Part 1 in a two-part rant.Cheerleaders in the stands and playing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final on June 19.
Isn't that the NHL we know and love.
DCSportsChick spotted this earlier, but it bears remarking on: the Boston Bruins are holding their "first-ever Ice Girls draft" for a cheerleading squad. Now, the story on the team website doesn't make it clear whether or not this is actually a new thing, but you have to wonder if this doesn't make Eddie Shore roll over in his grave.
It's also becoming apparent why the Carolina Hurricanes are not destined to win the Stanley Cup. It's not weariness or the Oilers' resiliency: it's the fact the Hurricanes also have cheerleaders, the Storm Squad. Karma will not let it happen again. (Yes, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the Cup in 2004, have cheerleaders.)
Sorry, cheerleaders just don't belong in hockey, unless it's the World Juniors and they're holding a TSN microphone.
It's one thing to do it in a non-traditional hockey market such as Raleigh, N.C., or Tampa-St. Pete, or in a place where you'd do anything to take the paying customers' eyes off the ghastly on-ice display (cough, Long Island).
However, this is the Boston Bruins. That may not mean anything to you here in 2006, but time was, the Bruins mattered. As greater minds have already said, when an Original Six team has to resort to such a gimmick, you have to shake your head.
(My friend Neil Acharya has pushed me for weeks now to write about what a rotten shame it is what the respective ownership groups have done to the fans of the Bruins and the Chicago Blackhawks, but I'll tackle it another time. Besides, Boston is Bill Simmons' turf.)
This isn't some misogynistic rant about how fee-males shouldn't have a role in pro sports. Far from it. That debate was settled long ago. As far as "competitive cheerleading" goes, I'm all for it. We have a childhood obesity epidemic and North America and studies show that there's no physical activity girls respond to better than dance and movement.
There's nothing wrong with having cheerleaders or a "dance team" (to use the preferred, politically correct nomenclature) in basketball or football.
OK, there's a little wrong with it. Cheerleading in the NBA and NFL is a vomitorium, presumably both for the women, what with the constant weigh-ins and body-fat tests, and for anyone who's had the misfortune to stumble across the NFL Network's reality series Making The Squad while doing some late-night woe-is-me boozing/channel-surfing.
One scene from Making The Squad is etched on the brain. The male director of one NFL cheerleading squad stands with eight-by-10s of aspirants spread out on the floor before him. With his foot, he starts kicking aside photos of the rejects, who are all appear to be women whom Nathan Robert Sager, to paraphrase George Costanza on Seinfeld, "would give up red meat to see in a bra." And you wonder why women develop eating disorders!
Anyway, getting back to the main point, at least cheerleaders have been part of the scene in those sports for generations. Seeing NHL teams add cheerleading squads, while not quite a Serious Issue, still grinds any true hockey fan's gears.
You put up with a lot of crap to be a fan of this sport, and it seems like the know-nothings -- the bubble-brained business-admin grads who think they have to provide a Total Stadium Experience instead of an entertaining game between two skilled teams -- just live to test our patience.
To sum up, cheerleading and hockey don't go together. However, at least this whole exercise provided some unintentional comedy in this quote from ex-Bruins tough guy Lyndon Byers, who's involved with the selection of the Ice Girls or something.
“They really have to know who the Boston Bruins are,” Byers added. “They have to know who played for the Bruins in the past and now.”
I watched Byers (career stats: 71 points, 1,081 penalty minutes) play, and my own eyes saw perfect passes rebound off his stick like the blade and the puck were magnetized to the same pole.
Does he really what these comely young lasses of virtue true to find him out? And on that note, we end.
Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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4 comments:
Great post. This female agrees with you 100%- cheerleaders in hockey is just WRONG. Not part of the game or fan experience, IMHO.
Thanks! But what's more objectionable, cheerleaders at hockey games, or cheerleaders in baseball.
The Jays had a "dance team" a few years back. That was a temporary novelty.
Ooh, that's a tough one, since I hate both ideas. It would probably be easier to cheer in baseball, since it can be so slow and it's one way to keep fans' interest. Still wrong though.
BTW, why am I not surprised that there's a blond chickie named "Barbie" on the Storm Squad? I wonder if she even knows which end of the stick to use...
You almost have to admire a blonde woman who would go by the nom de highlights of Barbie.
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