Friday, February 29, 2008

More things about men's hockey I don't understand

Wow. I mean, seriously, I am nearly speechless after seeing this ad campaign, a poster series, for the University of Kentucky men's ice hockey team.

Most of us are aware that images of sexy female athletes are used to sell women's sports. Now it seems sexy women generally are being used to sell men's sports.

UK hockey (I didn't know they played hockey in Kentucky--which may be the reason why they need such a blatant ad campaign) has featured either a UK alum or Kentucky-bred woman on the posters that list the team's schedule every year since 1998 when they started with Ashley Judd. [I am so dejected that Judd would do something like this. How about helping your alma mater by giving money instead of looking seductive on a poster advertising hockey games, Ashley?] The women wear only hockey jerseys and are posed provacatively.

Why can't the male hockey players do their own dirty work and pose without pants on their posters?

In case you want to tell the University of Kentucky what you think of their tactics you can send some email:
Ian Ward, General Manager gm@ukhockey.com
Mitch Barnhart, Athletic Director, mbarn@uky.edu

3 comments:

Diane said...

Emails sent.

And shame on Ashley Judd.

anonymous said...

Holy smokes! Haven't seen anything this blatantly sexist come out of a sports communication office in a long time. Thanks for the blog.

Anonymous said...

FYI: The U of KY men's ice hockey team is a club team that gets minimal money from the university (some student club money, I believe) and is not run by, financed by, or publicized by the university. They finance everything themselves, from ice time to uniforms to travel. The Ashley Judd poster was done way before she became famous. So sending emails to the athletic director won't do much. And, oddly enough, there was no poster this year.