Confused Now...

Being in Toronto until the week-end, I decided I should try to take in a Marlies game. I went to my first one when I was home for Christmas and enjoyed it. Ricoh is a pretty intimate environment, and the tickets are pretty cheap (especially when compared to the Leafs). The Marlies are also enjoying a great season, have clinched their division, and are two points back of Chicago (whom they decimated last night, 8-2) for first overall. When I combine the cheapness and the success factors, I find it pretty irritating that more people don't wander on down to the Exhibition grounds to take it the games, but I think Toronto is rife with professionalism and most "hockey fans" can't be bothered to/don't know anything of teams and leagues that aren't the Leafs.

Now, this isn't what confusing me at the moment. What confuses me is what purpose the Marlies' dancers (or whatever their official title is) serve. We were sitting behind the net in the end the Marlies' attacked twice, so we got to see a lot of the ladies. The short skirts and hiked up Toronto FC jerseys annoy me enough, but then I noticed how many young boys get the women to sign their hats, jerseys, and other paraphenelia. I don't get it. How is this any different than getting attractive women on the street to sign things for you? I can at least understand the people who get their picture taken; if nothing else you have one of those 'hey hey! I'm with hot chicks!' conversation starters, but autographs? Yeah, don't get it.

It also makes me wonder about what we're teaching these young boys. I always find it fascinating that the Marlies - a team marketed towards families - employ dancers. To me, this shows these children from a young age that women should act as cheerleaders for men. This imagery conflicts with stuff like the Timbits hockey held in the first intermission, which is probably half little girls. If I was those little girls, I think I'd be confused. Here I am, being told I can play, and yet the only "grown up" role models that I have in the arena are the dancers, not players.

There was a set of young boys, probably 13 or so, who came down from their seats to sit in front of us (and closer to the dancers). They were half making fun of the women, and half sitting there "to be closer to the girls" (I heard one say this). This was another one of those things that made me raise an eyebrow. If I had been born a boy, and my mom saw me doing something like that, she would have killed me. I just feel like it really serves to reinforce stereotypical behaviours that we're supposedly moving further away from in a more equal society. Of course, I think that equality is largely a fallacy regardless, but examples like this that punctuate this belief for me do make me sad.

On another note, Jiri Tlusty had four points last night for the Marlies. I really wish the Leafs would have let him play the whole season (or at least a good chunk of it) in the AHL this year. I can't see how play 2:00-5:00 minutes per game in the NHL helped his progress like playing time might have.