Man oh man … what are the boys to do about all those Chatty Cathys in the broadcast booth?

I think it’s safe to say that many men harbor a dislike for female sports.

They don’t talk about it.

They don’t read the boxscores first thing in the morning.

They’d rather endure a 24-hour Joanie Loves Chachi marathon than walk across the street to watch, say, Sue Bird and Tina Charles bounce a basketball, and there are reasons for that, foremost being that Sue and Tina don’t do it as well as LeBron and Steph.

That’s always been the main bugaboo for men re female sports. They consider it second-rate, or lower, worthy of only their contempt, even without watching it.

I can’t say how many studies have been undertaken to support that notion, but there’s been at least one, conducted by Durham University, the University of Leicester and the University of South Australia, which sought to pick the brains of 1,950 male U.K. footy fans. Once the fact-finders had sifted through the information gathered, they concluded that the men could be slotted into three categories:

Progressive 24%
Covertly misogynistic 8%
Overtly misogynistic 68%

One Leeds United fan described women as “useless” at sports, while a West Ham supporter went half nutter about increased exposure on the telly:

“It now means there is too much women’s sport on the TV; no one really cares (about it). Women’s football in the media all the time, women’s golf on Sky and the men’s Euro tour on the red button. NETBALL ON SKY!!! The one thing that does irk me is Women’s Hour on Sky Sports News. No woman watches Sky Sports News! NO WOMAN! I honestly wish they’d just piss off out the spotlight. But it’s all PC bollocks nowadays.”

Right about now I should note that I began this essay by saying “many” men dislike female sports. Not most men. Not all men. “Many” men. And I remind you of that because I don’t want anyone going half-nutter on little, ol’ moi, claiming I’ve painted all men with the same stroke of the brush.

How many is “many,” I don’t know, because that’s like asking how high is high.

I do know this, though: If there’s one thing many men dislike more than watching female sports, it’s listening to women talk about men’s sports on TV.

Not all sports, mind you.

Men don’t seem to get their boxers in a bunch when Dottie Pepper tells them what’s wrong with Tiger Woods’ golf swing, nor do they find the sound of Cheryl Bernard’s voice irksome on TSN’s men’s curling coverage. Chrissie Evert and Martina Navratilova can discuss Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer all day long, and there’s nary a squawk of protest about their gender. Ditto Doris Burke on the National Basketball Association.

If, however, the topic is the National Hockey League, send the kiddies for cover in the root cellar and batten the hatches, because all hell is about to break loose.

Jennifer Botterill

I’m guessing Jennifer Botterill knew all about misogyny-spewing louts before this past weekend, but if she needed a reminder Twitter supplied it after her she-said, he-said exchange with fellow Hockey Night in Canada panelist Kevin Bieksa on Saturday (or as we used to call it as kids, Bath Night).

If you missed it, Bieksa was advocating for goon hockey, because of course he was. Botterill was passionately in favor of removing stone-age behavior and back-alley tactics from the game. It was a Bowling Green grad (finance) vs. a Harvard grad (psychology). But, for many, it was a former NHL player vs. a woman. Here are some of the comments directed toward Botterill on Twitter:

“This is men’s hockey not women’s. Why is Jennifer even there?”
“Go back to women’s hockey.”
“We don’t need women commenting on a man’s game.”
“If I wanted to listen to my Mom, I’d call her.”
“Go analyze women’s hockey.”
“Damn bitch.”
“She is the definition of a gender hire.”
“She is a girl. That’s the point. Why is she commenting on a man’s game when she isn’t a man?”

Lordy, I shudder to think what they’d be saying about Jennifer if she was female and lesbian.

Meanwhile, the many dozens of comments I read on Bieksa’s part in the gum-flapper on stupidity in hockey made zero mention of his gender as a bad thing. They called him a “dumbass” and suggested he’d taken too many whacks to the melon, but his dumbassness wasn’t linked to his gender.

Despite this evidence, many who walk among us insist a woman broadcasting men’s sports isn’t judged differently. As if.

Botterill was pooh-poohed for having the (apparent) bad manners to never play in the NHL. Those Olympic and world championships she won? Pfffffft. Her critics were only too happy to emphasize that she wore a cage to cover her face and played a brand of hockey that forbids body checking and earns you life without parole for fisticuffs. So unmanly. Thus, her opinion carries little to no heft. Again, as if.

I don’t need to star in a sitcom to know that Joanie and Chachi was rubbish. I didn’t need a bit part in Cool Hand Luke to know Paul Newman slayed it. I don’t need a song on the Billboard 100 to know the Beatles were brilliant and the Monkees were a novelty act. And it wasn’t necessary for Jen Botterrill to drop the mitts with Bob Probert before she could form an opinion on fighting and gong shows in the NHL.

I mean, how many men doing play-by-play on Hockey Night in Canada have gone dukes up with Tie Domi? Zero. How about Elliotte Friedman? He ever chew on Stu Grimson’s knuckles? Not unless he lost his mind at last call in a pub one night. Does that disqualify him from sharing his opinion on NHL ruffians?

As I have written, any female broadcaster is fair game for criticism. You don’t like Jennifer Botterill’s work? Fine. Say so. But the moment you make it about her gender you’ve lost the plot. Also the argument.

The bashing of Leah Hextall and other females in jock journalism is tiresome

People began talking about Leah Hextall on Monday night.

They’re still talking about her today.

And they’ll be talking about her the next time she puts on a head set to describe the goings-on in a National Hockey League skirmish.

Why is that? Because she’s a she.

Leah’s critics, who seem to have multiplied this week like fish and loaves in a Bible story, are numerous and loud, and many among them couch their comments by pretending it isn’t about gender when they pull an arrow out of the quiver and sling it in her direction.

Some samples from Twitter:

“Nothing to do with her sex, but…”

Leah Hextall

“Nothing to do with the fact she’s female, but…”

“I’m all for gender equality when and where possible, but…”

“No man would get away with that PBP calibre in Junior A let alone NHL on national TV. It’s not cuz she’s a woman, she’s just not good at it.”

Yet it’s precisely because Leah Hextall is female that her play-by-play call on the Pittsburgh Penguins-Winnipeg Jets joust Monday on Sportsnet evoked an avalanche of gender-based naysaying, and it’s also the reason many have rallied behind her.

More samples:

“Thanks for bringing a female voice to NHL play-by-play.”

“Hope we soon will be able to hear more female voices doing play-by-play!”

“Sports need more women in media to encourage and inspire young girls to pick up the mic!”

So, you see, when so many comment about gender, it’s about gender.

If not, neither side of the discussion would be talking about the influence chromosomes have on one’s ability/inability to describe a hockey game. We wouldn’t read or hear the words “female” or “sex” or “girls” or “this lady” or (exaggerated eye roll) “really pretty.” It would be about performance. Period. Just like it is for Chris Cuthbert and Dave Randorf and Harnarayan Singh and Gord Miller and Dennis Beyak, not to mention the guys riding shotgun for them in the Blah-Blah-Blah Box.

Alas, what’s sauce for the goose isn’t necessarily sauce for the gander.

Don Cherry in his Boxo suit.

Male broadcasters are, of course, also dissected like a frog in a high school biology class, but it’s never about the XY chromosome and not often about appearance, unless the guy shows up on camera wearing a clown outfit (hello, Don Cherry) or looking like he’s been riding the rails with Box Car Willie and hasn’t dragged a brush through his hair in six months (hello, Elliotte Friedman). Fat, thin, tall, short, frumpy and unkempt or straight off the pages of GQ, it’s not an issue with the boys. And it’s assumed they know what they’re talking about until they say something stupid to convince us otherwise.

Not so fortunate are the women, who bear a different kind of cross.

It’s assumed they don’t know what they’re talking about before they begin flapping their lips, which better be painted, and all those lumps on bar stools and in man caves suffer severe ear bleeds at the first sound of a female voice word-painting their macho sport. Doesn’t matter if she’s spot-on with her play-by-play call. It just isn’t “right.”

There are exceptions, to be sure.

Cheryl Bernard, for example, works men’s curling on TSN and there’s nary a squawk about her female voice, her delivery, or her knowledge of Pebble People and the game. It shouldn’t matter, but it probably helps male viewers that the camera likes Cheryl and her cover-girl looks a whole lot, and that she sits between two guys, Vic Rauter and Russ Howard, who aren’t exactly GQ cover material.

Cheryl Bernard

Meanwhile, viewers have grown accustomed to, and are comfortable with, the sound of Dottie Pepper’s voice on PGA tournament coverage, and if the great Judy Rankin were to work next year’s Masters at Augusta, nary a discouraging word would be heard. The same applies to Mary Cirillo, who talks men’s tennis as well as anyone and won’t take a step back from John McEnroe in the Blurt Booth.

In the main, though, the women are seen as brazen interlopers busting into the frat house, and a more typical experience would be that of Suzyn Waldman, who went from the life of a singer/dancer on Broadway to the Bronx and the New York Yankees broadcast booth in the 1980s.

“I went through years of terrible things,” she once said. “I had people spit at me. I got used condoms in the mail. I had my own police force at the Yankee Stadium in 1989 for a solid year because I was getting death threats. I did Broadway for years. There’s nothing worse than that except this.”

Suzyn Waldman

Female broadcasters are still receiving used Trojans in the mail, only they now arrive in the form of disgusting, toxic commentary on social media, most notably Twitter, where mean tweets include the B-word and the C-word and are cruel enough to make men fidget uncomfortably in shame and women weep. So don’t try to tell me it isn’t about gender.

I’m sure Leah Hextall knows all about this. She must, because she’s a she. Every woman in jock journalism—hell, every female who’s had the (apparent) bad manners to bust down the door to an ol’ boys club—knows it’s part of the gig, and many have moved on to other pursuits because of it. It’s so very tiresome.

I just hope the paddywhacking Leah has taken this week won’t make her one of the casualties.

Holy estrogen, Batman! Look what the Maple Leafs and ESPN have done to hockey’s old boys’ club

There aren’t many things that make a member of the male species pucker up quite like the sound of a medic snapping on a rubber glove for a prostate exam, but I can think of at least three:

1. Being asked to hold his wife’s/girlfriend’s purse in the middle of a crowded mall.
2. Being asked to make a pit stop at the local 7-Eleven on the way home to pick up a box of Tampons.
3. Women in men’s hockey.

The first two make dudes fidget and squirm like mom just found the porn collection, and the third…well, let’s just say there’s a constituency that still travels to and fro in horse and buggy and grapples with the notion of women earning the right to vote.

Doc Wick

We were reminded of this on Monday when the Toronto Maple Leafs forgot that the National Hockey League is an old boys’ club and had the (apparent) bad manners to nudge Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser up the food chain, anointing her senior director of player development.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Hayley’s first order of business was to boost the Leafs’ estrogen level even higher by bringing her former Canadian national women’s team linemate and fellow Hockey Hall of Famer, Danielle Goyette, on board as director of player development, proving Doc Wick already has a good handle on how hockey’s buddy system works.

“If it’s good with Hayley, it’s good with me,” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe told news snoops.

What in the name of Gloria Steinem can possibly be next? Cassie Campbell-Pascall and Jennifer Botterill joining Keefe behind the bench?

Naturally, once word of the Leafs’ appointments worked its way along the grapevine, the oinkers rushed to their keyboards like there’d been a “Sooey!” call, and they unleashed a tsunami of sexist tripe. Some examples:

“Next hockey night in Canada will be Hayley, Danielle, Cassie and Jennifer. It will be like watching The View.

“Laugh’s org. pulling another Nancy.”

“Diversity must be the flavour of the week.”

“She’ll be the next leafs GM after Dubas.”

“So that would make it two female GMs in succession for the Leafs. Such a progressive, woke organization they are.”

“Token appointments.”

Alas, the oinkers’ day worsened.

The New York Post reported that ESPN had recruited Leah Hextall to work the play-by-play mic for X number of games during the 2021-22 NHL crusade and, like Doc Wick and Goyette, Leah is not a penis person, so the Worldwide Leader In Sports has some nerve adding a high-pitched, shrill voice to its stable of hockey squawkers.

Leah Hextall

“Horrible and utterly repulsive,” wrote one reader in The Athletic. “Cannot stand how women have to constantly inject themselves in men’s sports because of a deep gender inferiority complex. Don’t care her background, she has never played NHL hockey (obviously) so she possesses absolutely no direct first-hand knowledge of hockey on that level much less playoff hockey. Whoever approved her to work on hockey games is a piece of garbage.”

Someone else expressed a fear that a female play-by-play hockey voice would steer ESPN into the deepest and darkest of rabbit holes, whereby they’d hire a transgender broadcaster.

Oh, the humanity.

I’m quite uncertain where it’s written that a pair of testicles is a requirement for talking hockey. Or football and basketball, for that matter.

Cheryl with Vic and Russ.

I mean, where’s the hue and cry when Dottie Pepper gives us her thoughts during a PGA tournament? And what about Cheryl Bernard and, before her, Linda Moore in natter with Vic Rauter and Russ Howard/Moosie Turnbull during an elite men’s curling match. Oh, wait. It’s only curling, and if you don’t drive by a wheat field and grain silo on your way to work you probably don’t give a damn.

It’s only a female voice in the blurt box of the he-man sports that seems to put men’s boxers in a bunch, even as Jennifer Botterill serves as living, breathing proof that a female is capable of stringing together three or more intelligent sentences on shinny, something that puts her a notch or two above Anthony Stewart and other penis people on Hockey Night in Canada.

The thing is, as far as I know Jennifer has yet to mention feminine hygiene products during her intermission gig, and I doubt that’ll be a talking point for Leah Hextall, either.

So at ease, boys. It might feel like the Leafs and ESPN have given you a good, swift kick to the gonads, but this shall pass.

In the meantime, just remember that real men aren’t afraid to hold a purse in public and, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t forget to pick up the Tampons on the way home.