The IIHF's "mascot" for the 2025 women's World Championship is drawing intense backlash for sexualizing women and failing to represent the talent and ability, rather than sex appeal of women.
The IIHF's "mascot" for the 2025 women's World Championship is drawing intense backlash for sexualizing women and failing to represent the talent and ability, rather than sex appeal of women.
Ahead of the gold medal game at the 2024 IIHF World Championships, České Budějovice was named as the 2025 host for the women's World Championships. At the event, imagery of the event's mascot was also unveiled.
While that design went unnoticed by many over the last several months, a new campaign to name the tournament's mascot has sparked online backlash from many fans calling out the mascot's "sexualization" of women.
"Honestly this is insulting to the athletes competing in this event," wrote one fan on a PWHL fan page. "They could've gone with anything and they went with cartoon woman with a physically impossible build."
"WTF!!! Are we going backwards in time? Oh ah let’s get a mascot that will be appealing to the men and their fantasies about women hockey players. That’s a hard NOPE," yet another replied.
"The players need to give the IIHF feedback on this...I was appalled when I saw this...who wear 'crotchless' hockey pants???" asked another.
The sexualization of women in sport has occurred for more than a century with men seeking to control and keep women from sports. As Elmer Ferguson, for whom the Hockey Hall of Fame and PHWA's media award is named for wrote in Maclean's magazine in 1938, he wanted "to see the girls kept in the kitchen" and that women had a place in sport as long as it was as “a girl whose physical perfection was enhanced by a clinging one-piece bathing suit,” or a woman “of sheer glittering glory, of golden hair that blazes beneath the dazzle of the lights, of white skirt and trunks and shoes, and tightfitting bodice.”
It sounds a lot like the mascot depicted by the IIHF's 2025 tournament. Conversely, Ferguson did not want to see women in “those violent, face-straining, face-dirtying, body-bouncing, sweaty, graceless, stumbling, struggling, wrenching, racking, jarring and floundering sports.” Ferguson called women’s hockey “a spectacle” that “reaches the lower levels of competitive athletic entertainment after you’ve watched the grace and speed and certainty and skill with which males perform.” He believed, “In all truth, the girls in hockey skate in such rickety fashion, bobble along so uncertainly, that a good strong breeze will pretty nearly blow them off their stumbling feet, and body-checks are just so much wasted effort” and that no man would want a woman who wore “that peculiarly bewildered and distressed look which girl athletes under strain always possess, that strain which so ill becomes them.” He could not see how “the more robust forms of athletics,” including “struggling weakly and gracelessly around armed with hockey sticks . . . are going to enhance any feminine charms, or those charms which I always did associate with femininity.”
It's messaging that has been repeated for a century in the hockey world, and other sports as well. This includes the Norwegian beach handball team who were fined 150 Euros each for wearing shorts over the bikini bottoms their federation demanded they don. The backlash following that story in 2021 coincidentally brought in the conversation of "super heroes," which the 2025 Czechia World Championships are representing in a "Wonder Woman" styled mascot including mask.
As former US national team soccer netminder Briana Scurry stated at the time, women should feel like super heroes because of the incredible athletic feats they are accomplishing, not for the sexualized costumes federations and teams attempt to force upon athletes.
"You should feel like a superhero in it because you're representing in a very special and positive and powerful way, and [you shouldn't] have to worry about the cut of the short," Scurry told NPR.
Scholars have discussed the sexualization of women in sports at length. In a paper titled, Olympic Athletes or Beauty Queens? The Sexualization of Female Athletes, Rachel Smoot wrote that "Media outlets place a larger emphasis on the skill and strength of male athletes while female athletes are valued more for their sex appeal rather than their physical abilities."
As fans are stating in their reactions, the Czechia hosts and IIHF are utilizing a hypersexualized mascot to focus on the sex appeal of women in the event, rather than their physical abilities.
The new vote to name the mascot has fans voting on the names Ava, Alex, and Tori with the chance to win a VIP experience at the tournament, scheduled to begin on April 9, 2025.
The backlash extended beyond PWHL fan boards to response on the IIHF's own social media posts about the mascot.
"Just knew some marketing wiz would come up with a sexualized super hero…so predictable," wrote one fan.
"This was clearly not created for female players, but rather an attempt at increasing male viewership. Men's hockey teams have trolls and animals as mascots for goodness sakes. This is horrendous," said another in response to the IIHF's post.
Asking for a vote on the name, others dismissed the call altogether saying "I cast my vote that you change the entire mascot. This is not what women’s hockey should look like to girls looking up to some of the highest level they can achieve." This commenter was not alone with another writing "Is there an option to vote to rebrand the whole thing? Way to go to make a mockery of the women's division."
The comments continued on a consistent message to the IIHF stating, "This « mascot » is not only offensive, but it also undermines the efforts of women who have dedicated themselves to advancing the sport," "Here we see the standard of what a female is “supposed to look like.” Female hockey players don’t look like this, is this really what we want our little girls aspiring to be?" and "IIHF DO BETTER! This is not a positive representation of female hockey players! Very disrespectful of the athletes that they are. This like some fictional action figure - very fake and unrealistic!"
The message was unanimous, women's hockey fans want the athleticism and skill of their sport recognized, not a sexualization of their bodies for men.