Ultimate Fighting Moves Hockey Out of Local Pubs. Does It Make Hockey Less Manly?

The signs were there but it was only last week that I became aware of how hockey’s status as the masculine sport is in decline. 

 Please note that the following anecdote is relatable to both hockey fans and un-fans alike.  For un-fans just think of those times you’ve wanted to go to a pub with your friends and have a nice evening of conversation only to discover that the entire pub is consumed by Canuck watchers.  Well the pub will still be consumed, only now with a different sport. 

 On a recent Saturday night my friend and I went out to watch the Canucks play during CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada.  Normally you’d assume every pub in the city would be playing the Canucks on every TV but that night was different.  When we arrived we were surprised to see a completely packed pub with 6 out of 8 TVs showing Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).  The sound in the pub was also tuned to the UFC match so that every punch and submission hold could be heard loud and clear.  At the second pub we went to it was the same story.  How, then, to explain this shift in allegiances from one apparently violent sport to another?

 Recent media stories point to some fairly fundamental shifts in hockey, which are both de-masculinizing and feminizing the sport.  There has been much discussion within the NHL regarding limiting checks to an opponent’s head and even eliminating fighting – calls which came after amateur league player Don Sanderson died while fighting during a game.  There has also been more attention paid to women and girls who want nothing more than equal ice time to men and boys and have been fighting local arenas for this right (it goes without saying that Canada’s female hockey team has fared consistently better than the males in international competitions such as the Olympics). 

 UFC, on the other hand, is nothing but head shots and fighting.  There will be no crises in masculinity with this sport because it is only about tough guys hitting each other until the other submits and the match is over. So guys (and gals) who need an unambiguously violent sport can rest assured that UFC will fulfill this need and will never impose a rule requiring helmets.  

 This doesn’t mean that this shift towards UFC will mean less people in Vancouver will follow the Canucks, on the contrary it will mean different people will be watching.  And because it’s our national sport - sorry lacrosse - it can only be a good thing that a wider set of the population is interested in watching.  I only became interested in hockey in the past several years, partly because I found that it was something that most people in Vancouver had an opinion on.    

 But the problem remains that us hockey fans, at least those without cable, will be without a venue for watching the Canucks so long as UFC continues to dominate our local pubs.