So the gold-medal-winning, Canadian women's hockey team members returned to the ice in an empty arena, smoked a cigar or two, and celebrated. They even popped the corks on some fine champagne.
And the media and self-appointed moral authorities were on them like ugly on an ape.
This -- let me be forthright -- is not only overkillingly ridiculous. It is also entirely sexist.
Let's imagine... and maybe, by the time you read this, it won't be imagination... that the Canadian men win Olympic gold. What do we expect in the dressing room following the game? Lollipops?
Nope, the cameras of CTV and assorted associates will be right there, in the dressingroom, capturing the emotional celebration, punctuated, I'm guessing, with cigars and champagne (an odious combination, if you like champagne, but I digress), and maybe even beer.
And all will be well.
But let our women light up a celebratory stogie, or sip some champers, and all hell breaks loose.
Has anyone checked the history of the Stanley Cup, recently? The places it's been, the excesses which it has endured, the beverages that have been sipped from Lord Stanley's contribution to Canadian identity?
Heaven help us if any of those sippers had been women, apparently.
So, enough. Too much.
I was disappointed to see that the Canadian women's hockey team had to offer an explanation, which was close to (but not exactly, thank goodness, an apology). That was entirely unfair, and should never have happened.
We Canadians, proud and free, obviously place too much national self-identity on hockey, but what the heck, this is who we are. Polite, helpful, not terribly influential, but doggone dedicated to the best game in the world.
Me, too.
So we Canadians need to say to the women who won the gold wearing Canadian uniforms: 1) Hurrah, at the top of our lungs and 2) Sorry for treating you like children. Worse, sorry for treating you like men have treated women for too damned long.
You are champions. Sip proudly, have a foolish cigar if you want (but just one, okay), and know that you have every right to celebrate an incredible accomplishment.
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I thought this story was hilarious when I first saw it on TV news. Surely no-one was taking this seriously? But then I was shocked to see one of the players apologising for their "inappropriate" behaviour, and that they were sorry if they offended anyone. No, they didn't offend me. Not until they felt compelled to make a public apology.
ReplyDeleteHaving personally been in a locker room after a Stanley Cup was presented, let me say in the loudest, strongest terms, that the Canadian women's hockey team had NOTHING to apologize for. And Paul I can tell you with great certainty that many women have drank from the Stanley Cup.
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