Note: The fine folks at The Hockey News didn't really have a spot for this and posted a shorter version online but I still think the original deserves some blogspace.
Booze, babes, beefcake and ball hockey is a recipe that tends to cook up a frat boy’s fantasy weekend, not a kettle full of controversy. That’s exactly what Montreal Canadiens enforcer Georges Laraque brought to the front burner of Gary Bettman’s already over-heated stove thanks to the forward flashing his smile in an online ad for an alcohol-laced energy drink.
Seeing how I was the lone female at THN’s morning meeting – the other women were busy running the joint – the boss asked me to weigh in on the situation.
Watching youtube and well-built men in shorts as part of my living is a tough job, but it’s one in a long line of sacrifices THN readers deserve, so I hunkered down into my cubicle to do some serious research.
Serious? Who am I kidding? From the opening shot of a McMansion, followed by women jiggling down the road this was so cheesy I was wiping Velveeta (processed cheese food spread?) off my monitor, along with some drool courtesy of the boys in the intern pit. The whole production screamed ‘parody’ and while I didn’t delight in the display of nubile vixens, found this an entertaining way to waste a minute of my life for the sake of my employer.
I’ve spent most of my adult life working with men, and spent my childhood more apt to trading hockey cards and playing Lego with the boys on the block than picking out Barbie’s next outfit. No doubt that has skewed my sexism meter a bit differently than some of my female friends.
Women needing a husband’s signature to open bank accounts. Single women making more than men with families but unable to get mortgages. Women being paid less for the same job because ‘he has a family to support.’ Those situations were not uncommon during my childhood..
This tempest in an NHL teapot isn’t worth burning any bras, unlike the situations listed above, especially not when good ones are so expensive.
Even through the visual assault of boobs and booty, I could clearly see this is a parody, sort of like what the NHL will be if it hands out much, if any punishment for Laraque’s involvement in the commercial.
Despite the gratuitous display of mammaries, it kept crossing my mind that the biggest boobs were those gullible Guses who would buy into the hoopla hook, line and snap shot. For those thinking ‘Me want booze, me want caffeine, me buy, bring on chicks’ I hate to break it to you, but it aint’ gonna’ happen.
The issue that demands a second look here, unlike the video, is the hypocrisy of the NHL banning players from appearing in alcohol ads while gleefully raking in the coin from concession stand bars.
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