The prevalence of misogyny in ice hockey has been a point of discussion. This phenomenon includes issues related to sexism and male chauvinism. The social aspect of the sport supports issues related to misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and heteronormativity. The subject has been extensively discussed in both media and academia, with many women in the sport increasingly speaking out about the extent of misogyny in hockey and its negative impact on the sport.
History Late 1800s to middle 1900s The first record of an organized women's team reports one formed at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. The group dubbed themselves the Love-Me-Littles after being shunned by the community, the school's archbishop declaring that young women should not be playing hockey.
As World War I hit in the 1910s, women's hockey began a marked period of growth, with tournaments at the Jubilee Arena routinely selling out while the men were off at war. One of the game's star players, Albertine Lapensée, was routinely accused of being a man. Lapensée left the sport after asking for a share of the profits her team was generating. When American investors attempted to organise an All-Star Team to tour the United States, they were forced to drop their bid after the Montreal Star newspaper ran a campaign against it, declaring that any woman who participated in the tour would lose their virtue. After the war ended, investment and media coverage disappeared. In 1923, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association voted not to give women official recognition as hockey players. In the United States, women's hockey began a period of marked growth during World War I and the immediate afterwar years,. However, the sport underwent a significant decline by the mid-1920s, in the midst of the post-war backlash against the wartime gains in women's rights, including increasing arguments that professional sports were dangerous to women's morals. Club and arena owners also shifted their promotion of hockey towards what they believed would be a more profitable image of masculine "blood and mayhem."
During the Great Depression in Canada, the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association experienced a heavy decline for various reasons, including increasing competition for ice time. Its most successful team, the Preston Rivulettes, which still drew substantial audiences, were forced to fold as Second World War hit. The military pressured the facilities and the league failed to receive the same support as the men's leagues. The men's leagues were deemed to be morale boosters.
Abby Hoffman, born in 1947, became an all-star defender in an Ontario boys' league in Canada in the 1950s. Her parents concealed her sex and placed her on a boys team due to the fact that there were not any local girls hockey teams. One report stated that when her sex was discovered, "people were incredulous. They couldn’t believe it. Most people assumed that no girl would want to play."
Middle to late 1900s Women's hockey began to re-form more formal structures in the second half of the 20th century. The first women's ice hockey program in the United States was established at Brown University in 1965. In 1969, Modo AIK faced off against Timrå IK in the first organized women's hockey match in Sweden. National associations continued to ignore the need to develop the women's game model, assuming a lack of interest among the female population compared to the male side, and as a consequence often imposed a wide variety of differing local rules, making international competition difficult to organize. Canada's Fran Rider, who was one of the founders of the Ontario Women's Hockey Association observed: "It is important to understand that support from the minor hockey community did not exist for females, so any progress was in spite of discouragement by male hockey. We had to deal with problems like bad ice, few leagues and no support systems."
By the mid-1980s, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) was coming under substantial pressure to formally codify a consistent set of rules and structures for the women's game but failed to do so, leading to calls for the formation of a separate women's international ice hockey federation. However, International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch informed the IIHF that the IOC would not communicate with separate federations. Within a decade, the 1990 IIHF Women's World Championship was organized and hosted in Ottawa, Canada, and became the first IIHF-sanctioned international tournament in women's ice hockey, 70 years after the first men's World Championship was held. The tournament suffered a number of issues, including Fran Rider organizing the tournament without financial support from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and Team Canada wearing infamous pink jerseys as a marketing decision. The location of the tournament was chosen five months before it started, and priority for ice-time was given to the junior men's Ottawa 67s team, meaning that the sale of tickets only began a few weeks before the start of the championship.
In 1998, women's ice hockey was added to the Winter Olympics. In 2001, women's hockey became an NCAA-sanctioned sport for the first time, with the launch of the NCAA Women's Ice Hockey Tournament.
21st century United States
In March 2017, the players of the United States women's national ice hockey team announced their intention to strike ahead of the 2017 IIHF Women's World Championship, after over a year of failed negotiations with USA Hockey concerning wages and playing conditions. At the time, USA Hockey was spending an estimated 3.5 million dollars a year on youth development programs for boys, but was not making any expenditures which would help development programs for girls.
The US men's team won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics during their overtime match against Canada. This was the men's first Olympic gold since the Miracle on Ice game in the 1980 Olympics, compared to the women's team third gold medal since their inclusion in the games in 1998. After the game, videos and photos of the team celebrating with FBI director Kash Patel were posted to social media, including a video of the team on a call with President Donald Trump, who invited the team to the State of the Union and the White House before stating: "We are going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that. I do believe I probably would be impeached", referring to inviting the Women's Olympic hockey team, who had won gold earlier in the week. While the majority of the men's team cheered and laughed at this statement, one player can be heard shouting "absolutely", with another chanting "two for two", referencing the men and women's teams gold medals.
The majority of the team's reactions sparked online conversations about sexism within the ice hockey community and from Trump. The women's team declined the invitation to attend the State of the Union. A petition signed by over 20,000 individuals was created shortly after the video of the call was posted, with the petition calling for the men's team to apologize for laughing at both the women's team and at Trump's comments, while urging players to skip the State of the Union address. When asked about the comments made by Trump and the men's national team's reaction, women's team captain Hilary Knight called it a "distasteful joke" and said that it overshadowed the US women's success and other Olympic women who had medaled more frequently then male athletes. While Knight echoed statements made by men's team members such as Jack Hughes about the camaraderie between the teams, she commented that the incident provided a potential educational moment for how women's sports teams are discussed in the media.
Sweden
In May 2017, IF Sundsvall Hockey cut its women's team, who were playing at the top level of Swedish women's hockey, citing a need to save money for its third-tier men's side. The club was criticized for the decision, with forward Mathilda Gustafsson stating:
In August 2019, the players of the Sweden women's national ice hockey team went on strike over the lack of financial support and poor conditions they faced from the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.
Canada
After the collapse of the Canadian Women's Hockey League in May 2019, over 200 players announced their intentions to sit out from any professional leagues in the hopes of securing greater investment and media coverage of the sport. The #ForTheGame movement soon became more formally organised in the form of the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association.
In February 2019, the University of British Columbia changed its policy of giving its men's hockey team preference in scheduling matches after complaints from players on the women's team, who had a better record than the men's team at the time.
In March 2019, a girls peewee team in Mauricie, in Québec, made it to the finals of the boys' regional finals before being kicked out of the tournament and being forced to cede their place in the finals to the boys' team they had defeated in the semi-finals.
In 2019 Hockey Canada instituted a new bylaw requiring its five-member board of directors to have at least two men and two women in order to improve representation on the board.
Sex crimes and sexual harassment
1980s In 1989, Brian Sakic and Wade Smith, who had just won the Memorial Cup with the Swift Current Broncos, were arrested after a 17-year-old girl alleged they raped her after she invited them to her parents' apartment to watch television. Sakic and Smith were eventually traded away to the Tri-City Americans in Washington and were cleared of the charges. Meanwhile, the complainant was charged with mischief, an offense she was later acquitted of. In his ruling, the judge who acquitted the complainant described the events that took place at the apartment as "degrading and disgusting by any reasonable person's standards", and that, from his perspective, the young woman "honestly believed what had happened to her…was not by consent." Sakic was drafted by the Washington Capitals in 1990. Attempts by representatives of the complainant to investigate the Justice Department's decision to drop the charges against the players and to charge the alleged victim were unsuccessful.
1990s In 1990, Dino Ciccarelli, Geoff Courtnall, Neil Sheehy, and Scott Stevens of the Washington Capitals were accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year old girl in a limousine. Nick Kypreos told investigators that he had initially stepped into the limousine before the alleged assault took place, but left when he saw the complainant struggling with the players. Kypreos later said this account was inaccurate and that he "saw no indication that the girl was being forced to do anything against her will". A grand jury declined to charge the players, who were released from the Capitals roster.