Of course I’m talking about the men’s NCAA basketball championships. But that goes without saying – watching the women’s tournament is hardly a ritual for most sports fans. For the majority, it barely registers that the tournament is even going on. Even I have to confess that I haven’t been following the tournament as much as I should, considering I write a column where I almost exclusively complain about sexism in sports.

But, for all intents and purposes, no one really needs to justify why they’re watching the men but not the women; the answer is way too obvious: everyone “knows” that men are just better at sports. It has always been that way, it will always be that way, and there’s nothing that women can do to change it because women will always be physically inferior. We all “know” that men are bigger, faster, and stronger, making them better athletes, and therefore more interesting to watch. Women’s basketball sucks.  It’s science, people.

Take, for example, the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.  They were indisputably the favourites going into the tournament, and with good reason: this past December, they recorded their 88th consecutive win, breaking the record for most consecutive wins for an NCAA Division I basketball team. The record was previously held by the early 1970s UCLA men’s basketball teams coached by John Wooden. Of UConn’s 88 wins, 86 of them were by double digits.

But apparently, because UConn’s women’s team broke the record, it isn’t viewed as much of an achievement. Several media outlets suggested that, because the 1970s UCLA men’s team could obviously beat the UConn women’s team, they would not consider the record to really be broken.

As David Whitley wrote in the AOL News story “UConn Victims of Realism, Not Sexism”, “The accomplishments of UConn and UCLA should not be compared in any way… and not because I’m a miserable bastard. I’m happy for the Huskies. It’d be fine by me if they won 8,800 straight games. Given the depth of women’s college basketball, they just might. That’s a big reason why their streak should not simply be called ‘The longest in college basketball history.’ It is the longest women’s Division I streak.” In responding to the assertions that he’s anti-woman because he doesn’t like women’s basketball, he replied: “I’m not anti-woman. I’m anti-boredom. There are too many set shots, bounce passes, missed layups, and below-the-net rebounds to keep me interested for 190 minutes, or however long a game lasts. I’d feel that way if five Martian eunuchs were playing.”

It’s true. The men’s and women’s games can be incredibly different. There are essentially no slam dunks – the NCAA record for most dunks by a single person in a women’s game is two, and it is held by current WNBA star Candace Parker and Baylor’s Brittney Griner (although you probably know her better for punching someone in the face during a game last March). Women tend not to be as physical around the basket, and don’t jump as high on the rebounds. The ball is smaller, the three-point line is closer, and in college ball, the shot clock is five seconds shorter than in the men’s game. But can you say that the men’s game is inherently better?

A lot of people would say yes, as if some sort of objective criteria exists that could be used to evaluate such a thing. But sports are socially constructed; what we think of as a great and entertaining, or who we think of as the ideal athlete, are all ideas. There is nothing objective about it. Not surprisingly, men established what is considered to be a “good sport,” which is why strength, speed, and height are all requirements in most of the popular sports we see today. When it was men that wrote the rules, is it any surprise that they are the ones that can perform them best?

There are many different aspects of sport that can be appreciated, not only the more “masculine” characteristics. Take women’s hockey, for example. Cathy Chartrand, captain of the McGill Martlets hockey team, explained the differences between men’s and women’s hockey when I interviewed her last fall: “With girls it’s always nice plays, it’s a very strategic game, and a lot of technique is involved compared to boys.” The men’s and women’s games may be different, but you can’t objectively say that one way to play is better than another. Yes, we have personal preferences, but those are strongly dictated by what has been ingrained in our culture as to how sports should be played. Almost every time, it’s the women that are slighted in the athletic arena.

I’m not arguing that women can’t be fast or strong or tall. I’m sure that Maya Moore, UConn’s star player, would probably make the men’s team at a number of good Division I schools. Women can be fantastic athletes; just because an athlete is a woman does not make her automatically inferior. What I’m trying to say is that men’s and women’s sports both have their merits, even if, perhaps, the UConn women’s basketball team couldn’t beat the UConn men’s team. Would they have to, in order to prove that they are worth watching? Does it really take anything away from men’s sports to admit that women can be great athletes who are also worthy of our attention?

People say that they don’t watch women’s sports because they want to watch “the best,” and it’s understood that women obviously aren’t. But the UConn women’s basketball team is the best in the women’s game, and this year they are well on their way to winning the NCAA March Madness tournament for the third year in a row (Note: this article went to print before UConn’s Final Four game on Sunday). When the competition is evenly matched, particularly at an elite level, how could it not be competitive and entertaining?

I’m not saying that women’s sports are better than men’s sports, nor am I suggesting that there should not be separate leagues for men and women. And I am definitely not saying that if you don’t watch women’s sports, it’s because you’re “anti-woman.” All I want to suggest is that women’s sports don’t inherently suck. It’s pretty demoralizing to be a woman athlete and for it to be “common knowledge” that in spite of your accomplishments, men will always be better. I’m tired of the battle of the sexes in sports; there’s room at the top for both men and women.

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Ask any rugby player about their injury history and they will often have many stories to tell. When I interviewed McGill Varsity rugby players Josh Balloch (fly-half), Gideon Balloch (winger), and Valentine Sergeev (flanker), they all had this to say about their own injuries: “I’ve been pretty lucky.” They told me of broken noses, concussions, a week’s worth of memory loss, injured backs, and “dislodged” ribs. But even so, they are probably right to describe themselves as lucky.

A compounding factor is the tendency of elite athletes to refuse to call it quits after getting hurt, thus worsening the damage. “Everybody plays through injuries all of the time,” said Gideon Balloch. “It is emasculating to have to stop playing because of injuries. But there are also cases where it’s stupid, or impossible, to keep playing.” But what most people might consider “stupid” or “impossible” is probably a lot less than what it would take to sideline a McGill Redmen rugby player.

Since the expectation is that they will continue to play through pain, players who are not as willing to make the sacrifice can be judged. “I was definitely made fun of when I came off with the rib injury because I had continued to play, so it appeared that I could play,” said Josh Balloch. “That added to the illusion that I was being a sissy.” Not all players are equally under suspicion, however. “Knowing the person is really what makes the difference,” Sergeev explained. “Someone who you associate with being a little soft, I guess, you’ll automatically think that maybe he’s just being soft again. But [for] guys I’ve always seen as tougher, if they get injured I’m actually kind of worried. Because if they say it hurts, it hurts.”

This isn’t to say that injuries are not taken seriously in rugby; in such a dangerous sport, “you don’t really want to ever be on the field when you’re not 100 per cent,” according to Josh Balloch. But, at the same time, players pushing themselves too hard – sometimes at the request of their coach or other players – are far from unheard of. “I’ve seen some pretty uncomfortable things,” said Sergeev. “Sometimes player safety is definitely put after winning.”

There are myriad reasons why a player would choose to sacrifice their body for the game. “The overt motivations are winning and partaking in something as great as playing for a team,” said Gideon Balloch. Sergeev also listed school pride and playing for your teammates as contributing factors. But when bodily sacrifice is coded as  masculine behaviour – and players who fail to live up to these expectations are passed off as “sissies,”  “bitches,” or “girls” – is it really out of the question to suggest that fear of emasculation may play a role?

“I would say that there is a certain aspect of being emasculated or seen as more feminine that is involved there,” clarified Josh Balloch, “but I think at this point, it manifests itself under the surface. Sometimes people do call you a girl, but there’s sort of an understanding that is built when you’re growing up that this is masculine, this is feminine, and you don’t have to say it in so many words because everyone has a common understanding of that.” A fear of emasculation may not consciously contribute to risky on-field behaviours, but the conflation of masculinity with playing through pain in pursuit of victory is so firmly entrenched in the culture of contact sports that it does not have to be explicit – the effects are still there.

It is not a coincidence that many athletes often describe sports as a war. “This is a war. This is a battle,” said Sergeev. “People go to war, they sacrifice themselves, so you should too. They sacrifice their bodies and their minds for a greater cause, and that’s the same mentality you adopt in rugby. Is it a war? Yes, but not in the sense that you want to kill people or destroy things. It’s a war in the symbolic sense.” In war, as Sergeev explained, it is expected that soldiers will put their bodies on the line for their country. Sports culture often conflates competition with war, and these risks on the field are thought to be justified.

Perhaps the players are not consciously thinking about masculinity, but it is certainly implied in our feelings toward the game; in fact, masculinity may be the reasoning behind them. Masculinity is sacrifice. Masculinity is physical dominance. Masculinity is winning.

Masculine privilege is a double-edged sword. The players that are considered the most masculine – the hard-hitters, the top-scorers, the guys that never have to come out of a match – receive a great deal of respect from their teammates, their opponents, and their fans. In a lot of ways, masculinity itself is a competition: for some to win, others must lose. Being an elite athlete in an aggressive sport, particularly if you’re one of the best, is one way to win.

Of course, this all comes at a price. This is not particular to rugby, since playing through injury is common for most athletes – men and women alike. When considering the long-term effects, one need only reflect on the fact that the life expectancy of professional football players is twenty years lower than that of other men due to a lifetime of medical maladies and concussions. Injuries build up – they do matter.

The players that I interviewed talked a great deal about the benefits of playing varsity rugby: friends, school involvement, mental strength, physical fitness, life lessons on hard work and dedication, and even a vague mention of “rugby bunnies.” But you can’t ignore the price that almost every player must pay along the way.

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The ambivalence associated with the term likely stems from its definitional ambiguity; many people do not agree on precisely what being a “puck bunny” means. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a young female hockey fan, especially one motivated more by a desire to meet the players than by an interest in hockey.” I suppose that someone forgot to tell them that most female hockey fans would be infuriated to be called a puck bunny, or that it is extremely sexist to call all young female hockey fans puck bunnies, while young male hockey fans are simply “hockey fans.” Under this model, male hockey fans are authentic and neutral, while female fans are seen as less legitimate than their male counterparts.

In a strange reversal of the world order, the UrbanDictionary definition is less offensive and more correct than the previous definition. According to a contributor on the site:

“A ‘hockey fan,’ usually female, who only likes the sport because they hope to/already slept with the players on a team, and generally knows nothing about it. Or pretty much any girl that only likes the Penguins because they have Sidney Crosby.”

In other words, puck bunnies are women whose hockey interest is primarily directed towards having sex with players as opposed to what goes on during the game. Since the term “puck bunny” is often used to dismiss female fans as ignorant fan girls, it is easy to see why a passionate, dedicated, and knowledgeable female fan would balk at the suggestion that she is more interested in what is inside Sidney Crosby’s jock strap than the latest results.

The repeated dismissal of female fans as puck bunnies likely stems from the common assumption that women’s interest in sports is always related to men: women are fans because their boyfriends are, because they want men to be interested in them, or because they think that the players are hot. Evidently, the idea that a woman can be interested in something irrespective of any male influence is too revolutionary for some.

But even so, does it make a woman any less of a fan if her partner introduced her to hockey? Many women aren’t hockey fans simply because they aren’t expected to be in the same way that men are, and are therefore exposed to hockey considerably less. These women are dismissed as hockey fans simply because they took up an interest later in life, despite the fact that their boyfriend may have been the first person to expose them to the joys of the sport.

Women’s fanship is further discounted under the assumption that sexual attraction to players and genuine knowledge and passion for the game are always mutually exclusive. In a culture where hockey players are deeply loved, admired, and are considered to be the pinnacle of masculinity, many straight women (though I am certainly not suggesting that this includes all women fans) may have certain, shall we say, “romantic” feelings toward the players that they watch every week. What it means to be a fan was defined by men, and therefore the sexual detachment from players that is demanded of fans is possible for straight men (and hockey is a very homophobic sport, making it an unfriendly environment for queer men anyway) in ways that it is often not for straight women. The belief that a desire to marry Sidney Crosby (and honestly, who wouldn’t want to marry Sidney Crosby?) automatically renders women less knowledgeable of the game is just another way that women are denied legitimacy in hockey fan circles.

Regardless, women hockey fans are obviously a varied group. Many may have no interest in the players whatsoever. My point is that the definition of a fan must be expanded, and that the fan hierarchies that almost invariably place men over women must be challenged. Not calling women puck bunnies is one way that this can be done.

That said, there are women out there who would embrace the puck bunny label. Puck bunny status can be achieved by doing anything from dating a couple of hockey players in high school, to sneaking up to hotel rooms or frequenting the bars, restaurants, and clubs where NHL hockey players are known to go in an effort to bed said hockey players. The sexual choices of puck bunnies should be as respected as any other; their sex lives are no one’s business but their own, and as long as sex is consensual, respectful, and honest, I don’t see why anyone should have the right to judge.

Unfortunately, calling these women puck bunnies is very often a form of judgment. In a society where female sexual agency is more often treated with contempt than respect, and sexuality outside of long-term, heterosexual monogamous relationship is thought to be immoral, calling someone a puck bunny is just another way to slut-shame.

Ultimately, calling someone a puck bunny is almost always an insult; either it accuses them of not knowing anything about hockey, or it refers to their sexual pursuit of hockey players in a judgmental manner. Can the term be re-appropriated?  Some women, including several female hockey bloggers, are attempting to do so by proudly referring to themselves as puck bunnies while simultaneously brandishing their knowledge of the game, which often surpasses that of men. Will this give women any more legitimacy in the hockey world? Unlikely.

Personally, I wish the term a swift and painful death. It has insulted and de-legitimized women for long enough.

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