After Atalanta

Since I am all about ice hockey this week and because I just finished teaching about sport and violence in my sport sociology class I thought I would point your attention to this lovely spectacle: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LZAehXzjG0w This is a recent game between the University of Minnesota Mankato and University of North Dakota. I showed it to my sport soc class the day after we had made a long list of violent events in sports 99 percent of which involved men. (The Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan incident was the lone exception.) What was disturbing was that many were laughing while watching the video clip, commenting on the effectiveness of the actual fighting, and referring to them as girls and/or noting that it looked like little kids fighting. Because apparently we don't really want to talk about what it means when women get violent, unless we can paint them as pathological i.e. female serial killers. But we can't do that with female hockey players because then we might hav...

University of North Dakota has been in negotiations with the NCAA over their use of the "Fighting Sioux" mascot since 2005. The NCAA has mandated that institutions with offensive Native American mascots not be allowed to compete in postseason play. It has worked with schools where such problems existed and made decisions on a case-by-case basis. For example, the Tribe of William and Mary was allowed to keep its nickname, Tribe, but had to get rid of the two feathers that served as the logo. W&M was none too pleased with this decision but opted not to contest the NCAA decision through a potentially lengthy and expensive legal process. UND was not so willing to comply when the NCAA said they could not use "Fighting Sioux" in postseason play. It sued the NCAA a year ago and got a temporary order allowing them to continue using the name throughout court proceedings. Yesterday it was announced that a settlement had been reached between the parties. The NCAA has give...