Blackhawks Ice Crew

I am a pretty big fan of the Chicago Blackhawks (even before their Stanley Cup win!). I love the game, the intensity, the players- the only thing I don't love is the parade of scantily clad pretty girls referred to as the Blackhawks Ice Crew. They come around to "clean" the ice when TV takes a short commercial break. Their job is to clean the ice off for the players, but their unofficial purpose is to draw in fans (specially targeting the male population). In fact, when they come out dressed in their revealing tops and short skirts, they do not even clean the ice, there are official looking men in black who do the actual cleaning.


In my opinion, girls doing jobs like this sets the woman's movement back thirty years. Women used to fight tooth and nail to get respect from men, trying to prove that we can do anything they can do. However, these girls come in and are depicted as a bobble-head male fantasy. And the fact that they are doing a job this demeaning says something about the amount of self-respect they have.


It may seem that I don't like the individual girls who do this job, but that is not necessarily true. What I do not like is the idea of using cute girls skating around the rink as a form of entertainment. Back then, women and girls were supposed to be poised and polished, like their only job in the world was to look pretty for men. Some may say that they are sort of like the cheerleaders of hockey, and what could be wrong with that? Well, the main reason girls were all cheerleaders in their high school was because that was the only thing they were allowed to participate in.


The Blackhawks Ice Crew plays into the ideas from A Doll's House because Nora says, "I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you wanted it like that. You and father have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life. our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was father's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls" (Act Three). Nora feels like she is being played like a doll to live out her husband's fantasy, just like how the Ice Crew plays out the male fantasy of perfect figure skaters running around, cleaning up the messes of the professional male athletes. Nora feels like her only purpose in her marriage is to perform tricks for her husband, and you could make the argument that the Ice Crew only exists to entertain the male fans in the audience of the United Center during TV breaks.


Also in A Doll's House, Dr. Rank refers to Nora's everyday dresses. He mentions that she could easily wear one of her everyday dresses to the next masquerade ball they attend. This shows that Nora has to dress up everyday to play the part of the perfect wife to Torvald. She dresses so well to keep up her image, that her dresses are fit for a ball. The outfits worn by the Ice Crew are considerably different from those worn by Nora, but the Crew still puts on a costume that is designed to hide who they really are and just show the stereotype they are supposed to represent.


In case you don't know about the Blackhawks Ice Crew, check out this clip of the 2009 Ice Crew auditions on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAC2v3Ec6M&feature=related