so the Facebook pages for the NHL can be fun places to follow. especially the NHL page itself, but that's a trainwreck for another day. here's a little something I found on the official Blackhawks page. now, this was mid-October, when 90% of fans were all panicky about Cristobal Huet's iffy goaltending (he is now no longer getting booed at games). the opinion expressed isn't what's important, it's who's saying it and the response:
wait, did you see that? Rick here has some kind of stunning vision that allows him to see the same opinion being expressed by men and by women, and yet only see the women, and declare they don't know about hockey! there's not much to say about that (a perusal of the blogs on my blogroll will turn up a great number of women who know about hockey) except to take some small measure of glee in that, since the vast majority of Facebook users use their real name, one can't hide their sexist douchebaggery behind anonymity like on so much of the Internet.
having said that, here's a shocking revelation (if you've never read any other post on this blog):
I DON'T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HOCKEY.
but! this has nothing to do with whatever body parts I possess which I won't mention so as to again feebly try to avoid weird traffic to this blog. it's because I'm an ignorant Midwesterner, that is, a Midwesterner who grew up in a state that wasn't Minnesota or Michigan. I didn't grow up seeing hockey in real life or on TV. I didn't pay attention to it when I moved to Chicago (also, you might know about how Blackhawks games weren't broadcast on TV locally for years...) and for a long time didn't have friends who tried to get me into it. this is why I'm a late bloomer with hockey.
I'm obviously still learning, and this is why, though I go to a lot of games and post comments on a lot of hockey-related places online, I'm not offering up real opinions and analysis about the game itself, but observations on hockey and sports culture. I'm timid enough in some ways to feel like I have to immerse myself in sports talk for a year or two before I can say much (not that ignorance stops, well, many of the Facebook commenters from commenting).
but if I don't know much about hockey, it's not because of my gender, and I won't take well to gender-based insults. (I'm still too obscure to have received any.) remember, it's: ignorant Midwesterner (or for Canadians who want to be jerks, ignorant American). I will also reluctantly accept "fat-assed ignorant Midwesterner," given that nights in eating macaroni and cheese or frozen pizza and watching games online might not produce the most sculpted physique.
fortunately, though there can be a lot of things that bother me on the hockey blogs and sites I frequent, the antediluvian* nonsense of commenters saying "women don't know about sports" is quite rare, at least on sites not named Puck Daddy**...
*yes, I said "antediluvian" on a sports blog. and it's not even the "word of the day" or anything. I just need to feel smart and reassure myself a little chippy isn't only an excuse to use "Lucic" and "crotch" in the same sentence. like I did last week...
**I usually like the blog itself, but the comments can be so offensive, ignorant, and horrifying at times that they'll turn me off of the Internet, sometimes for even an hour or two!
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