-poohed that caveman mentality, shrieking that “it is archaic” and submitting “there’s a difference between tough and physical and cheap and dirty.”
No surprise that many keyboard warriors were quick to pounce on Botterill, insisting that the great Olympic champion has no business opining on such matters because she never played in the NHL.
Well, I’ve got news for you keyboard warriors: Neither did you.
Interesting tweet from Murat Ates of The Athletic: “I can’t speak for any other sports reporter but, for me, the idea of being a perfectly objective robot about the team I cover is a myth.” Amen to that, Murat. I’ve been there and done that, and I can confess that I wanted the 1979 Winnipeg Jets to win, I wanted the 1973 Portage Terriers to win, I wanted Donny Lalonde to knock Sugar Ray Leonard’s block off, but I tried not to let my rooting interest creep into my copy. Were I still in the rag trade, I’d be cheering like hell for the PWHL to succeed. Harboring an unspoken rooting interest for the athletes/teams you cover isn’t a flaw. It’s being human. Back in my day, us beat writers were part of the travelling party, riding on the team bus and often sitting beside them on team flights, which were commercial. I once had American Thanksgiving dinner with Pat Stapleton and his family, at their home, when he coached the Indianapolis Racers. What, I’m not supposed to root for him?
It wasn’t shocking that Connor McDavid scored five points in a game last week. It’s shocking that the Edmonton Oilers captain did it in just 16 minutes and 35 seconds on the freeze. Four forwards and five defencemen had more ice time.
So, the Hamilton Tabbies have performed a nip-and-tuck on brittle quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell’s contract, reducing the bottom line from $522,000 in salary to $225,000 and a $50,000 signing bonus plus incentives. That’s good pay for a guy who’ll spend 2/3 of the Rouge Football season in the infirmary.
My first thought when I heard the Edmonton Elks had signed McLeod Bethel-Thompson to play QB in the 2024 crusade? Is it April 1?
And, finally, apparently a teenage boy in Oklahoma, Willis Gibson, became the first human to beat Tetris. I’d say I’m impressed, but first someone will have to tell me what Tetris is.
The River City Renegade 
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