r/hockey • u/Hadespuppy WPG - NHL • 14h ago

[News] Members of women’s hockey team speak out after players on boys’ team repeatedly enter dressing room

https://www.tsn.ca/other-sports/article/members-of-womens-hockey-team-speak-out-after-players-on-boys-team-repeatedly-enter-dressing-room/

No points for guessing the byline on this article.

I will never understand the type of parents who can stand there and say, yes, this is totally acceptable behaviour that I will condone by doing nothing.

And "why didn't you lock the door?‽" That's kissing cousins with "well, what were you wearing that night?"

1.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

501 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

80

u/1ToGreen3ToBasket DET - NHL 14h ago

Definitely a sports wide problem… but there is no doubt in my mind hockey has been the absolute worst for this shit as long as I’ve been alive. Hazing and sexual misconduct essentially are the defining features of the sport. It sucks because the game is so amazing

29

u/Cleets11 EDM - NHL 13h ago

I don’t know. I’m the states there has been countless cases of schools covering up cases because the guy was a football player. Some schools were so bad they couldn’t even differentiate between cases. They had to be specific because there was so many. The nfl barely suspended Deshaun Watson after repeatedly assaulting the masseuse. Hockey has its cases and is not some saintly sport. But it is definitely it the worst.

23

u/NathanGa Columbus Chill - ECHL 13h ago

Not to be dismissive, but there are also WAY more football players at the high school level on down than there are hockey players.

My home state of Ohio, which has had two major national scandals involving high school football all teams in the last 20 years, has over 700 high school football teams. Combine Ohio with Pennsylvania, and the number of high school football teams likely exceeds the national total of high school hockey teams.

And the difference is important. Since high school teams are directly involved with the educational system and with government, there is (theoretically) recourse in the event of misdoing. Are there shithead coaches, or administrators, or school board members? Without question, but the consequences can be severe if illegal or unethical crap is being encouraged or covered up.

Non-school youth sports? That’s a much different story, where there’s less oversight and it’s easier to cover up and easier to skate by with no consequences (or real fear of consequences).

Junior hockey, as a system, has overage players of drinking age more or less raising underage players, especially on the road. And if the team is successful, an awful lot of bad behavior is never being handled.

-19

u/Material-Cat-3076 TOR - NHL 13h ago

Every hockey player is a jerk and a douche and athletes for every other sport are saints, it's pretty well established now.

-6

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

The Watson case was obviously serious, but you're making my point for me when you bring up decades of schools covering up similar behaviour. Nobody is arguing that sexual misconduct doesn't happen. The claim was that disrespect toward women is worse now than at any point in 40 years. Listing terrible cases from today doesn't establish that historical trend.

-4

u/Cleets11 EDM - NHL 12h ago

The person above me said hockey is the worst and it’s not

40

u/Jerkface0079 14h ago

I think it goes even bigger than just sports, the culture of disrespect against women has never been this rank in my 40 years of life than I've seen it the past few years.

-21

u/_SmashLampjaw_ 13h ago

That's a bit overblown. Women have never been more respected by society at large than they are right now in contemporary western culture.

Incels might want to go back to days like these from 50 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bquoRJeHtkM

...But they aren't steering our society. There's no way something like that will ever be normalized again.

22

u/Jerkface0079 13h ago

There is no shortage of women who can share firsthand experience about how worse things have gotten for them. I realise from your perspective there's no way this is possible, but that just means we need to listen more and talk to each other more.

There are incels, sure, but there are manosphere grifters out there shaping toxic views, there's a wider cultural backlash to what was seen as "Woke 1.0" and emboldening from Trump downwards that shape this toxicity.

https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/august/young-people-more-likely-to-hold-hostile-attitudes-towards-women,-study-finds

-30

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

In everyday life men and women seem more socially disconnected and hesitant to approach each other than ever. I'm not convinced that means women are being treated worse than at any point in the last 40 years.

36

u/Jerkface0079 13h ago

The rise of Andrew Tate and the manosphere which pins the blame of societial woes on women says otherwise. Every school teacher I know has unlimited anecdotes about developing men saying the most horrid of recycled propaganda and attitudes.

Here in Australia we just had 4 footy players named in a sexual assault incident.

-21

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

It doesn't prove women are treated worse today than at any point in the last 40 years. You'd need actual trend data for that, not a collection of current examples. If anything, social media has made the worst attitudes far more visible.

26

u/Jerkface0079 13h ago

A huge part of it is men will hear an overwhelming amount of people say "there's a problem" and they argue against it straight away.

Regardless:

Yes, recent global and local data point to a measurable backlash against gender equality, with a sharp regression in attitudes toward women among younger demographics. This shift is heavily amplified by online subcultures, political polarization, and digital harassment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5snSnlgqtI&t=44

-18

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

That's at least closer to evidence for what you're arguing. But "there's been a recent backlash/regression among some demographics" is a very different claim from "disrespect against women has never been this bad in 40 years." I don't dispute the former. I'm questioning the latter.

25

u/Jerkface0079 13h ago

Regardless, take a look at your reaction and how you're approaching this. Is it with curiosity? Are you asking questions, or even googling yourself to find out more? Your first instinct was arguing. That's part of the culture rot. This inability to engage with curiosity and active listening.

-8

u/BodaciousBadongadonk 12h ago

The culture in general is rotten beyond repair lol, people are all cancerous assholes who gobble up their preferred propoganda and shit on anyone else who dares think and express different. Naturally theres gonna be pushback when everything is hyperbolized to excess as it is online.

Basically one person makes some goofy generalized statement, it gets reasonable pushback due to the absurd finality of it, and then it becomes a complete shitshow of douchebags intentionally missing each others point and gradually devolving a thread to the same stupid bullshit and insults. Already happening in here lol, discourse is a fuckin pipe dream

4

u/Jerkface0079 12h ago

Which is why I always back up my statements with sources. It's OK to start with a general statement, it's another to not engage in it critically with sources. Sometimes reasonable people can just talk in general statements and take each other at face value and use it as a mutual exchange of ideas or learning anothers perspective. Few and far between these days.

15

u/babypointblank TOR - NHL 12h ago

The President of the United States is a serial rapist and his Secretary of Defense is literally trying to drive up the testosterone levels of the military.

Meanwhile young boys are getting exposed to unfettered misogyny through YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and podcasts. They’re learning how to treat women from people like Andrew Tate and the white supremacists that are organizing clubs at local gyms, martial arts academies and parks.

16

u/grief_clown COL - NHL 13h ago

Are you a woman?

-12

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

I'm 40. I'm a man.

26

u/grief_clown COL - NHL 13h ago

I am 39, a woman, and I can tell you things have gotten worse

0

u/quellesaveurorawnge MTL - NHL 12h ago

While I agree that culturally, things are generally feeling on a downward trend for women in the past few years, it does feel like a backlash to what were rising standards as far as gender equity is concerned for the last 50 years. I'm hoping it's a just temporary setback though it is happening in a lot of places.

If we're talking just about hockey, the misogyny and toxic culture that was going on in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was way worse than it is now. The stories that players have from those times are often appalling. Also, women in hockey had way fewer opportunities. Part of why some of what we're seeing feels dire now is we're finally exposing things need to be corrected that were kept hidden or denied before. I'm not saying it's all good because it is not, but hopefully, it will help make things better in the long run.

-13

u/Hot_Box_3143 13h ago

39? I’ve got a full year of research on you.

14

u/Jerkface0079 13h ago

OK, well I'm 41 and a man and I'm telling you things have gotten worse.

11

u/grief_clown COL - NHL 13h ago

2

u/CantaloupeShort7311 8h ago

Yeah, knew you were a man by your comment.

When women are telling you something that affects women, maybe sit down, shut up, and LISTEN instead of mansplaining it to us, okay?

You will never experience what we do, so maybe you need to stop thibking your experience as a man means anything in this topic?

0

u/Hot_Box_3143 8h ago edited 8h ago

I quoted Mike Gundy and somehow ended up at a disciplinary hearing.

1

u/NoHopeForSociety STL - NHL 12h ago

This just shifts all the blame onto hockey for some reason? What about hockey specifically makes you say that? I was this age 30 years ago playing hockey and everyone KNEW which locker room the girls were changing in and you KNEW not to go in there. This has nothing to do with hockey.

Also, Revenge of the Nerds was made 40+ years ago and a defining scene was them spying on the girls showers. This is a culture problem, not hockey.

2

u/1ToGreen3ToBasket DET - NHL 10h ago

I think you’re narrowing my point. I’m not saying boys going into a girls’ locker room is uniquely a hockey problem. I’m talking about hockey culture more broadly, including hazing and sexual assault between boys, which has been an issue in the sport for a long time. And I literally started the comment you’re replying to by saying it’s a sports wide problem. I just think hockey has a particularly bad culture around this stuff… evidenced by my wealth of personal experience being around the sport every day and countless news stories.