Experts puzzled by Hockey Canada's 'minimum attire' rule in dressing rooms
CTV
Hockey Canada has implemented a new policy for the 2023-24 minor hockey season, including a "minimum attire rule," with the goal of respecting privacy and making dressing environments more inclusive.
St. Thomas University sociology professor Kristi Allain had one simple question in reaction to Hockey Canada's new dressing room policy: "Why?"
Hockey Canada has implemented a new policy for the 2023-24 minor hockey season, including a "minimum attire rule," with the goal of respecting privacy and making dressing environments more inclusive.
Allain, who has spent years researching masculinity in hockey, wants to know what sparked Hockey Canada to introduce this policy when the sport has much larger issues.
"I think we have to ask serious questions about 'why?"' said Allain. "If a community, the LGBTQ community, the Muslim community, is asking for this, then we should have it.
"But if these communities have not asked for this, then I think we have to wonder if this is just a distraction from some of the really actual hard, hard changes that are going to need to happen to make hockey a safe place for women, for LGBTQ people, for racialized folks."
Allain isn't the only one in the academic community who's puzzled by Hockey Canada's decision.
Bruce Kidd, a Canadian Olympian, writer and Professor Emeritus of sport and public policy at the University of Toronto, wonders how Hockey Canada came to the conclusion these policy changes needed to be made.
