The You Can Play Project (YCP) is an organization that promotes the inclusion of LGBTQ+ athletes in sport. It seeks to mitigate the possible negative aspects of locker room culture such as anti-gay attitudes and language. It was founded in 2012 by Patrick Burke, Glenn Whitman, and Brian Kitts following the death of Patrick’s brother, Brendan, who was an openly gay ice hockey player. The Burke family is well known in the hockey community since Patrick works in Player Safety for the National Hockey League (NHL) and his father, Brian, is currently the President of Hockey Operations for the Calgary Flames. The Burkes wanted to honour Brendan by advocating on his behalf for equality among athletes regardless of their gender or sexual identity. While most visible in hockey, YCP works with a range of sports and athletic organizations from high school to college and university to the amateur and professional ranks.

As YCP grew in popularity, it became evident that more could be done to transcend the act of raising awareness and extend efforts to examine the state of inclusion in sport in order to determine how to better serve LGBTQ+ athletes. The organization thus partnered with the Institute of Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, to create a postdoctoral position meant to fulfill this goal. The Institute is also known for its collaboration with Calder Bateman Communications Ltd. in the invention of Pride Tape, the rainbow coloured hockey tape that is sold in part to fund YCP. As it turns out, I, the author of this article, was selected for the position. My doctoral work examined attitudes towards homosexuality among male youth elite ice hockey players, and I often referenced YCP, so the position was an ideal next step for me. The aim of this article is to two-fold: I will discuss the uniqueness of my position as it bridges academia and community outreach and then discuss the effectiveness of inclusion initiatives in ice hockey.

In accordance with the partnership between YCP and the Institute, I was made an official YCP Ambassador. In that role, my initial job was to organize fundraising events for YCP and give informational presentations on the acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ+ athletes in sport. I still do the work of an Ambassador, but I am now co-chair of the Western Canadian board, which means that I am a point of contact for other Ambassadors who want to be connected to certain people or throw around ideas for fundraising and presentations. At the same time, I am devising a study that will allow me to continue to examine elite male ice hockey players’ attitudes towards the queer community in the context of their sport. It is motivated in part by the fact that there are currently no openly gay men in the NHL despite the efforts of organizations such as YCP. I am able to combine my two roles in a number of ways. For instance, I am able to use my research to complement the standard YCP informational presentations since I have empirical evidence of how something like homophobia functions in the sporting world. I also participated in the press conference for the Edmonton Oilers You Can Play Night, an event meant to support the inclusion of LGBTQ+ athletes. The press conference acted as a substantive public platform on which I could discuss the importance of my research in relation to YCP’s efforts. This postdoctoral fellowship is symbolic of the broader trend in academia to examine employment options outside of colleges and universities since, in my field, tenure track jobs do not exist in proportion to the degrees required to hold them. In this position, I am able to maintain my academic trajectory (including teaching) while also getting a taste of what it is like to use my skills elsewhere.

The question I am frequently asked about my research and my role with YCP is the following: is the hockey community actually becoming more inclusive or are things like Pride Tape and You Can Play Nights an insincere mix of lip service and PR stunts? This is a valid question given the lack of openly gay players in the NHL and the deeply rooted heterosexism (the assumption that everyone is straight) that characterizes boys’ and men’s hockey. I hold that both Pride Tape and the You Can Play Project are necessary initiatives for building inclusive sporting communities. Both have been effective in raising awareness regarding the importance of queer community rights in sport and both have been vessels through which role models such as Olympians and professional athletes can communicate to others that everyone has the right to feel safe while participating in their sport. With that said, it is not lost on me that using Pride Tape does not necessarily translate into egalitarian attitudes. We know from the work of social scientist Samantha King—specifically her book, Pink Ribbons Inc. (2006)—that initiatives like the NFL’s breast cancer campaign can have underlying agendas aimed at reducing or detracting from social fears associated with violence against women, for example. I would argue that hockey is no different in that it encourages homophobia among boys and men.

My research with male youth ice hockey players (you can read about it on Hockey In Society blog by clicking here) shows that some still have negative attitudes towards homosexuality. Through surveys, interviews, and a social media analysis with approximately 100 participants between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, I determined that some players were wary of homosexuality because they did not really know anything about it. Others assumed that they would attract unwanted attention from a gay teammate in the shower. In some cases, players who would otherwise be supportive of an openly gay teammate chose to keep their opinions to themselves for fear of being excluded or belittled by those who disagreed. With that said, players were cognizant of the fact that, as a group, they were more accepting of sexual and gender diversity than some of their parents. This suggests that social change is palpable in the elite hockey community, although evidently not enough for players to feel completely safe coming out all the time. Does this mean that the NHL is attempting to quell public concerns over homophobia? To some extent, I believe so insofar as there is pressure on the hockey community to pull up its socks and be inclusive when it does not yet have all the tools to do so in a meaningful way. But that certainly does not mean that Pride Tape and YCP are without value and that boys’ and men’s ice hockey is still as dangerously homophobic and virulently hypermasculine as it once was. Change may be slow coming, but without prominent shows of solidarity and role models, combined with scholarly inquiries that seek to determine the best ways to educate the community, there would be no change at all.

Cheryl MacDonald is a postdoctoral fellow in the faculty of Education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Analysis from Concordia University in Montreal and has built up a streamlined dossier of research on masculinity and ice hockey in Canada over the past eight years. Her institutional biography can be accessed by clicking here and she can be found on Twitter @cheymacdonald.

Over many years of watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournaments, one thing that I, and many others, have looked forward to is the video montage broadcast at the end of CBS’s coverage of the championship game, set to the song “One Shining Moment”. The montage celebrates not only great basketball, but also the range of male emotional expression in sport. Images of young men bursting with joy over a victory and crying in agony over defeat have long been a staple of this video memory of the tournament. Quite honestly, this video has often brought a tear to my eye as I connected to these young men’s emotions. However, it is not my reaction to the video that is notable, but rather the celebration of men’s emotions that is of interest.

When it comes to expressing our emotions, American society has long maintained an expectation that men refrain from displaying any emotion other than anger. Emotional displays can be seen as a sign of weakness, and young men are subjected to insults for such displays. In particular, men and boys are traditionally expected to be tough and not to cry. These expectations have been referred to by researchers studying a sports context (mixed martial arts fighting) as “managing emotional manhood”. While this limited emotional expression for men is true in most areas of social life, we see an exception in NCAA March Madness. The allowable range of male emotional expression in this tournament is simply far greater, including both positive and negative emotions. The montage aired at the end of the tournament includes examples of both joyful celebration and images of young men crying (or at times hiding their heads while they cry). What makes the NCAA men’s basketball tournament so notable is that we openly acknowledge and even appreciate the emotions and emotional displays of these young men.

This celebration of emotions stands in stark contrast to the display of masculinity inherent in men’s basketball. Basketball is a contact sport with considerable emphasis on strength, speed and power. The players are expected to be aggressive on the court and this reflects socialization into the sport. Basketball celebrates toughness and aggression and even, at times, tolerates apparently deliberate acts of violence. Considerable debate emerged this season over the penalty levied against Grayson Allen of Duke after he deliberately tripped an opponent during a game (and not for the first time). While the punishment was initially presented as an indefinite suspension, Allen ultimately was only suspended for one game by Duke. Finding the line between appropriately aggressive behavior and dangerously aggressive behavior can be difficult in a sport that expects aggression. In such a sport, it would seem that emotional displays should be centered around aggression, anger, and defeating one’s opponent, and indeed, there are many such displays.

Thus, it is not surprising that the video montage of March Madness recognizes expressions of victory and the emotional high that comes with it. Showing happiness over a victory reflects dominance over an opponent, which is consonant with boys’ emotional socialization in sports. But, here we also see the emotional lows of sadness openly acknowledged and even honored. Indeed, reviewing videos from previous tournaments shows countless examples of young men crying bent over in defeat, expressing their extreme sadness at their team’s loss. A quick review of the most recent montage from 2016 found at least 10 instances of images of young men in tears or hanging their heads in sadness over losing.

While we consider why such disparate emotional displays coexist in March Madness, we need to think about what sadness means in this instance. One possibility is that we recognize emotional expression as an indication of a player’s investment in the game. They would not get so emotional if they had not put all their effort into what they were doing. We worry about how players manage emotions during the game because of fears that their performance might suffer if they are too emotional, but we appreciate the emotional displays once the contest has ended. We take it as a sign that they “left it all on the floor.”

As the lyrics of the song for the NCAA tournament, One Shining Moment, say, “[that] one shining moment you reached deep inside, one shining moment, you knew you were alive”. For all the shining moments in this tournament, we connect to these young men, we celebrate their highs and even appreciate their lows, but then we seem to expect men to return to limiting their displays of emotions in the other areas of their lives. The question becomes, why do we celebrate men’s investment in sports and the emotional expression that results from that investment, but not similarly celebrate such displays of emotion in the other areas of their lives?

Gretchen Peterson is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Memphis. Her research connects the sociology of sports with social psychology. She is author of a chapter on “Sports and Emotions” in the Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, Volume II (Springer, 2014).

*Cross posted on The Rabbit Hole*

I recently visited Palm Springs/Indian Wells, California to see the BNP Paribas Open. For non-tennis aficionados the BNP Paribas Open (more commonly referred to simply as Indian Wells) has been unofficially titled the “Fifth Grand Slam” (AKA major tournament) of the professional tennis circuit because of it’s prestige as a title, the fact that both the men’s and women’s tours play concurrently, and the amenities available to the players and fans.  In doing my trip planning I stumbled upon some of the tourist appropriate history of Palm Springs:

More than 2,000 years ago, Palm Springs’ first residents were the ancestors of today’s Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. One of the many Cahuilla bans, the Agua Caliente existed as peaceful hunters and gatherers, living off the land, and adapting to the extremes of desert summers and mountain winters…The Cahuilla tribe first encountered non-Indians in 1774, as Juan Bautista de Anza’s expedition traveled through the area. In 1853, a government survey party mapped Palm Springs and its natural hot springs mineral pool – now the site of the Spa Resort Casino – and established the first wagon route through the San Gorgonio Pass.  The Cahuilla culture was decimated with the 1863 smallpox epidemic that killed thousands.

In 1877 as an incentive to complete a railroad to the Pacific, the U.S. government gave Southern Pacific Railroad title to the odd-numbered parcels of land for ten miles on either side of the tracks running through the Southern California desert around Palm Springs…

The even-numbered parcels of land were given to the Agua Caliente, yet federal law prohibited them from leasing or selling the land to derive income from it. (Visit Palm Springs)

Naturally, tourist sites aren’t in the business of rehashing North American colonization on their websites, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know the history that we are travelling into and what made our leisure activities possible.  Because, in short form, the colonization/dispossession/genocide of California’s Indigenous Cahuilla people is what made today’s tourist haven, and tennis’ “fifth Grand Slam” possible.  Or, as certain historical accounts will refer to it, “the pacification of Native Americans” is what made the resort town of Palm Springs possible.

In 1853, W.P. Blade, a Smithsonian Institution geologist, reported that the Cahuilla community was a thriving Indian village, but a decade later, all would change when gold was discovered on the Colorado River.

According to Theodor Gordon’s PhD thesis on tribal sovereignty in Southern California, the local Indigenous population went from 150,000 in 1845 to less than 30,000 in 1870. “The annexation of the Southwest led to novel federal approaches to the so-called “Indian problem,” including the creation of the reservation system, which was first attempted in California” but the original reservation system was not implemented. Moreover, the parcelling of land mentioned above was not an expression of “sharing is caring” for equitable land distribution, rather it was meant to disconnect the Cahuilla from their territory.  The word “give” is a misnomer because the same statement could just as easily be written as:

The odd-numbered parcels of land on either side of the tracks running through the Southern California desert around Palm Springs were stolen from the Cahuilla people in order to facilitate the development of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

They were also prohibited from making profit from this “given” land until the Equalization Law was signed in 1959.

Once America annexed Alta California the rights of the Cahuilla were greatly restricted. They became civilians of the United States but not citizens; thus, they were denied the franchise and the ability to testify in court.  Many of the Cahuilla people were forced into indentured servitude. At the time, California was only concerned with prohibiting black slavery, which meant that systemic oppression of the Indigneous people was fair game.  “The newly formed California government legalized indentured servitude for the indigenous population, and these policies quickly expanded to promote practices of forced child labour and sexual exploitation that can only be properly described as slavery” (Gordon, 2013).  Unemployed Indigenous people were also subject to arrest.

The Sacramento Standard, in 1860, argued for the expansion of the Indian apprenticeship system; they argued that in order to fix California’s “Indian problem,” “the most human disposition that could be made of them, is, probably to reduce them to a mild system of servitude. Call them slaves, coolies or apprentices – it is all the same; supply them with Christian masters and make them Christian servants” (cited from Rawls, 1984, p.90).

Moreover, American settlers used to refer to the Indigenous people as “bucks.  Just as male deer are called bucks and are prized hunting game, so too were the Indigenous people (Gordon, 2013).

As a result, we need to acknowledge that despite the BNP Paribas Open taking place on Indigenous land in a city called “Indian Wells,” there have been very few Native American tennis players who have competed at the professional level (Dawn Allen and D’Wayne Begay perhaps being two of the more prominent names). The North American Indian Tennis Association (NAITA) hosts an annual tournament and seeks to expose Indigenous groups to the game but the fact that there were no notable self-identified Native American tennis players competing at the BNP Paribas Open is evidence of the lingering repercussions of “the pacification of Native Americans.”

Courtney Szto is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.  Her doctoral research explores the intersections of race, hockey, and citizenship in Canada.  She is the Assistant Editor of Hockey in Society and writes for her own blog The Rabbit Hole. Learn more about Courtney here and follow her on Twitter @courtneyszto.

*Cross posted on Hockey in Society*

The media conversation surrounding sport’s ongoing “concussion crisis” took an interesting turn in early December 2016. In spite of the wide assortment of sophisticated technologies heralded as providing the next big breakthrough in protecting athletes from the effects of brain trauma, the debates around how to best diagnose a concussion revolved around a pair of human eyeballs.

On December 4, Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid was controversially removed from a game against the Minnesota Wild to be assessed for concussion symptoms. McDavid’s absence was ordered by a league-appointed concussion spotter monitoring the game on television from NHL headquarters. Although he was later cleared to return, the Oilers failed to score on a 5-on-3 power play during McDavid’s absence and lost in overtime. A frustrated McDavid commented after the loss, “I was pretty shocked, to be honest. I hit my mouth on the ice. You reach up and grab your mouth when you get hit in the mouth, it’s a pretty normal thing. Obviously the spotter thought he knew how I was feeling. So he pulled me off.” The incident proved controversial as teammates and fans challenged the spotter’s judgement while journalists argued that McDavid’s frustration proved that the NHL’s concussion protocol was working.

The fallout from the McDavid incident exemplifies a general distrust of subjective knowledge regarding how sport-related concussions are diagnosed and treated. The story goes something like this: athletes can’t be trusted because they are unfairly asked to make snap interpretations about what just happened to their brain in the heat of a game. And besides, as Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky writes, even if they feel like something’s not quite right, they’ll probably just lie about it anyway. Coaches want their best lineup available and may prioritize winning over the health of their players. Team doctors may make biased decisions about whether or not a player should remain in the game and need to be held in check by the presence of “independent” medical professionals. And, of course, the naked eye of a concussion spotter can’t possibly determine how an athlete is feeling through a television screen.

These types of warnings and safeguards, of course, are absolutely necessary. Widespread underreporting of concussions by athletes is well-documented and cause for alarm, as are concerns about the reliability and interpretation of baseline neurocognitive data used to assess concussion symptoms. The decisions made by coaches and in-game medical professionals should certainly be kept under close scrutiny.

Yet journalists and scientists are quick to assert that these concerns about human interference would be made virtually moot through the development of objective, technology-based diagnostic techniques. These technologies and scientific protocols are designed to detect deception, circumvent bias, and correct human error. As a 2017 systematic review of tools to diagnose concussions in hockey makes clear: “As objective diagnostic tools become available, the diagnosis will be less vulnerable to subjective overlay of overly aggressive athletes and assertive coaches.” In other words, the quest for technological “facts” about brain injuries will effectively dispatch the need for subjective medical “opinions.”

The ongoing call from scientists for reliable quantitative or objective diagnostic techniques supports a broader media narrative that celebrates technology as inevitably providing a readymade solution to the concussion problem. With headlines like “Can technology save football?” and “New helmet technology could lead to fewer concussions” trumpeting the march of scientific progress, journalists gleefully report on how advancements in everything from protective equipment; medical devices; blood, hearing, and balance tests; neuroimaging techniques; accelerometers; and brain training software might offer the technological breakthrough that would literally change the game and make sports safe again.

Preoccupations with scientific progress and technological innovation, however, shape the types of conversations we can (and can’t) have about protecting athletes’ brains. As Bachynski and Goldberg warn, suggesting that scientific interventions will offer the most effective solutions to the concussion problem constrains our ability to ask fundamentally moral and political questions about how we define acceptable levels of risk and violence in sports.

I want to be clear: scientific research, clinical studies, and technological advancements will be absolutely vital in how we address the health of athletes going forward. We especially need to support these efforts in our current “post-truth” era of fake news, alternative facts, and outright censoring of scientific data. In fact, some researchers have already expressed fears that the Trump administration could make funding for concussion research much more difficult to obtain.

Yet supporting the work of scientists and celebrating the merits of facts can’t come at the expense of the value we give to “subjective” knowledge and, its academic cousin, qualitative research. While almost exclusively defined in medical or scientific terms, sport-related brain trauma is a cultural phenomenon that influences interpersonal relationships and emotional wellbeing, shapes identities, and is connected to economic systems. In coming together to address sports-related concussion as a public health issue, we also need to understand the social, political, and historical contexts in which these injuries take place. Matters of culture and experience must be put in conversation with the world of scientific studies and technological innovation. An interdisciplinary conversation, one that values both “subjective” and “objective” knowledge, is paramount to grasping the implications and complexities of the concussion issue.

That said, there does appear to be a growing comfort level with public discussions of toughness and manliness as they relate to brain injuries. Some high profile athletes have been outspoken on the matter while it is becoming more common for sports organizations to warn young competitors against “toughing it out” when the health of their brain is at stake. Harrowing tales of dementia and depression among retired pro athletes or the tragic death of Canadian rugby player Rowan Stringer serve as a powerful cautionary tales about the dangers of underestimating the consequences of brain trauma.

Yet the strides made through these efforts should not trick us into believing that this message is no longer relevant. Oilers tough guy Patrick Maroon’s comments after the McDavid incident, punctuated by his reminder that hockey was a “man’s game,” demonstrates that the “concussion crisis” has not made traditional notions of masculinity and toughness in sport disappear. I’ve also written previously about how conceptions of toughness are multi-faceted and only one of the ways in which concussions are defined in cultural (rather than scientific) terms. Simply telling someone to be “man enough to admit when they’re hurt” overlooks how sports are complex social environments that evolve depending on who’s playing, where, and why. We can examine these important differences by asking athletes about experiences of brain injury and recovery, but we also need to analyze how their responses might influence (or prohibit) change both within and beyond the culture of sports.

We also need research recognizing that the subjective aspects of the concussion issue don’t end with what happens on the playing field or in the locker room. The lab and the clinic are themselves cultural spaces. There already exists a lot of great writing about how neuroscience as an academic discipline has its own culture with a complicated history, intricate economies, and its fair share of contradictions. Yet too few social scientists are included on the “interdisciplinary” teams that drive concussion research and shape future approaches to brain health. A more holistic understanding of brain trauma in sport needs to include a critical examination of decisions made throughout the scientific process and how complex research findings get packaged for consumption through the media. There are indeed subjective aspects to the production of objective data.

What we know about brain trauma in sport can only be enhanced by accounting for the messiness of cultural experience. This process should involve embracing subjective knowledge, not as something to be eliminated or circumvented, but as an important part of this complex and rapidly changing story.

Matt Ventresca is a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Sports, Society, and Technology program. His research examines media representations of scientific knowledge about brain injuries in sports. He is a member of an interdisciplinary research team based at the University of Calgary seeking to bring together scientific and sociocultural understandings of sport-related concussions. You can follow his rampant retweeting @TheAcademyBlues.

Recently, organizers of the professional cycling event the Tour Down Under made the decision to eliminate “podium girls” and replace them with male junior riders on the men’s tour, thereby breaking from the tradition of other major professional cycling events like the Tour De France, Vuelta a Espana and Giro D’Italia. Podium girls are a highly visible component of the awards ceremony at the conclusion of bike races. The women are often impeccably dressed in matching outfits while presenting winners with prizes, flowers and kisses on the cheek. The role of podium girls and, in some instances, podium boys provides a snapshot of the ways in which traditional gender norms are reinforced in sport.

The reaction from the male riders in the peloton to the elimination of podium girls has vacillated between keeping podium girls because the “tradition” is important and eliminating them because it dehumanizes women. Trek-Segafredo rider Peter Stetina, who is clearly on the side of tradition, said, “I think they should remain. If I win a race, someday I would love to get the flowers and the kisses on the cheek. It’s a celebration.” And Koen de Kort made this statement:

My wife used to be a podium girl, and I met her at this race. They’re not up there to just look pretty, they’re also hosts. Now we have junior riders to give us the jersey. It’s ridiculous. I can see some of the political ideas behind it. It’s a little bit weird, and I don’t really understand that.

The elephant in the room behind the “tradition” logic is the idea that men presenting other men with flowers or prizes may be too homoerotic for some cyclists.

Cycling, like many other sports, has a history of exclusion and marginalization of women (Side Note: The documentary Half the Road does an excellent job of explaining the challenges facing female cyclists). For example, Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the international governing body of cycling, initially excluded women altogether (the UCI did not acknowledge women’s records until 1955, women’s cycling did not have a World Championship until 1958, and women’s road cycling was not an event at the Summer Olympics until 1984) with the exception of using them as arm candy—A.K.A. podium girls. When the UCI did allow women to compete, they either did not offer equivalent women’s versions of well-known men’s races or, if women’s events were offered, they were on a much smaller scale in terms of length (e.g., number of stages or days) and difficulty (e.g., climbing). The exclusion and sex based rules differences are rooted in the unsubstantiated idea that women are physiologically incapable of competing at those distances or difficulty levels. Male cyclists are also paid more than their female counterparts. Men’s professional cycling has a clearly articulated salary structure in the UCI policies that outline the amount teams must pay athletes, including minimum salaries which are not required on the women’s side. The average salary for female cyclists, €20,000, is actually less than the minimum wage for male cyclists at €35,000.

Gendered norms are also reproduced through cycling-related products and advertisements. When manufacturers like Giant name women’s versions of mountain bikes “Lust” and “Tempt” while similar men’s bikes are named “Anthem” and “Fathom,” they implicitly remind consumers that women are sex objects while male athletes should be taken more seriously as riders. Even clothing companies that sell cycling gear have sexualized women on their socks. More alarmingly, podium girls are not safe from sexual assault from male riders like Peter Sagan who grabbed the butt of a podium girl, Maja Leye, at the 2013 Tour of Flanders.

The reaction to Sagan illustrated the prevalence of misogyny in and outside of the cycling community. Instead of chastising or suspending Sagan, some openly dismissed the incident by essentially saying Leye “asked for it” by being a podium girl or joking about Sagan being “naughty.” In 2015, race organizers, e3 Harelbek seemingly referenced that incident with their ad for their one day race.

All of these combined practices—from exclusion, to sex-based rule differences, to the pay gap, to sexist products and advertisements, to actual assault—undermine the competence of female cyclists while simultaneously reinforcing the assumption of male athletic superiority.

Some argue that the role of podiums girls has changed over the years, moving away from strictly beauty queens with little beyond ornamental functions to tour hostesses with additional duties behind the scenes accommodating journalists, sponsors and VIPs. Criticism of podium girls, however, has heated up in recent years, as they are viewed as a reproduction of systemic sexism and heteronormativity. In 2013, for example, the over-the-top sexualization of podium girls created outrage among some women in the cycling community when the organizers of the Flanders Diamond Tour in Belgium had women in bikinis and high heels posed in front of the podium.

While this example may break the unwritten rules of decorum for podium girl attire, it still reflects that ways in which sexism is institutionalized in cycling—podium girls are a highly visible example of women as support structures for men’s cycling while women’s cycling is simultaneously ignored or marginalized by the UCI.

The Tour Down Under decision was not the first attempt at redefining podium girls or eliminating them altogether. In an unprecedented move in 2010, a Dutch politician suggested that gay men or drag queens act as podium girls. Deeming the existing practice “outdated,” he thought that it would increase LGBTQ acceptance in sport. Needless to say, out gay men or drag queens as podium girls has yet to come to fruition. In addition, some women’s cycling events (Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Norway and Le Course) have replaced the podium girls with boys. I would argue that replacing the girls with “boys” who kiss women still perpetuates institutional heteronormativity and homophobia within sport and society. Furthermore, having podium boys does nothing to alleviate actual structural inequality in women’s cycling. Instead it is designed to feign equality and progress by insinuating that it is okay to sexualize women if we also sexualize men.

Ideally, the decision by the Tour Down Under will prompt other event organizers to question what “traditions” they are holding onto and their subsequent meanings with the end result of eradicating institutionalized sexist practices.

Emily Houghton, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Exercise Science Department at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. Her research focuses on race, gender, and media in the context of sport. She can also be found tweeting up a storm via @onewhowontjoin.

Professional tennis, like every other “good” sporting organization, does its part to “give back” to the communities with which it interacts. If you’re a fan of women’s tennis you may have noticed that the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) donates money for every ace that a player hits during a season. Some of the aficionados may know that former World #1 and teenage phenom, Martina Hingis, was an ambassador for polio eradication. You might even know that the WTA has worked with Habitat for Humanity International and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. But I’m willing to bet that even the most ardent tennis fan doesn’t know that ten yeas ago, the WTA started a partnership with UNESCO in the hopes of achieving Global Gender Equality.

In 2006, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) formed a partnership with the WTA to “raise awareness of gender equality issues and advance opportunities for women’s leadership in all spheres of society.” Like many other girls empowerment programs, this partnership was premised on the notion that women and girls are the necessary foundation for global advancement:

Through this partnership with UNESCO, our goal is to let women and girls throughout the world know that there are no glass ceilings, and to do our part to support programs that provide real opportunities for women to succeed in whatever they set their minds to. ~ Venus Williams

This “landmark” partnership was the first time that UNESCO partnered with a professional sports league. ESPN reported, “[i]t was [Venus] Williams’ personal sense of outrage that triggered the WTA Tour’s engagement with UNESCO.” Citing the fact that the WTA Tour has been persistent in its fight for equality, UNESCO and the WTA Tour announced its partnership in November 2006 naming Venus Williams as the inaugural UNESCO Promoter of Gender Equality. The partnership consisted of five key elements:

• Sony Ericsson WTA Tour/UNESCO fund for women and leadership (original endowment of €200,000)
• Promoter of Gender Equality player program that uses WTA Tour players as role models to create awareness about gender equality globally and nationally
• Mentoring, fellowship and scholarship programs to support women’s individual leadership opportunities (hosted through the Women’s Sports Foundation)
• Advertising campaigns
• Using existing UNESCO and WTA Tour events as fundraising platforms

In 2007, the partnership announced that it selected five women’s leadership initiatives out of a possible 65 projects from 27 countries. The programs to receive initial funding were hosted in Liberia, Jordan, Cameroon, China and the Dominican Republic. In Liberia, partnership funds contributed to the creation of a women’s-only night school for 1000 girls, and provided training for disadvantaged women to staff the program. In Cameroon, initiatives were implemented to foster successful female politicians, businesswomen and athletes to organize gender equality events. In Jordan, a program was implemented to teach women about their legal rights through 24 awareness workshops hosted throughout the country. In China, with approximately 57% of its population living in rural areas, a program was designed to increase the percentage of rural women involved in local affairs. Lastly, in the Dominican Republic an initiative to advocate for women’s political and social leadership through capacity building and training activities was created with the hopes that some women would rise up the ranks of civil society and politics. Additional funds were also set aside for a program in India; however, little information about this program was ever released. It is interesting to note that none of the original projects involved tennis as the driver of social change.

The Promoters of Gender Equality program selected Venus Williams (United States), Zheng Jie (China), Vera Zvonareva (Russia), and Tatiana Golovin (France) as player role models to represent this partnership. Additionally, in 2008 WTA Tour founder and former player Billie Jean King, was named the ‘Global Mentor for Gender Equality’ for achieving her goal of “using sports as a means for social change.”

It sounded like a legitimate partnership poised to make a real difference on the ground; however, around 2010 the initiative quietly faded away. So what happened to the partnership and its initiatives? No one knows! This so-called landmark partnership isn’t even listed on this timeline of notable WTA achievements. Well, I’m sure some people at the WTA and UNESCO know what happened, but no one was willing to tell me whether the partnership dissolved, had an exit plan, achieved its objectives, or was simply no longer interesting.

Over the past two decades, sport has become increasingly involved with international development projects, with organizations like Right to Play at the forefront of the sport for development and peace movement. Because sports organizations often require buy-in from many different stakeholders (i.e., fans, players, sponsors, and government) it has become expected practice that sports teams and organizations “give back” in a number of ways. This broad popularity is also used to promote the idea that sport itself serves as a vital platform to initiate social change.  Nonetheless, it is important that we question the intent, suitability, and impacts of these initiatives.

There is fair criticism that corporations involved in international development either use social responsibility programs as “window dressing” or lack the necessary skills to properly tackle development issues. When initiatives like the UNESCO-WTA partnership quietly disappear, they don’t do much to counter this perspective. You might be thinking that technically the WTA is a non-profit entity, and you would be correct. But it is a non-profit in the same way that the NCAA is a ($10 billion) non-profit entity.  The WTA operates under a corporate structure, engages in the buying/selling of labour, and is held to the legal regulations of a corporation.

Peter Newell and Jedrzej Frynas (2007) underline that “CSR [corporate social responsibility] as a business tool is distinct from CSR as a development tool” (p.670), which has yet to be fully understood.  Moreover, business scholar, Michael Blowfield, (2005) argues that we need to question not only how CSR affects a firm’s behaviour but also critically question how CSR has affected the meaning of development. He contends that the largest impact business thinking has made on international development is its ability to “dominate the way we view the world, and to become the norm against which everything is tested for true and false value” (p.516). For example, the Program Implementation Plan used for the UNESCO-WTA initiative in Cameroon, as an example, highlighted very tangible objectives, such as:

provision of technical assistance to women’s group and or unions of groups ($2000), leadership training workshops ($5000), celebration of International Women’s Day in several communities ($3750), organization of a female marathon, scholarships for female athletes ($3750 in combination with the marathon), and capitalization of project experiences. (Szto, 2015, p.6)

Yet, we know little of how these activities helped to “increase awareness about the role of women in society”.  In other words, it is easy to put on a celebration event, host workshops, and organize a marathon because those are one-time events with public relations appeal, but what is often missing from these types of public-private partnerships is the real gritty work of reconfiguring power relations. There is no causal relationship between the implementation of Event A and Outcome A. Thus, while I had high hopes for this partnership when it was first announced, the way it was conducted and its stealthy exit should really make us question the ability and role of sport in corporate sponsored social justice projects.  If the expectation is simply fundraising and visibility, that is one thing, but whenever we see these types of initiatives we should be questioning:

• Are more business interventions beneficial to development outcomes?
• Is a lack of money truly the problem or is the root cause more systemic?
• Which causes are deemed “marketable” enough for corporate intervention and which causes (e.g., abortion, drug addiction) are too “controversial” for corporations to touch?
• Are corporations/sports teams/organizations appropriately equipped to deal with issues of social justice?
• What makes these kinds of partnerships possible in the first place?

Courtney Szto is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.  Her doctoral research explores the intersections of race, hockey, and citizenship in Canada.  She is the Assistant Editor of Hockey in Society and writes for her own blog The Rabbit Hole. Learn more about Courtney here and follow her on Twitter @courtneyszto.

Works Cited

Blowfield, M. (2005). Corporate social responsibility: Reinventing the meaning of development? International Affairs, 81(3), 515-524.

Newell, P., & Frynas, J. G. (2007). Beyond CSR? Business, poverty and social justice an introduction. Third World Quarterly, 28(4), 669-681.

Szto, C.  (2015). Serving up change? Gender mainstreaming and the UNESCO-WTA partnership for global gender equality.  Sport in Society, 18(8), 895-908.

To read the full thesis, “Serving Up Change? Corporate Social Responsibility as a Tool for Social Change: A case analysis of the UNESCO-WTA Tour partnership for global gender equality.”

The recently knighted Scotsman and new world-number-one-ranked tennis player, Andy Murray, will be entering the Australian Open with his confidence sky-high, looking to start this year just as he ended the last. After defeating Novak Djokovic in the end-of-season ATP Tour final in November and, perhaps most crucially, in the process, finishing above him in the world rankings, this might represent Murray’s best chance of winning “down under” after eleven previous attempts. In the event’s history, Murray is one of the best players ever to have not won here, despite reaching five finals (2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016). All except for 2010 when he lost to Roger Federer, Murray has been defeated by Djokovic. This year, for a change, Murray will enter the event as top-seed and favourite, which is a position he has tended to relish.

Murray’s rise to the pinnacle of men’s tennis has been nothing short of inspirational, competing amongst possibly the greatest quartet of players in the open era, but statistically as the least accomplished of what has been called “the big four”, of Federer, Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Murray. Coming of age now, at 29, proving that he has deserved to be among them all along is all the more remarkable when taking into account his most challenging burden, that is, being British. Indeed, so heavy was the personal pressure on Andy Murray to win Wimbledon – a definitive British cultural “institution” – that when he finally achieved this in 2013, he entitled his autobiography ‘Seventy-Seven’, as a nod to the number of years since the last British male player won the singles event: Fred Perry in 1936. Countless other top British players have failed to win this most coveted prize and subsequently suffered the ignominy of being considered “failures”, despite having had otherwise successful careers. Andy Murray is a cut above the others though, more consistent and accomplished, yet his popularity in Britain has ebbed and flowed throughout his career, partly due to shifting contexts surrounding his proud Scottish identity, and the dominance of English cultural ideals that tennis enjoys in Britain.

While Murray’s earliest taste of national burden came in 2005 during his first Wimbledon Championships, his first taste of fickle British patriotism and the double standards of being Scottish came the following summer when Murray, still just 19 years-of-age, was asked what nation he would be supporting during the upcoming Football World Cup. Quite cheekily, Murray answered: ‘whoever England is playing against’. Given Scotland’s recent moves toward political devolution – culminating in 1998 in the creation of a separate Scottish parliament – and the declining image of England and “Englishness” in the contexts of pervasive Euro-scepticism, rising right-wing extremism in England and the sustained anti-Blair movement following the British Prime Minister’s decision to invade Iraq, the joke was considered by many to have been made in bad taste. The London-based press had a field day, inviting correspondence from the general public, who condemned Murray’s words and labelled him, quite unfairly it turned out, as “unpatriotic” and “anti-English”.

In time, Murray slowly battled his way back into the hearts of the British (majority English) public, reaching the 2012 Wimbledon final against Federer but losing – which preceded an endearing tearful on-court interview – before winning gold (men’s singles) and silver (mixed doubles) medals in the London Olympics, followed by the US Open and then Wimbledon, at last, the following July. At the end of 2013, he won the much-coveted BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) award, which seemed to suggest his public approval was now assured.

Burned from his previous comments on matters related to national identity, Murray initially steered clear of taking sides in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, but just before the polls closed, he tweeted a message in support of independence, which launched a further backlash against the Scot. Some of the messages tweeted in response were described by Police Scotland as ‘vile’; one referred to the Dunblane massacre in 1996 that Murray and his brother Jamie were part of but escaped unharmed.

The following summer, rather poetically, Murray went on to lead Great Britain to its first Davis Cup since 1936 (winning all 11 of his rubbers in the tournament) – which landed him a second BBC SPOTY award – and then in 2016 won the Wimbledon singles title again and successfully defended his Olympic gold medal for Britain in Rio. No one seemed to question his British allegiance when victorious; indeed, through his achievements to become the new world-number one, the British public, for a third time, voted him the 2016 BBC SPOTY on December 18^th, and Murray received the ultimate honour from the Queen, in a knighthood two weeks later. Five years ago, Murray summed up his precarious position as a Scotsman representing Britain in a sport of most cultural significance to the English, when he answered, after being asked while appearing on a BBC comedy show whether he was British or Scottish, ‘Depends whether I win or not’. For many, this sums up the precariousness of Murray’s national identity, and Murray, for his part, seems unable to completely control the direction that the narrative takes in the media. If he is indeed “British” if he wins and “Scottish” if he loses, then Murray is certainly hoping he is considered “British” in Melbourne next week.

In Australia, Murray has, throughout his career, competed without the shackles of “national feeling”, yet in an atmosphere akin to a home crowd. In Seventy-Seven, Murray (2013: 56) admitted: ‘The crowd in Australia has always been excellent to me’; referring specifically to his 2011 challenge: ‘they were brilliant … virtually on my side. I didn’t feel like there was a huge difference between playing at Wimbledon and playing in Melbourne’.

Post-Brexit, with the identity politics surrounding Scotland’s status in Britain likely intensifying Murray’s cursed – though some would say envious – position as both a Scot and a Brit, and having to represent one, the other, or both at times, the Aussie crowds will likely take a far less equivocal stance on Murray. Enjoying unrelenting support in Melbourne, Murray has been known to attract tennis’s version of the England cricket team’s “Barmy Army”, with a particular vocal section of the crowd, dubbed “the Andy Boys”, singing famous songs with Murray’s name switched into the lyrics, e.g. Mambo No. 5 becomes “Murray Number Five”. Undoubtedly, it is Murray’s hope that strong support will help will him to reach another final, where he can translate his status as “crowd favourite” into “on-court favourite” and win the day. At the start of 2017 there is no doubt that “burying the ghost” in Melbourne, and laying to rest any fruitless discussions of his national identity in the process, will represent possibly his most formidable challenge yet.

Dr. Robert J. Lake is in the Department of Sport Science at Douglas College, Canada. His research interests revolve around the sport of tennis, its history and culture, particularly in relation to issues of social class and exclusion, gender, race/ethnicity, national identity, coaching, talent development and policy. He is the author of A Social History of Tennis in Britain (Routledge, 2015), which recently won the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize awarded by the British Society of Sport History. More information, including a detailed list of publications, can be found at: http://www.douglascollege.ca/programs-courses/faculties/science-technology/sport-science/faculty/rob-lake His publications can be found, free to read/access, at: https://douglas.academia.edu/RobertJLake

My PhD research explores South Asian experiences in ice hockey. Why, you ask?

1. Because the South Asian community in Canada has become some of the most devout and enthusiastic hockey fans you will find on this planet.
2. We don’t talk about race in Canada; therefore, there is very little literature about what it is like to be a “visible minority” playing in Canada’s game (a game that remains pretty white-dominated).
3. Lastly, because the Punjabi broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada has become a significant development for hockey culture and Canadian media more broadly.

Two years ago, I conducted a study via Twitter to try and see how people made sense of Hockey Night in Punjabi. It was a term paper that eventually made it’s way into the Sociology of Sport Journal. This was well before the “Bonino Bonino Bonino” call went viral during the 2016 NHL playoffs and before the broadcast moved from CBC online to OMNI television. This post is compiled from excerpts from the article in an attempt to translate some of the material for a popular audience. Please keep in mind that a lot has changed with the broadcast and it’s online presence since the study was first conducted.

According to Statistics Canada, South Asians, a geographic group that includes people from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, are now the largest group of “visible minorities” in Canada, and this demographic change is reflected through the creation of a Punjabi language version of the iconic Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) broadcast. Still, even though Canada is touted as a global leader in multiculturalism, Bruce Kidd argued in 1985 that Canadians understand very little about the ethnic and immigrant experience within sport, and thirty years later we have still yet to make “minoritized” voices a priority in Canadian sport scholarship. Joseph, Darnell and Nakamura’s (2012) book, “Race and Sport in Canada: Intersecting inequalities,” is one of the few significant attempts to center racialized sporting experiences, but the South Asian experience (in Canada) is notably absent from this collection. Thus, with South Asian interest growing in hockey, and four South Asian prospects poised to break into the NHL, Canadians should be asking what type of cultural currency and visibility are afforded to South Asian Canadians, if at all, through the addition of Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi (HNIC Punjabi).

In October 2008, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) created weekly Punjabi broadcasts to accompany the traditional English language HNIC broadcasts. The iconic HNIC was first created as a CBC radio broadcast in 1931 and then moved to television in 1952 where it has been firmly ensconced as a form of Canadian cultural citizenship through the decades. It remains Canada’s longest running broadcast averaging approximately 2 million viewers each Saturday. The French-language equivalent, La Soirée du Hockey, was created in 1937 and lasted until 2004, but it was more dedicated to showcasing games featuring the Montreal Canadiens. After attempting broadcasts in Mandarin and Inuktitut (an Inuit language), Punjabi is now the only language, other than English, in which the show is broadcast. There are no firm statistics on the viewership for the Punjabi broadcast but, in 2009, one of the commentators estimated approximately 100,000 viewers per episode. David Sax, of The New York Times, refers to the Punjabi broadcast as “[marrying] Canada’s national pastime with the sounds of the Indian subcontinent, providing a glimpse of the changing face of ice hockey”.

Punjabi Sikhs were the first South Asians to immigrate to Canada during the late 19th century. Today, Canada has one of the largest Punjabi populations in the world, and Punjabi is the third most spoken language in Canada. CBC’s goal in creating HNIC Punjabi was to extend “hockey to a variety of different communities and [engage] kids in a variety of different ways” (Aulakh, 2009). Despite the show’s popularity it has been cancelled numerous times due to lack of funding, but community outcry and fundraising has brought it back to life each time. During this study, the broadcast was hosted by Harnarayan Singh, Bhola Chauhan, and Inderpreet Cumo, and could be streamed online at CBC.ca, the official website of the national broadcasting network, or found on specialty cable television channels; however, in 2014 the broadcast moved from CBC to the multicultural channel, OMNI Television. Recently, the Calgary Flames, of the NHL, added a weekly online video feature in Punjabi, with Singh also hosting this program. It would appear as though the Punjabi community, in particular, is becoming well integrated into Canadian hockey; yet, the question remains “whether the wider hockey-watching public is ready to embrace a commentator with a beard and a turban”?

All of the tweets used for analysis were collected during the 2013-2014 NHL regular season and then categorized into three themes: acceptance of multiculturalism, ambiguous ambivalence, and resistance to multiculturalism.

The discourse of multiculturalism in Canada can be traced back to the 1960s and Pierre Trudeau’s influence as Prime Minister when he stated, “Canadians have a precious opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of dissimilarity and the richness of variety” (cited in Mann 2012, p.487). Fast-forward to the 2012 Canadian citizenship study guide, Discover Canada, and multiculturalism continues to be outlined as “[a] fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity. Canadians celebrate the gift of one another’s presence and work hard to respect pluralism and live in harmony” (p.8).

These values were reproduced in a number of the tweets analyzed. For example:

Multiculturalism done correctly. MT @X: In Canada, you can watch hockey in English, French… and Punjabi… cbc.ca/sports-content…

Great to see Punjabi-language hockey web coverage, so our national game can be seen/heard in as many languages as possible.

The most powerful discourses are those that “ground themselves on the natural, the sincere, the scientific” (Hook, 2001, p.524) and here we see that the inclusion of Punjabi commentators into the national pastime is reproduced as a common sense progression for both Canada and hockey. Others were pleased that HNIC Punjabi provided an additional outlet for them to watch hockey; in other words, hockey was the most important aspect and what language it was broadcast in was somewhat irrelevant:

Crisis averted. Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi is showing the #Leafs game. Won’t have to stream it on the laptop.

Along similar lines, some fans expressed a preference for HNIC Punjabi because they were displeased with the commentators on the English version of HNIC:

I’m going to start listening to the Punjabi version of Hockey Night in Canada so I don’t have to listen to Glen Healey #HNIC #LeafsNation

At times, it was difficult to discern the intention behind some of the tweets due to the brevity of messages, coupled with the unobtrusive method of data collection. Still, I believe that much of the ambiguity felt as a researcher stemmed from an ambivalence about Canadian values and multiculturalism by the tweeter. It seemed as though a number of people were not sure what to make of the unfamiliar sight of three dark-skinned men wearing turbans anchoring a sports desk and speaking in an unofficial language about a game still controlled by white faces:

Hockey Night in Canada is broadcast in…Punjabi? (photo of Chauhan, Cumo, and Singh attached)

Hockey night in Canada Punjabi edition.. Ummm #interesting (photo of Cumo and Singh attached)

Although most Canadians may encounter a diverse range of people in their everyday lives, it appears that when people of color are made visible in traditionally white arenas, some Canadians are flummoxed by the sight of multiculturalism, while not necessarily being opposed to the idea of it:

Does watching the punjabi broadcast of hockey night in Canada make me diverse or just an asshole? #bitofboth

This tweet highlights the ambivalence felt by some viewers who may want to cheer for Canadian multiculturalism but also see it as Othered and counter to what they are used to seeing.

Nonetheless, in the nation’s attempt to be “anything but racist… the White, male nature of hockey creates an absorption and minimization of difference” (Krebs, 2012, p.85). Hence, hockey becomes one arena in Canadian society where two fundamentally conflicted markers of national identity—multiculturalism and hockey—must negotiate each other’s presence. Accordingly, even though Canada may espouse unapologetic diversity as a value and national priority outwardly, within its boundaries, notions of resistance still percolate. Forty tweets were categorized as embodying some form of resistance to HNIC Punjabi with feelings such as:

Hockey Night in Canada in punjabi??? Really?????
Is nothing sacred
“He shoots…he party num nums”

Many tweets challenged the shows existence, asking “Hockey night in Canada in punjabi? What the fuck is this…”, to which one person replied “absolute insanity….”. Others expressed that the show makes them “cringe,” or that “there is something wrong here”. Some people made rather bold statements such as, “Punjabi people dont even know hockey why CBC whyyy?” The following conversation that took place between, what appears to be, a white female (E) and a white male (N), is revealing about how some may feel that HNIC Punjabi is not a display of multiculturalism but rather an encroachment on Canadian values and tradition:

E: As if they have Punjabi hockey night in Canada. . . (shocked face emoticon) what #really #fucked

N: @X haha they’ve had it for a few seasons now, they pretty much have it for the Peel region lol

E: @X I know. It’s not right in my opinion like really? Come to our country you should be enjoying our customs not creating your own

N: @X I think it was more to appeal to a larger audi- ence in the GTA and get them interested in a sport that they havent [sic] experienced

E: @X who cares if they’re interested. I don’t agree with it at all.

N: @X haha it generates viewership and $$$$, I imagine that’s their reasoning behind it lol

I was surprised to find that a number of tweets expressed amusement over the existence of a Punjabi hockey broadcast. Out of the 40 tweets categorized as resistance, 21 of the tweets included an expression of laughter through an acronym, hashtag (#), or overt explanation:

LMFAO [laugh my fucking ass off] HOCKEY NIGHT IN PUNJABI!!!!!!!

Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi is arguably the funniest thing in professional sports instagram.com/p/ fG7dXcoEMu/ (attached photo of commentators)

Hahaha! Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi. #lololololol (attached photo of commentators)

Hertzler (1970) explains that laughter is an intimate and vital aspect of human social interaction that has diverse functions and forms. It is

an agent of subtle potency. It can produce social effects when argument and logic and even force have proved themselves ineffective; for in laughter we tap something much deeper and more elemental than logic, and often more persuasive than force. (p.84)

Berger (2010) further explains that there are four main theories about laughter. The first dates back to Aristotle and Hobbes and the belief that humor and laughter arise from superiority and making someone of lower status seem ridiculous. The second theory is one of incongruity whereby the difference between our expectations and the actual materiality causes laughter. The third is Freud’s theory that laughter is the result of unconscious and masked aggression, where malicious intent exists at the core. The last theory is from cognitive and communication theory explaining that laughter is a way of dealing with a paradox when processing information and meaning. While laughter may have psychological benefits, Medhurst (1990) reminds us that “comedy is inherently political” because a joke must consist of “those who laugh and those who are laughed at” (p.15).

It is difficult to discern from the methods used what exactly is perceived as humorous about HNIC Punjabi; still, when we look at the academic research behind laughter and humor, when contextualized against race relations, we can argue that laughter is not a positive reaction to multiculturalism. Laughter, as a form of social control, “separates, isolates, or excludes a portion of those in interaction” (Hertzler, 1970, p.84) and can be used as a weapon against so-called deviants.

Post Script

Shortly after drafting this manuscript, I personally experienced the LOL phenomenon. I entered a hockey photo contest and my photo was chosen as the winner. The photo was posted on Instagram where it was viewed and “liked” by thousands. The majority of the comments were complimentary but one early comment caught my eye: “Go figure…its [sic] an Asian #Vancouver lol.” The comment was quickly removed, which is an expected business practice for creating the notion of safe spaces, but the physical erasure of such comments also reproduces the notion that racism is nonexistent and/or irrelevant. Having already conducted this research project, I was less offended than I was intrigued again by this reaction of laughter. It is time we acknowledge that culturally neutral space may be more harmful than it is utopic and, as scholars, we must find a way to elicit meaningful discussions about race. Perhaps, we can start by asking: What is laughable about people of color participating in sporting contexts?

To read the full article: 

Szto, C. (2016). #LOL at multiculturalism: Reactions to Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi from the Twitterverse. Sociology of Sport Journal, 33, 208-218 or email cszto@sfu.ca for a copy.

Works Cited

• Berger, A. (2010). What’s so funny about that? Society, 47(1), 6–10.
• Hertzler, J. (1970). Laughter: A socio-scientific analysis. New York, NY: Exposition Press.
• Hook, D. (2001). Discourse, knowledge, materiality, history: Foucault and discourse analysis. Theory & Psychology, 11(4), 521–547.
• Krebs, A. (2012). Hockey and the reproduction of colonialism in Canada. In J. Joseph, S. Darnell, & Y. Nakamura (Eds.), Race and sport in Canada: Intersecting inequalities (pp. 81–106). Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press Inc.
• Mann, J. (2012). The introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia, 1960s-1970s. Nations and Nationalism, 18(3), 483–503.
• Medhurst, A. (1990). Laughing matters: Situation comedies. In T. Daniels & J. Gershon (eds.), The Colour Black: Black images in British Television (pp.15-60). London: BFI.

Courtney Szto is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She is the Assistant Editor of Hockey in Society and writes for her own blog The Rabbit Hole. Learn more about Courtney here and follow her on Twitter @courtneyszto.