I am sat in the stands with my younger brother as Nottingham Panthers vs Belfast Giants plays out on the rink below me. Three men sit to my right, I have no issue with their enjoyment of the game – that’s why we’re all here, right?
I cheer with them as the Panthers score, rise from my seat to shout in excitement and clap along as Chelsea Dagger starts to play in celebration. The men next to me, in fact all around me, do the same. They feel no shame in their excitement, no need to hide it in order to be taken seriously.
As the second intermission comes along, I cannot help but listen in to their conversation, drawn in as soon as the words ‘puck bunny’ leave their mouths. They have no shame in saying it even though I am sat right next to them. The shame their words lack is placed onto me – if they say this with no thought to who they’re around, then how accepted must this concept be within sport? Their words make me feel out of place, like I’m taking up a space that is not mine. Is that what everyone thinks when they see me?
These thoughts are not isolated to this singular incident, but rather flood the whole sports community. You see it in the comments of a female journalist’s article about sport, or a young girl using social media to talk about her favourite team and their performance. Comment sections overflowing with puck bunny, jersey chaser, lacrostitute – people hate to believe women can have interests that are not sexual.
Women’s place in the sporting world is constantly undervalued and reduced to fit in with male fan’s fantasies. You cannot scroll through X without seeing people jump on a bandwagon to hate any women involvement in sports.
My favourite sports reporter and commentator, Claire Hanna, is just one example. Is her voice really annoying, or would you just prefer to be listening to a man who you can take seriously? This isn’t even mentioning the horrific comments about her looks and presentation, constantly compared to the man stood next to her. Her excitement for sport is silly to the men watching her.
There was an article recently published in the Financial Times, such a respected and well-read publication – “How romance readers found British ice hockey”. It sent shockwaves throughout the British hockey community, all the biggest organisations in the country felt compelled to release a statement in defence of the female fans whose interest in sport had again been reduced to something sexual and romantic. Kitty Drake, who is a journalist, claimed that female fans were simply there to watch the players “gyrate” in front of a “gaggle of women”. The article still remains up despite the horrific reception.
More recently an issue arose with Sky Sports, where they created a new female-focused TikTok channel named Halo. I am not sure which women were sending in emails to them, complaining about not being able to understand sports and requesting an account specifically for them, where everything is explained in bright pink writing and simple terms.
This was just the most recent of the sporting world’s horrific attempts to appeal to female fans – how hard is it to understand that women are not too stupid to watch sports without accommodation? Thankfully, unlike the article, Sky responded in axing this insult to female sports only three days in.
The villainization of women in sports must come to an end. How can we be questioning anyone’s motives for loving sports in the year of 2025? It’s a point of view that breeds discomfort among fans. Women don’t deserve to feel judged for their every action at a sports game, or to have their motives dissected by people looking to spread a misogynistic narrative.
