The CBC hopes to expand the national hockey audience with new online programming featuring a pair of best girlfriends gabbing about the hairstyles and uniforms of hockey players during next week?s Stanley Cup Finals.
Lena Sutherland and Jules Mancuso, gal pals living in New York and Toronto, created the website, WhileTheMenWatch.com. The idea for the site was born on an afternoon begrudgingly spent watching a football game with their sports-obsessed husbands. Sutherland and Mancuso decided to talk to each other over the phone and provided colour co-ordinated commentary on what was happening on the gridiron.
?We thought to ourselves, wouldn?t it be great if we could have a way of listening to an audio stream for women?? Sutherland said.
The afternoon chat turned into regular Skype dates to watch and comment on the games.
The CBC will host the duo?s banter on its website with video of Sutherland and Mancuso streaming alongside a feed of the hockey games, calling it WhileTheMenWatch Hockey Night. The broadcaster has also given the pair a blog to co-author.
As the programming news launched, hockey fans expressed their disapproval on social media, lambasting the pair for setting women sports fans back decades and reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Marsha Boyd is an Edmonton Oilers season-ticket holder who blogs about the team she has loved since she was a little girl. She agreed more women seem interested in hockey, but fans like herself have had to prove how much they know and love the game because they?re women.
?They?re saying ?Your man will watch the game and we?re going to give you an alternate commentary because you?re a woman, and you don?t know anything about hockey and you just want to look at pretty boys and you?re stupid,?? Boyd said of the pair.
?It?s horribly sexist and it gives all women, I think, a bad name.?
Julie Bristow, executive director of studio and unscripted programming at CBC, thinks the conversation that happens between Sutherland and Mancuso will draw in the social viewers of hockey who may not be all that interested in faceoffs and penalty shots, but would watch a big game to be able to talk about it around the water cooler the next day, regardless of gender.
?I don?t think it?s sexist in any way,? Bristow said. ?The title may be where those comments are coming from, but I really think the content is meant for anybody that?s a casual viewer of the game.?
Even with former women?s hockey players Hayley Wickenheiser and Cassie Campbell-Pascall saying they don?t find the premise sexist, Boyd isn?t convinced.
?I know they?re trying to draw in non-hockey fans but they?re basically insulting the current hockey fans.? Boyd said. ?We already have a tough time because women aren?t really respected as hockey or even sports fans.?
?I?d like to think that women in 2012 are pretty secure in our position in society than an entertaining show about hockey is not really going to jeopardize that,? Sutherland said.
Sutherland and Mancuso respect female sports journalists and women who truly love watching traditional sports broadcasts.
?We?re just not those women,? Sutherland said.syogaretnam@edmontonjournal.com
? Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
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