Hockey teams, leagues, and Ice Hockey UK, the national governing body of ice hockey in the United Kingdom, spoke out in unison about the "absurd and inaccurate" depiction of women who are fans of hockey in the nation.
The statements came in response to an article in Great Britain's Financial Times claiming that women attend hockey games in the United Kingdom due to the popularity of 'hockey romance' novels. The writer, Kitty Drake, described a "gaggle of women who press their noses" against the glass ahead of warm ups to see "Forty hockey players streak on to the ice, drop down on to their hands and knees and begin to gyrate. They roll around and make strange thrusting motions with their hips."
The article quotes "experts" such as Paws, the Nottingham Panthers' mascot to make the false equivalency between the popularity of hockey romance novels and the reasoning for women to attend hockey games. In the end, the backlash from women who are hockey fans, and the teams and leagues themselves who understand the large and knowledgeable base of women who follow the sport was swift.
First out of the gate to publicly critique the false portrayal of hockey's fanbase of women was Great Britain's Elite Ice Hockey League, which was prominently featured in the article.
"The Elite League would like to place on record our dismay and disappointment at the portrayal of our female fanbase in the recent Financial Times article," the league's statement read. "We’re very proud to have an incredibly diverse fanbase watching our great sport and they play a vibrant part in our incredible hockey community."
Ice Hockey UK, the nation's governing body for the sport also released a statement from CEO Henry Staelens.
“It’s extremely disappointing to see the piece that has appeared in the Financial Times," said Staelens in the statement. “The tone of the article is not just absurd and inaccurate in relation to ice hockey, but also to women who watch sport in general – something that shouldn’t even be a talking point in today’s society. We’re proud that our sport is a welcoming place to so many women, men and children, who turn out to support their teams, for the pure love of the sport, across all four nations week-in and week-out. Ice hockey is the most popular indoor sport in the UK, and stories such as this show a clear lack of respect for the brilliant people who play it, support it and work across it."
Women Are A Prominent Fan Base Historically
Women have been attending hockey games as fans since spectators were first recorded at games. In particular, some of the earliest noted influential fans of the game were British women.
One of those women, Marie Evelyn Byng, Viscountess Byng of Vimy, born in England in 1870, was an avid hockey fan while living in Canada, and she was adamant that nothing would come between her love for the sport.
"[W]oe betide any member of the staff who tried to make engagements for a Saturday during the hockey season, when I went regularly to ‘root’ for the ‘Senators,’ with such fine players as Gerrard, Nighbor, the Bouchers, Clancy and Denneny, to name a few in those long-past days, who gave me many happy evenings during our five years at Rideau Hall."
To Lady Byng, the only blemish for the sport was the sometimes violent nature of the game and fans, which is why today, the NHL's most sportsmanlike player annually receives the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy. The five years she discussed showed Byng's love for hockey in the first half of the 1920s.
A decade later as women began fighting for their own space on the ice, including national support and recognition from governing bodies, two advocates, Mrytle Cook and Olympic gold medalist and hockey star Bobby Rosenfeld argued that Canadian hockey bodies should support women's hockey players, because women's hockey fans had supported men's hockey as true fans for years. The argument came as women sought support from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA).
"Women fans helped swell this C.A.H.A. balance when they supported amateur hockey faithfully all year.." Cook wrote in 1937.
Fans Have Also Flocked To See Women Play In England
The article in question only focused on women watching men play. There was no mention of women watching women's hockey, or men watching women's hockey. In North America, the PWHL has broken attendance records at every turn. Last year the the league saw their one-millionth fan watch a game live in less than two seasons of existence, including five games last season drawing more than 17,000 fans. In Europe, Czechia broke the all-time women's World Championship attendance mark drawing 122,331 fans to the tournament. Similar single game records continue to fall across Europe.
But women's hockey has been well attended, including in the United Kingdom, for nearly a century.
In 1935, England's national women's ice hockey team drew 9,000 fans to Empire Pool, now known as Wembley Arena, to watch a game featuring England against a team from France.
Long Debunked Sexist Messaging
To claim women are attending hockey games primarily for the sex appeal of players, or to fantasize about men has been debunked many times. Recent research states that 72% of women globally consider themselves sports fans. The myth of the "puck bunny" as a driving factor behind women's attendance at hockey games was long ago disproven through empirical research.
In fact, a 2004 study conducted specifically about women's fans of men's ice hockey in the United Kingdom stated "The term ‘puck bunny’, which is applied almost exclusively to female ice hockey fans, implies that these supporters are ‘inauthentic’, not ‘dedicated’ in their support, and are more interested in the sexual attractiveness of the players rather than the sport itself."
The study, conducted by Dr. Victoria Gosling, and professor Garry Crawford, unequivocally found that "data from the female interviewees suggests that female fans are largely dedicated in both their support and their loyalty for ‘their’ team and are very knowledgeable about the sport generally. Moreover, the attractiveness of players appeared to play no significant role in attracting female fans to the sport."
This study came more than two decades prior to article in the Financial Times, and more than a decade before hockey romances began being published.
Unlike many other sports in the United Kingdom, women have been found to represent a roughly even proportion of hockey fans for elite men's hockey in the country, including in Crawford and Gosling's 2004 study. Articles like the one found in the times further marginalize women, who have fought exclusion due to stereotypes for more than a century.
As Crawford and Gosling wrote, "though women constitute around half of the audience at top-flight ‘live’ men’s ice hockey in the UK, this does not necessarily mean that they are fully accepted as legitimate members of this supporter group."
As these researchers concluded, "there are no significant differences between male and female interviewees in the levels of commitment demonstrated towards the team or knowledge of the sport, nor does the sexual attractiveness of the players appear to play any significant role in encouraging women to attend this sport. We therefore suggest that the assertion that the majority of female fans at men’s ice hockey in the UK constitute ‘puck bunnies’ is largely a myth created by male supporters out of a fear of losing their ‘male-only’ domain of sport fandom to women."