After Atalanta

Woo-hoo it's hockey season finally. And while there is next to no hockey shown on TV out here in the middle of America, I am still excited to be able to surf the 'net for the latest hockey news. First, a somewhat reluctant but nonetheless huge shout-out to the BU Terriers who are in their first season in Hockey East and have lost only 1 game; a loss they avenged the other night when they beat Northeastern [which has slid steadily downhill since the loss of team USA goalie Chanda Gunn (graduation) and their former coach (to UConn)]. The reluctance is because it is practically sacrilege for a UNH alum to give props to anything BU. But any supporter of women's athletics, particularly women's hockey, cannot let this pass with comment. Also, it's almost an Olympic year which means women's international hockey gets a little more recognition (fingers crossed). I have been meaning to check out the potential roster for a while now but keep getting sidetracked by silly th...

Can I get a whoop whoop for Sheryl Swoopes?! Swoopes came out as gay today and not because she was pressured but because she said she was tired of hiding her relationship with her partner. (Of course the partner is not named but I expect her identity will be revealed shortly.) I was initially wary of the way the article read. Swoopes could be read as being somewhat vague or even exhibiting "apologetic behavior": she says she has not always been gay, that her homosexuality was not the reason for her divorce, that she doesn't want to "throw it in people's faces." This was my initial reaction only because it is not the out and proud and going to get married Rah Rah lesbianism that perhaps many are accustomed to (and afraid of?). But this of course is a good thing, I realized. Swoopes shows us that there are many ways of being gay. She presents the view that is often not voiced: not everyone thinks being gay is an innate characteristic and that just because it...

OK--I am finally going to do it. I am going to bring up the issue of mixed gender competition. Of course I am doing it in a very safe way by focusing on two particular examples I observed this weekend. I don't want to explode this discussion too much so soon. So there was crap on TV this weekend which actually allowed me to get some work done but still in those moments when I was ready for a break I was flipping through the channels for some salvation (but not the kind found on BCTV). The Travel Channel had a poker tournament on. It was a women's tournament. Why is there women's poker? I have seen some mixed gender poker on ESPN but I am left wondering why, more often than not it seems, there is a separation of the genders in the game of poker. Seems like it plays on a pretty antiquated notion that women are not as smart as men since poker does not involve physical strength (the usual reason for separating the sexes). Is there something I, a non-poker player, am missing her...

Not happy with the response from Penn State administrators, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has decided to sue the university on behalf of former player Jen Harris who was dismissed from the team last March, allegedly because coach Rene (rhymes with weenie) Portland thought she was gay. The suit was actually triggered by Portland's public response to the allegations initially made by the NCLR. Portland launched a character attack against Harris citing her poor basketball performance (she was one of the team's top scorers) and poor grades (she had a 3.0 GPA when she left PSU). I checked out some of the message boards where Penn fans have been posting about this issue. Mostly they all adore the homophobic Portland and think Harris is a whiner out to get some money--though there are some sound minds pointing out that Portland's track record on the issue of lesbians in sport is not pristine. Not surprising responses. Fans like their winning teams and their winnin...

Because I complain so bitterly at times about the lack of media coverage of women's sport, I thought I would say something positive. Of course I can only say something positive when something positive has occurred and it has. Checking my Yahoo sports page this morning I noticed that they top three stories listed under the category College Hockey were all about women's games from this past weekend. OK--so two were about the same game--but they were different articles which just goes to show that more than one media outlet actually covered the game. So I think it's a win-win all around (unless you are the UVM Catamounts who lost two game to the Badgers this weekend both 5-0. Don't give up, Catamounts--it's only your first season playing in the big leagues. Things will get better!)

about Penn State basketball coach Rene Portland? Have almost three decades of anti-gay recruiting policies and various levels of subtle and not-so-subtle harassment finally caught up to her? We shall see. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has demanded the Penn State president look into the allegations after the latest incident of harassment forced one of the Lions best players off the team and to another school. The former player, Jennifer Harris, allegedly isn't even gay. Of course this is her mother saying this and denial, especially publicly, of homosexuality isn't exactly a foreign concept in women's sports. Of course what actually comes of this remains to be seen. We should note that while the NCLR is a worthy group, usually we hear about organizations such as Lambda or even the ACLU intervening in cases such as this. While Harris does have a lawyer, I have not heard of any actual suits being brought yet. And we must also remember that Portland has not been subt...

In honor of National Coming Out Day I have decided to write about some famous sport icons who faced intense coming out processes while playing. OK--the coming out day thing is a pretext. I thought of the idea before I realized it was coming out day. No matter. (And Happy Coming Out Day to all those for whom that is relevant. Woo-hoo, Go Gay!) So back to the icons. I am speaking of Rene Richards and Martina Navratilova. What inspires this entry is some recent light reading I have been doing where they were mentioned--deparately, but in ways which disappoint me. Richards first. So Richards is a transexual, MTF, who played as a woman for a but on the women's tennis tour. Obviously with some controversy--including legal battles. In the most recent issue of Bitch , Richards comments on the presence of MTFs in sport. (The article was about golfer Mianne Bagger .) Richards believes they should not be allowed to play--even after completion of reassignment surgery and hormone treatment--whi...

Many thanks to amateur for pointing me to this fascinating blog entry by sportsbabel about his experience running in a recent breast cancer charity event. Here are his very interesting observations as he questions if such events are really "feminist" (noting that there are many types of feminism of course): "1. There is a bounty of sponsor-provided free food offered to the runners after the race is completed, while Toronto's homeless peer in through the semi-enclosure or sleep on grates nearby. 2. After the post-race refuelling is finished, there do not appear to be temporary recycling facilities anywhere to collect what will be thousands of plastics and tetra boxes. 3. Men can get breast cancer as well, yet I could only find this nugget of information buried away on the web site's Breast Cancer Statistics page. Saying so out loud must confuse the "Think Pink" message. 4. In the ultimate irony of "Thinking Pink," there is predominantly pink...

I have decided to write my cultural studies paper about subculture on snowboarders. Though I was intrigued by wrestling, I cannot pursue it because the assignment calls for analysis of a youth subculture and while youths watch pro wrestling they are not actual participants. So, I have never been a snowboarder and was only a fair-weather (almost literally) skier so I have not spent a lot of time observing the habits of snowboarders. And now that I am out here in the flatlands I can't jaunt off to a ski resort to do some ethnographic data. So I am asking snowboarders to give me some details. Please, please comment. Here's what I am interested in: 1. style: the fashion, is there one style? do you have to wear certain clothes to be accepted? are there identifying clothes both on and off the slopes (i.e. can you pick out fairly easily a fellow snowboarder)? 2. class/economic issues: what socioeconomic class do most snowboarders come from? are they adhering to their class status or t...

Despite the title of this entry I am not going to make sweeping generalizations about male fans. because sweeping generalizations are bad--very bad. Instead I am going to relate an incident I observed this past weekend and offer a brief analysis. I went to a women's Big Ten volleyball match. Not a big crowd but very enthusiastic. Arriving shortly after the first serve (is there a volleyball equivalent to tip-off or faceoff?) were two men I had seen at women's softball games the previous spring. Both were wearing rather offensive (sexist/homophobic t-shirts) which initially made me wonder why they support women's sports at all--an incongruity to analyze another time. Both cheered but one was cheering in a different sort of way. He was, essentially, coaching. He would tell players, by calling out their numbers, what they needed to do: "Number 5 you need to set up the pass." Most obnoxious was that whenever a home team player went to the line to serve he yelled where...