Hi. I'm Teresa Fowler. As mentioned, I'm an assistant professor at the faculty of education at Concordia University of Edmonton.
We'd like to thank the chair and committee for inviting us here today.
Today we are going to share a few findings from a study we conducted in 2021 with 21 elite-level male ice hockey players about hypermasculinity and hockey. Our findings also echo testimony that has been presented already at this committee, specifically regarding Mr. Koehler's testimony regarding the silence of athletes, the lack of accountability, and that we need to believe and protect athletes; and also with Ms. Shore's testimony that spoke to a lack of diversity in sports and that adults who are in protective roles need to protect athletes, not the brand.
In Canada, men's ice hockey has been connected to our national identity. Researchers have made this connection due to enrolments, media attention and funding. This connection between nationalism and men's ice hockey is reinforced through sports being under the portfolio of the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Prioritizing men's ice hockey as heritage upholds a culture that is white, cis, straight and male-dominated. This culture is audaciously grounded in the mentality that winning at all costs comes at the expense of women's right to safety as well as men's physical and mental health.
While participants in our study identified as being resistant to this culture, they overwhelmingly spoke of their inability to push against it. One participant, for example, shared with us a moment from the locker room and the policing tactics that breed conformity. The coach “came into the room and like went single file and basically told every player how bad they were and what they did was bad, and at the end of his speech, he said that he was going to go hang himself in his shower and it was our fault. At 12 years old”.
As Canadians, we need to question the national status of men's ice hockey and the privilege granted to those who play, especially when this results in the normalization of sexual assault and subsequent cover-ups. In our study, when asked directly, the participants acknowledged that sexism is pervasive within hockey culture; however, they often did not offer specific examples or engage with this concept in any meaningful way.
With that said, the participants shared stories throughout their interview that we coded as sexism and misogyny. The participants told stories of women and girls being used for props and for points at team events. One participant shared that they had a coach do body shots off a 15-year-old girl at a rookie party. To these players, these were just hockey stories shared casually throughout the interviews. This superficial engagement with sexism in our data and in the larger culture may reveal why sexual assaults continue to happen, why cover-ups continue that centre on saving the team and the men involved rather than the victims, and why substantive change is elusive.