Here's what the Rockford IceHogs are doing as promotions at their game November 16. I'd say presented without comment, but I have to link to other's comments, since this became a big story. (And since I haven't checked the IceHogs site as often as other teams', I learned of this first through Puck Daddy.)
Here's the Puck Daddy story that set this off, "Pass or Fail: AHL Rockford IceHogs' Mexican fiesta Los IceHogs jerseys." Hundreds of comments! I don't want to read more than a few!
Then Deadspin jumped in with the bluntly titled "AHL Team Will Wear Racist Jerseys In Celebration Of Hispanic Heritage Weekend." "Ham-handed gesture," heh. Some decent comments there, and thankfully the "Voted Rockford's #1 Mexican Restaurant" Taco Bell billboard photo turned up.
IceHogs blog response to this (for permalink purposes, I can't link to the individual piece but I linked to the November 2012 category).
And the reaction when this was the daily poll (!) (okay, not that big a !, as they do some pop culture/less serious news polls, but still I was surprised) on WGN's morning news in Chicago today:
But without much context presented on the show, I don't know if "too far" means people think it's just ugly, if it means they think it's an insensitive stereotype, or even if they're bothered by the idea of the team having a Latino-themed promotion. Stay tuned for part 2, I guess (especially if I end up at the game somehow).
so I said I'd post a little more about green St. Patrick's hockey jerseys, and it got delayed past March 17. but hey, Chicago kept St. Pat's going past then, because the annual "Shamrock Shuffle" was today. (since this is an event that's 1) outside and 2) requires physical exertion, I know next to nothing about it.) anyhow, I'd hoped to get a few photos of green jersey fouls at games I went to this week, but saw nothing too bad.
but first: bikinis! Friday afternoon, this Puck Daddy piece debated the new $40 NHL bikinis (available in certain teams only so far), with three female bloggers. two of my favorites, I Mean, We Got Guys & Wrap Around Curl, plus Hitthepost!, which I don't know too well (by the way, I'd like to point out that I'm available for roundtable discussions. and guest posts. and columns. and...). nice discussion about hockey apparel and what the NHL does/doesn't do for its female fans. of course, it being Puck Daddy, almost immediately there was a "these bloggers must be ugly anyway" comment, and by the third page, a troll asking "why let some silly economic idea like 'demand' (or lack thereof) get in the way of Marxist knee-jerk gender obsessions?" *speechless*
anyway, this is the sort of thing I left out of the first post (which was more Irish-themed hockey jerseys, not St. Patrick's-themed team jerseys):
last week on NHL.com I found this (what's especially St. Pat's about the Bruins item? just being Boston-related doesn't qualify it, does it?):
I liked seeing how much was available for each team based on size of their fanbase and/or Irish-American population in their city, presumably (I'd think the NYC-area teams would have more available):
what was my point? not that I'm bothered by having St. Patrick's-related apparel per se, but that the all-green items that don't just incorporate the team's name but its logo too? well, how are they different from:
the dreaded pink jerseys! now, I don't care for all-pink jerseys (the above is a girl's one, which bothers me less than adult women wearing them--the NHL store didn't even have women's pink Hawks jerseys when I just checked), but are they objectively worse than all-green jerseys? either way, you're not properly wearing the team colors (green Flames? green Red Wings? to use examples from above). the gender-based marketing behind them bothers me, but I don't see the object itself as any more objectionable. in fact...well, sometimes it seems like too easy a way to pick on female fans. I think many critics of pink jerseys use it as a shorthand for new or bandwagon fans, without any sexist intent. but there is also, um, let's say, a longstanding cultural tendency to insult things that are identified with women. (see: well, the vast majority of the trash-talking done in any men's sport.)
that's the monochromatic jersey. there's also these:
that's from a fun piece on the Chicago Wolves' site about their St. Patrick's jerseys over the years. now, as with so much minor league apparel, these can be a bit goofy, but because they have the proper logo in the proper colors, it's different. and I've seen jerseys and shirts that use a pink background and regular logo (pale pink for breast cancer awareness, or in the case of a Cincinnati Cyclones girl's shirt, their red and yellow logo on a bright pink background. I kind of wanted to buy it). in fact, there was a Puck Daddy defense of that type of pink jersey (now I'm wondering if I can find any fight videos with a player in one of those fundraiser pink jerseys!).
okay, enough. all this is reminding me that's it's nearly the end of the season and I don't have any hockey jerseys of my own yet. and I now have a strange search history on NHL.com thanks to this piece:
hey, that's not a bad headline (and bonus points for "Could it be
Satan?," regardless of how that name is actually pronounced). this was an exciting game to be at, though very different from Bruins @ Blackhawks last month. since it'll be a few days before I'm at my own computer, no real recap/photos yet. but I will say this: my Boston-area friend (who got me into hockey in the first place), who is also a Bruins & Blackhawks fan, wore his Duncan Keith jersey tonight (Keith is his favorite NHL player) (and loaned me a Hawks away jersey I wore for a while tonight), and I wore my Keith shirt (because I haven't saved up for any jersey yet), and damn if Keith didn't score TWO goals (only his second 2-goal game; the first was 2006) AND get an assist AND become #1 star of the game. (along with Kane and Toews, which just felt like rubbing it in to Boston--"hey, look, ALL our big-stars-with-new-contracts!") I'm not sure he's even scored in a while...but he did it for us! oh, and Blackhawks had to continue their streak of always winning when I see them--every Chicago game, plus Pittsburgh and Boston. (sadly, Boston has lost every game I've seen them play, but two were against the Hawks.) I wanted the Blackhawks to win (though I'd have felt fine if the Bruins won), but didn't want to see the B's lose that badly. as a nice Midwestern girl (uh...) I feel a little guilty.
oh hey, you should read this post at Hockey Gone Wildsince it mentions me! and you should read the other posts there because I enjoy that blog quite a bit; if I hadn't ended up a Bruins fan due to the friend mentioned above (and past family connections to the Boston area), HGW might have been enough to convince me...
well, I'd like to finish posting on the Pittsburgh trip before the next Hawks game I attend, but oops. a couple things came up. I finally added Jezebel to my blog reader recently, although they post so frequently I have oodles of celebrity stuff to skip through. Tuesday I'd barely stopped laughing from their latest takedown of Cosmopolitan (with possibly the stupidest "effects of the recession" story yet-- guess what men are now doing a lot because of the recession! no, really! because of the recession?!) and controlled my giddiness over the Hello Kitty jet used in Taiwan (adorable! and creepy!), when what shows up but a story about a high school hockey fight. of a girl on a boy's team fighting off boys.
I saw this last week on the blog The Scrappy Octopus, and now Jezebel and Deadspin are getting around to it. the piece was by Latoya Peterson; a writer whose work I enjoy. she admits that "I am not familiar enough with ice hockey to know if there is a movement of any sort to stop fighting on the ice." fortunately, many commenters (who I presume to be female at Jezebel unless they state otherwise) are hockey fans and current or former players, and provided some context. for instance, fighting really isn't allowed in high school or college hockey, so it's strange the refs didn't try to break this up. and fighting serves a purpose in pro hockey and most fans, uh, are okay with that.
a comment at Jezebel I liked: "She held her own. It looked like a gender-neutral fight that happened when things got heated around the goal, which happens -- skaters get protective of their goalie. I'd have more of a problem if people said, 'oh, she shouldn't do that, as a female player, she should elevate her skills and rise above the male tendency to be violent.' It's hockey. Sometimes ya gotta throw down, eh?"
and a critique of their fighting technique itself: "No dropped gloves, no love."
a confluence of hockey and feminism--awesome! and then later the same day...OH NO, WATCH OUT, ANY DAY NOW I'M GOING TO RUIN THE INTERNET FOR YOU WITH MY HYSTERICAL OVERREACTIONS TO EVERYTHING
so, Cycle Like the Sedins has a new feature with female hockey bloggers explaining how they got into hockey and blogging. the latest edition of Odd Woman Rush featured one of the first hockey blogs I found, Talk Hockey to Me. blogger Teka said, "My hockey blog was really a spinoff of my “normal” blog, and now my normal blog is the one that gets ignored for weeks and weeks on end." heh, I can relate. she also says "At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m the only self-identified feminist hockey blog out there." well, not to sound all competitive (you know the ladies love competition! and only ONE OF US can be successful! it's gonna be me, bitch! and so forth), but no, now there's two.
I'm not bothering with an explanation--look, here'sfeminism 101 if you need it. nor do I expect to say much, besides the occasional bit of snark (like my recent bit about a loser on Facebook), about stereotypes about female fans as puckbunnies, or the pink jersey issue, or Ice Girls. that's all been well-covered, often by Teka herself, including in her thesis (which as a huge nerd I was thrilled to find--yes, I read an academic account of female hockey fandom right as I became a fan!) but...my "issue"?
well, I like the rough-and-tumble (okay, vulgar) world of sports blogs. (I love blogs and sites about urbanism and architecture and transportation but um, they're a little less funny, maybe?) but I have trouble with the metaphors of/"jokes" about rape and sexual humiliation, and the sexist and anti-gay slurs, common in sports blog writing and commenting (mostly, but not only, from men). there are blogs I might read but not blogroll but because of it, and there are blogs I blogroll despite this sometimes or often being an issue (frankly, some of the Blackhawks blogs--including ones whose writers I've met--are frequent offenders). I don't see many sports bloggers, male or female, addressing this, and it's never discussed on feminist blogs, even though I see sports fans and sports stories there sometimes. I'm bothered less by what sports leagues are or aren't doing to attract women as fans, than by what other fans are doing that makes many fans or would-be fans feel attacked and excluded.
I'm mostly here to have fun, whether it's about what it's like becoming a fan, or mocking the sports media. I won't, you know, whine or get hysterical about that sexism now; I'm just bottling up lots and lots of frustration and rage now--I'm sure that's a perfectly healthy thing to do!--to use for future posts. oh, MAN UP, you can take some constructive criticism, when I get around to it.
so, to count the ways that was an exciting/significant game: 1) it was the Blackhawks' first game at home since Nov. 15, after the successful 6-game Canada/California trip and 2) first game this year against division rivals the Blue Jackets (and Hawks still haven't even played the Blues yet, but played Avalanche 3 times already?) (and my first time seeing the Jackets).
I bought a copy of The Committed Indian from Sam outside the United Center--oh, I'll count that as 3) even if I buy one at every game. I got there in plenty of time for my 4) free winter hat, which I'll be wearing in Pittsburgh this weekend (probably covering up the corporate logo on the back).
and in time for the warmup, where the Hawks were sporting their 5) third jerseys for the first time this year. sure, they're virtually identical to the Winter Classic ones...
I got to see all the players up close though getting pictures with a point & shoot was challenging. I saw Kane toss pucks to people near me, twice.
the game! 6) Marian Hossa's home debut with the Blackhawks. I loooove this video they show right before the game but have yet to get a photo of my favorite scenes, which of course involve the L train going by. this scene is in Millennium Park:
7) exciting goals. Hawks are first to score with a shorthanded goal from Versteeg, and the other two Hawks goals in regulation (by Toews and Sharp) are on power plays. two assists from Hossa!
and it was a 8) close game because oh right, the Jackets scored a few times too, and had the lead for a good chunk of the game. worst of all was the goal scored just 40 seconds into the third to take a 3-2 lead.
so it went to overtime and then a 9) shootout. okay, so I haven't said anything yet about this teenage boy behind me who spent the WHOLE GAME talking to a friend/acquaintance from Australia, who'd never been to a hockey game before. now, the Australian wasn't asking questions. the other kid just felt the need to explain everything about hockey and the Hawks to him, and when I'd hoped for sweet relief by the second period, he moved on to explaining America to him. really. how our seasons and our gun laws and drinking laws compare to Australia, and what Texas is like, and...I'm surprised he didn't throw in an explanation of the electoral college, or how the development of the interstate highway system contributed to patterns of housing segregation in cities. he didn't say anything stupid (though he blanked on what Hossa's first name is) until: "Everyone loves shootouts." uh, well they'd be fun to watch if they didn't actually COUNT. he was saying this in the 3rd period, and that he'd never seen a shootout before. did that curse us to have one?
so, shootout. Hossa scored one early. Rick Nash fell down, hilariously. then nothing happened for a long time. the Hawks stars you might expect to win this didn't, as did players like Kopecky and Byfuglien who haven't been doing a lot recently and this would have been a great time for them to save the day. I nearly felt ill as it kept going and going. I'd say I was developing a heart condition but when I got home I heard about the Leafs' Jonas Gustavsson having to leave last night's game due to one, and that worries me. anyway, it 10) finally ends with Seabrook for a Hawks win!
I found out later it was 11 rounds, the longest shootout in Hawks history, even worse than anything involving the Avalanche. nice to be part of "history," maybe, but damn, I was blaming it on that kid. in my mind, I was going through the list of hockey penalties (which of course, he'd tried to remember out loud for his friend earlier) and committing all of them against him. well, I don't know how I'd manage "too many men on the ice," but any that involve hitting with a stick, YES.*
so Keith got his requisite star of the game (#1 this time) and look, he's #2 on this list at From the Rink of the NHL's top defensive defencemen (Hawks have 3 spots of 25). and I'd remembered this before the game but completely forgot during: 11) the game was Joel Quenneville's 500th win! and he'd just been listed as #2 on Puck Daddy's Top 10 NHL Coaches of the Past Decade. also, here's a nice feature on his time playing for the Hartford Whalers.
12) can't beat the deal I got on this (unless you got free tickets). posted to prove to my friend who's asked, that with TicketExchange you do get a real ticket, not a printout.
*all expressions of violence in this blog are purely for dramatic/comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by any potential employers, or dates.
Bad news: Lucic is injured, after playing just a few games after returning from another injury. Out for around four weeks with a sprained ankle from the Minnesota Wild game Wednesday.
Good news: I'm disappointed he might not be here for the Bruins @ Blackhawks game Dec. 18, but I've realized that's kind of the can't-miss game for me as someone who's a fan of/half-assed blogger for both teams. I just checked tickets and saw a single ticket $8 cheaper than the one I thought I'd have to get came up, and I got it! (Also, watched the Bruins history DVD last night and was pleased to realize I already knew almost everything on it--but it's a nice DVD to have around.)
Fucking hilarious news: I first read the Lucic story on nhl.com, and when it appeared it had a great typo in it (hint: at the end). I wonder if they'll fix it...
Happy Black Friday everyone! I might run to the Wal-Mart in Chicago (not far from me) to take a few photos of the madness, in between watching the B's and Hawks games online. Aw, look, it's the NHL store (Habs and Wings, yikes). They have a "buy one, get one 30% off" discount today, but can't fool me--that's just a more complicated version of the 15% off sale they run occasionally...
it was quite a night of hockey-watching last night, good and bad, but rather than recap that right now, here’s something I found on Flickr while I was watching games online. I thought it’d be appreciated by anyone who likes conventionally attractive blond women and/or vintage hockey jerseys (the, uh, creative lipstick color bugs me, though). link to this on Flickr
[ETA: I don't mind when people use my photos on blogs if they link to them, but if other photographers don't like it of course I'll delete the post]
[also: this was reblogged on Tumblr by fuckyeahhockey who added: YES, WE APPRECIATE BOTH]
photo is from a link in this, the long-awaited "Worst Uni Ever" poll at the excellent Uni Watch (note: this uniform wasn’t in the poll, it was there as a news item.) set aside a block of time for this one…Third String Goalie, an all-hockey-jersey site, has more about what the Habs wore.
Trying--for real this time--to blog regularly, but I do get distracted by adventures to abandoned factories filled with parade floats (see above) and such. (And sorry right now the blogroll's a couple years out of date.)
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