I remember going to some WHL games and just feeling really uncomfortable by having some women in their mid to late 30s cat calling the players until someone nearby yelled “their under 18”
I’ll just say that if I were a parent, I’d probably berate and humiliate them. Honestly how could these women not know that these are minors? It’s a JUNIOR league
@@jeffreym.8957feel like if there’s a mix of players and some are under 18 you shouldn’t be catcalling at all…matter of fact maybe just don’t catcall at games….might be tough for some people but important
I’m a female who loves hockey because it’s hockey and yes some of the players are nice looking…but it’s not the reason why I watch the sport. I think the women who do that kind of thing to the married players are being extremely disrespectful to the players and their families.if the shoe was on the other foot the women who are being disrespectful sure wouldn’t like it. They need to grow up! No grown women should act like that! Go Blues! 😜
I live 😊 I have favorite players, but that's because of their skill not their looks. I'm also someone who reads gay hockey romance books. I can't speak for the heterosexual ones though, because I don't know what they are like. You can be a true fan of hockey and enjoy hockey romance books. I have never once screamed sexually charged phrases at a player. That's where the line is for me. Doing that kind of stuff is disrespectful. Hockey romance books aren't. They are all pretend made-up players and scenarios. At least, all the ones I've read.
I saw this video title and my jaw dropped; you finally found out about all this craziness! I'm a 20 y.o. female who grew up in Canada and hockey was my whole life growing up. The getting together with friends and playing on the frozen pond, the traditions, physicality, etc. It's so funny how other girls my age romanticize it. I've lived in New Jersey now for a few years and the funniest thing is seeing girls at Devils games in their Hughes or Mercer jerseys who have NO CLUE what's going on. Half the time they're just on their phones. Not trying to pick on anyone, but it gives me a chuckle from time to time.
That’s so funny! I got into hockey via hockey romance books and decided to be a Devils fan but I actually like the game/took the time to figure out what is going on lol
I have a friend who's into hockey romance. I live on Long Island, and it was kinda funny when she was like "Oh I love Mat Barzal" and I was like "Same!!" and then I quickly realized we weren't talking about the same thing. Anyway, I don't quite get the whole hockey romance thing, but it's fine to indulge in it. Who cares, y'know? If you're enjoying it and you're not harming anyone in the process, why should I take that away from you? This whole thing is a different story though. They were actively harassing the Wennbergs, and made their life worse for it. That's not ok
I agree! I have casually read hockey romance just because it's on Kindle Unlimited but some people can't separate their real life from book life. I have never looked at hockey teams and picked them based on their hotness. I follow the canes cause I am in North Carolina not cause I find a player hot. This whole situation makes women again look like they only follow sports because of the guys.
@@_rileyvictoria_Right, like I’m a Preds fan because I’m from Nashville, have we had attractive guys on our roster, sure, Josi, Mike Fisher, O’Riley and James Neil (don’t know why him of all people, but the ladies loved him)🤷🏻♂️ But I don’t watch or go to games too see the guys, I go to see who were loosing to next. This whole situation just feels icky and gross, especially the harassment of his wife and baby.
This whole situation made us book readers who have also been hockey fans for years get secondhand embarrassment. The parasocial delusions these women had that they acted on were lewd and absurd. I told my boyfriend when the Kraken first fell into pandering a bit with BookTok that it would not end well. And here we are, in the midst of chaos.
I was a fan of Kierra Lewis/ hockey booktok before I saw how she handled the comments Felicia Wennberg made. Kierra took the comments personally, completely missing the point of the broader issue that the thirsting for hockey players has gotten out of hand. Not everyone in booktok is only here for the good looking men. A lot of booktok fans are outraged at how Kierra Lewis and her fans are responding to the situation. So many people became fans of hockey that would have never become a fan had it not been for the mixing of communities. I came here to say that not all of booktok is sending the players dms or commenting outrageous things on their posts. There are those of us out there who can admire a good looking man and leave it at that. The amount of women I have met who found a love of hockey through booktok is really incredible and I am sorry that some crazies out there had to ruin the good thing we had. I grew up playing hockey for the Scotty Gomez Foundation up here in Alaska so I got to see both sides of this. I think the way SOME members of booktok responded to this is insane, but I promise it is not all of us.
Totally agree with your take. I'm really dumbfounded by the Kierra defenders who can't see that even though this started out as a joke we were all in on that cat calling real people with requests for explicit acts has gone too far. It's sexual harassment, black and white. They don't get to dictate what someone else's boundaries are. Consent is something that can always be taken away at any time. I get being mad at the Kraken (who are partially at fault and encouraged the behavior), but that doesn't give you the right or a pass to continue the sexual harassment because it was okay at one point in time. That's irrelevant, and you've been asked to stop.
I didn't know who she was until this situation, all she had to was be like sorry for making you uncomfortable, I'll stop and learn from this and tell her audience to do the same and not send harassment
I came to really appreciate hockey bc I read a few hockey romances. I knew nothing about the sport. I got curious, and got into it. Realised I really enjoyed it. And I’ve done my best to learn as much as I can about the sport bc I genuinely want to know more. Do I find some players really attractive? Well yes, I have eyes. But I never understood how these women could go so crazy and post online the things they post 🫠 it is so cringe-worthy. I always thought they were giving real female sports fans a bad rap. And the irony, is that the topic of rabid fans is very often addressed in those books. How could they not see that they were doing exactly what was criticized in their books? You can’t be that tone deaf. I never followed Kierra bc her whole internet persona made me grind my teeth. The perma-hysterics are too much to stomach. But I just scrolled down, and did not engage, and never realised it went that far. And I am also sorry that the crazies ruined everything. It’s truly a shame, and I feel so bad for the Wennbergs. I hope they can quickly move past this.
Hi Shannon! I must say, I was very shocked to see the title of this video - definitely never expected you to talk about this! I got into watching hockey through a friend in early 2022 and have been watching your channel pretty much daily ever since! Hockey has become a huge part of my life and I love watching it, I love discussing it, I love the stats, I love the nerdy history, it's all so much fun and has taken over my evenings in the season! I've also been a huge reader all my life and read romance books sometimes. I've read a few hockey romance novels and while they are fun and have their merits, I've found them fairly frustrating to read as someone who now knows (I'd like to think) quite a lot about hockey now! The sport accuracy isn't great haha - although I do think this is often on purpose and the authors are often aware of aspects of the game and culture they have to waive in order to make a story! They're entertaining and I definitely see the appeal to people who know less about the sport. All this to say, I clearly have no issue with hockey romance novels. They're fun! But a line I've found difficult to cross is bringing real hockey players into that space (especially publicly). I don't necessarily have any issue with the content the booktok people are making, but tagging the players directly and going to theit personal social medias to talk about it is way too far and most certainly crosses a line. I think there's a space for that content, but not in public online settings, and definitely not at the people involved's workplace! It is incredibly hard for women to exist in sports fandom spaces, let alone professional settings, and I can only hope that this whole situation doesn't make that any harder. :)
I'm in pretty much exactly the same place. Got really into hockey last year -- watching games, all shannon's videos, etc. I've read a couple books but not many (honestly I've read more hockey history books/memoirs than romance novels) and I totally agree w your assessment. Really frustrating when people bring it into the real world/with real people bc I've already seen enough misogyny from hockey fans (commenting on any female hockey player's posts about how they suck, its not real hockey, they'd get hurt in a second against boys) and I'm tired of people thinking I want to be a puckbunny or whatever when I say that I'm interested in hockey. Honestly you summed it all up super well and I'm just commenting to show my agreement!
The amount of times I've had to "prove" that I'm a "real" fan as a woman is ridiculous and it's already flared up again this weekend because of all of this
I became a fan about four years ago. I totally feel this! People already thought I was a “fake” fan because I never learned how to skate that well when I was growing up. But, I watch it on TV? Like, why do I need to know how to skate to become a fan of my team? Or they thought I was a fake because I didn’t know a random fact about another team I didn’t watch. I’ve gotten a lot of comments over the years saying I just watch hockey because it has hot guys in it. YOU CAN’T SEE THEIR FACES 95% OF THE TIME!
Same thing here! I lived in Vegas when the knights started and everyone started to bandwagon including me because what else are you going to do the first year? So I have watched every season since and I never knew or learned how to skate because it’s a desert. I have thought some players really cute but I stay because the game is engaging and I learned the game. I still don’t know all of the history and rules but I am learning to be a hockey fan!
Poignant message. When someone is behind a computer screen or phone, too many people lose their face-to-face sense of discreetness or respect. I like the way you linked how this impacts perceptions of professional women and sports. It is demeaning and degrading. It is sad that people on social media still can't mediate the boundaries between novelty and decency. Yes, the internet is a place to have fun and be silly - but everyone still deserves to be treated as a human being.
I got into hockey because I read a hockey romance book (or two), but I genuinely fell in love with the game and watch all of your videos. If you change your mind and want book recommendations I have some 😂 I can think some of the players are hot AND also enjoy the game for what it is. Jack Hughes may or may not be the reason I am a Devils fan. Doesn’t make me any less of a fan. **I’d like to clarify I don’t cat call players at games
The Kraken may have won a handful of real fans but the vast majority were there for the thirst traps and because they felt important to the team. When the Kraken social media team added "mostly booktok" to their description that gave me a lot of ick. As a female hockey fan being seen as a real fan has always been a challenge, the booktok thing just fell right into the stereotype. At one point the Kraken posted pretty much no hockey content despite it getting closer to playoff time. I ended up unfollowing them because i was getting such ick over how they treated their players with the constant thrist traps. After Felicia spoke up the attacks on her were disgusting. The bulk of the new fans wanting to find another team/player to make the same videos about. They posted on Felicia and Alex's pages that she is a r*'cst, jealous and he accusing him of creating. They said Alex doesnt care because he didnt say anything, when he finally did they say he was a sissy with no balls. The behavior is appalling and quite honestly the blame begins with the Kraken social media team and then to this disrespectful handful of women.
It’s a weird day when I watch one of my TH-cam drama channels, Angelika Oles and The Hockey Guy is referenced. Its the crossover I did not expect, nor deserved
One unfortunate side effect of this is that it casts a bad light on all the wonderful, normal female hockey fans who care about the game for the exact same reasons as your typical male fan.
shannon, thank you for talking about this! as a woman who’s a hockey fan, i get stupid comments about how i like it for only the players quite a bit. sure, i agree that the players are attractive, but that’s not the sole reason i watch it. i originally was a bit of a puckbunny when i first started watching, but i never made inappropriate comments towards the players. when i started to learn and understand the game, i absolutely fell in love with the sport, and now i’m a goalie! kierra’s comment section also shocked me to see all the people defending her. i think alex and felicia did the right think speaking up about it, and i think it’s very weird and disrespectful towards their marriage by making those comments and then harassing them for speaking up about it.
“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!" Grandpa Simpson
I get what you're saying with the "this makes it more difficult for women" point, but I just want to point out that women generally feel like we are not taken seriously in sport regardless of if these types of events occur. There was never a baseline where people would have taken us seriously if the crazies didn't act up. There would always be something to use as fuel for a stereotype because the whole thing about misogyny is that it's irrational. It's not actually based on some cause-and-effect relationship where the crazy women do X thing and that makes men think Y about all women in sports. Things like this are used retroactively to justify their irrational biases, but whether or not that justification happens, the biases and stereotyping are still there. Other than that I'm glad that you're addressing this because I think we can all agree that the Kraken made a terrible misjudgment by participating in suggestive content with booktok. No one can deny that they implicitly condoned Kierra's conduct by following her platform and giving her a whole team-sponsored game experience. The team will have to own up to their wrongdoing in some way, but at least they listened when the boundary being crossed was made clear and they unfollowed/deleted content -- unlike Kierra who has deluded herself and her giant public platform into believing she's a tragic victim with a righteous cause. Truly wild stuff.
You're absolutely correct. I had an entire conversation recently about how difficult it is to be taken seriously as a female hockey fan. There's no winning, no matter what!
yeah i feel like since the beginning of the pandemic especially, people online have just lost the concept of boundaries entirely. some people seem to completely forget that there are real humans on the other side of screens and that even "joke" comments are being read by someone. people find it really easy to dismiss harassment online nowadays and it's sad because obviously these kinds of comments can cause genuine harm. otherwise they never would have spoken up about it!! if it got SO BAD that the actual PLAYER felt the need to release a statement, then clearly it's a legitimate problem. i just feel really bad for wennberg and his wife especially because she's literally getting hundreds of hate comments attacking her for... asking politely for people to stop sexually harassing her husband at his work and online?? it's crazy
Thank you so much. Honestly this whole situation is fucking disgusting. And it just confirms that the sexualization of athletes is too fucking normalized. Felicia only stated "hey i dont care if you write stories about my husband but maybe don't tag him in said stories or post sexual comments on his social media", and the amount of HARASSMENT she and Alex got afterwords is fucking horrifying. Not to go all "what if", but I feel like there's a double standard involved in this situation. If this was a female player, the fans would get shunned and probably driven off the internet. So how is Alex's situation any different? And the sad thing is, this isn't new. It's not uncommon to see inappropriate signs at games, and every so often I see sexual comments on a player's pages. And I've already seen people say weird shit about Bedard, who JUST TURNED EIGHTEEN THIS MONTH MIND YOU (yes i know he's technically an adult (18 in the US, 18 or 19 in Canada depending on province if I remember correctly), but the fact that people are doing it now when he's just turned 18- and some were doing it when he was 17 too, is still kind of fucking weird). Like, I think we as hockey fans tend to forget that these are humans. Not fictional characters. Not toys we get to play with. Humans. Living breathing beings. And they still have boundaries that need to be respected. "Alex/Felicia were okay with it before, why are they uncomfortable now?" Because consent can be withdrawn. Just because it was okay then doesn't mean it's okay now. If Alex withdraws consent, then he withdraws consent, and that is something that needs to be respected. Like, writing stories about real life hockey players or RPF isn't a bad thing. And having a crush or fantasies about a player isn't a bad thing. Hell, I'll argue that liking hockey because of how the players look isn't a bad thing (I mean, the NHL certainly won't care as long as they profit off it lol). I'll admit that I've had my fair share of celebrity crushes and some thoughts of my own (teehee). Does that mean I'm going to comment those things on their Insta pages or tag them in posts where I share those things? Absolutely not, because that's where the line is. They don't need to know what I think about them, and they don't need to know what other people fantasize about them either. And they especially don't need to know about the stories they're in or the RPF. Because fiction is supposed to be just that: Fiction. And if you're tagging or worse even *sending* the player said fanfic, then the "Fiction" in Real Person Fiction... just isn't fiction anymore. It's straight up harassment. And yeah, the Seattle Kraken are definitely partially responsible for their part as well. In fact, I'd argue the entire NHL encourages this behavior in a way. And honestly, I hope the Kraken make a statement regarding this, but I have doubts. I'm glad Alex and his wife spoke out against the harassment they got, and I'm honestly hoping it opens up discussions about how we as hockey fans treat players and athletes in general, a discussion that should've been had a long time ago.
I had no idea this was a thing until I saw the r/hockey post about it yesterday. In the past, I noticed there were alot of ~20 yo women that reply to every single TB Lightning post featuring pictures of the players wearing fitted suits before the game. Many of them beg the Lightning social media admin for new pictures of their favorite player. I assumed they were just fans that were a little more interested in the players than I was, but I just went back and looked at their actual Twitter pages.... 😬 Yeah, the stuff they post gets weird pretty quickly.
i 100% agree with the message of this video. as a gay female hockey fan i cannot imagine liking the sport simply because of the players, the whole game is fun! it makes me sad that this has become so normalised alex’s wife had to put a statement out at all only thing i’ll say is that i disagree that it is the fault of the girls on booktok if this scandal makes things worse for female presenters. many men have always, in every sport, been against women giving their opinions on a sport, and anyone using this against them is just looking for a new excuse
i will also add especially as a kraken fan it makes me sad that they leaned into this and they didnt see how wrong it was. im 19 and can tell a lot of their social media content is aimed at my demographic, but certain things should just not be encouraged and boundaries should be placed
I mean not only did the Kraken feed into/ encourage this, they had “booktoks favorite team” in their bio and they were fully aware of what was being posted about their own players. And they themselves posted many “thirst traps” of their own players (now have been deleted). ALSO kierra didn’t just go to a game, they FLEW HER OUT (she had made unacceptable posts about Dunn and Wennburg BEFORE this) and THEY GAVE her the sign that said “krack my back”. Now I’m not defending her at all. She is definitely in the wrong, but Seattle has a lot of responsibility for encouraging this behavior. Also, I have been a sports fan for my entire life. I’ve never once acted like this and I have still been looked down on for being a women in sports. These situations are used as justification to criticize women in sports, but it’s just an excuse to hid their misogyny. This was a small group that were really loud, but almost every other booktok creator/ female hockey fan is completely against this behavior. Lumping all female sports fans together would be like lumping together the 2010 blackhawks with every other hockey organization. Sorry you had to endure this THG ❤ we will send you some hockey romance books to make up for it (some actually aren’t too bad) 😂
I've grown up in fandom spaces on the internet and there has always been an understanding among fans that you keep content like that separate from real people and have it on locked down/private accounts. You never leave comments about shipping or fanfiction or whatever on people's actual accounts. Personally, I have no issue with people finding hockey players hot, but the problem starts when you seek out the player and make comments to them/where they can see them. These creators clearly don't understand boundaries and when certain things are appropriate and when they are not.
I remember a friend of my moms telling me how conservative she thought hockey was; that whole thing about showing up to the game in a suit so the guy looks like your father. So, in a sense, i think if the line between the player and the fan becomes more blurred, then ppl will start to view them as assets instead of these you know 'essential' character pieces. It's already evident in soccer, where the coach or manager or wtv will just plainly state like "ya this guys not worth the contract". I dont think we quite have that yet in the NHL
The guy you worked with described what we call puck bunnies. They are typically younger girls aged 16 to 22ish, who will basically do anything to sleep with a hockey player that is playing juniors. When I played we had this one girl who sent my goalie partner 52 nude pictures for 52 saves in a game. She was 18 and he was 18 so legal. Everyone but me got nudes from the girl. I didn't talk to her. I didn't want a disease lol.
When they had the NFL Draft here in Vegas, they had to have a symposium warning the players of women trying to latch on to future players/millionaires. I'm sure the NHL does something similar or I hope they do. Some of these chicks out there are crazy and relentless.
Very well done, Shannon! A hard subject to approach... I almost went down that rabbit hole and thought it wasn't worth the time or effort. It did need to be talked about! Kudos
The amount of times I have had to defend my love for hockey reached the point of me memorizing Corsi. Being a life long reader and sports person, this is going to make it harder for a lot of us.
We women who love hockey get this type of 'puck bunny' treatment, too. I disabuse them of their prejudice really fast when I run down stats or player profiles on *THEIR* favorite team. That tends to shut them up.
Don’t worry Shannon, I also feel like I’m too old for the internet… I’m only 32 lol. But yeah I don’t know anything happening on TikTok. Probably because I don’t use it. 🤷♂️
It doesn’t even have to be a woman in broadcasting, how about female fans? I am a STH along with my daughter. We genuinely love the game. Games are closely watched. We debate the merits of certain plays or calls. Female hockey fans are just labeled as …well, you know. We aren’t taken seriously.
I promise not all of booktok is like Kierra’s followers. A good amount of her followers aren’t even from booktok, she had a sizeable following before she jumped in to books. There are SO many of us on booktok that are disgusted by her behavior and even blocked her a long time ago for her screaming, thirsty antics. Our videos in support of the Wennbergs and consent in general aren’t getting the high volume of views, though. Consent isn’t gendered. Explicit, thirsty behavior focused on real people that have not consented is never okay. Imagine if this were a female athlete instead of a male one! The kinds of comments being tossed at these male athlete if they were said to a female would be abhorrent. Can you imagine a man going to a gymnastics event and yelling from the stands something about filling her h*les while she competed?! They would be arrested for harassment! It’s vile and dangerous. Not to mention that consent can be revoked at any time. Full stop. But she went to a Kraken game and posted TikToks of herself screaming for players to “Krack my back” (or maybe it was break my back, I can’t confirm anymore because the video is gone)! Why did anyone ever think this was ok? And not only ok, why did anyone at Kraken org invite her to a game considering how disgusting her content about the players was? Bottom line is they did… but that implied “consent” can still be revoked at any time. Kierra isn’t the Queen of Booktok, much as she might like to style herself that way. Because of the size of her following she has a responsibility to call out the behavior of her followers attacking the Wennbergs. Her silence (and even sometimes in live streams her stoking the vitriol) is unethical and wrong. Her three day tantrum at not being allowed to publicly thirst after athletes that object to it is immature and shocking.
Watching this unfold in real time from around the playoffs was so uncomfortable honestly, I think the Krakens social media team is very at fault too, the way they encouraged it and fed into the objectification of their players made fans think that they’re justified in their harassment. You would expect an organization/authority figure to be the one drawing the line when it gets too far, but they haven’t, they failed to protect their players and their families because of corporate greed, and that’s really disappointing. Love that the main points are highlighted on the whiteboard !! Definitely helped to keep me engaged , you’ve gained a sub hockey guy :)
I agree, the social media team has a huge part in this. I eventually unfollowed their tiktok because I felt both uncomfortable for the players and for female fans. The players never signed up for their company to post videos like they did or encourage someone like kierra who posts the content she does to do so at their work. The female fans because we have to work so hard to not be seen this way and the social media team was really highlighting that image. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a new team now, since it's back to hockey I'm refollowing.
@@jrmints80 same!!! I wanted to see actual content and personalities of the players, not just how fuckable they are. I was honestly embarrassed for them. Also, I might be wrong here but regarding “not signing up for this” I suspect that it was actually a part of their contracts. By it I mean being used for PR and social media reasons. Tho I don’t think anyone expected to be objectified and sexualized the way they have been. But they most probably felt like they don’t have any legal grounds to complain about it since they did technically sign off on it. But this is just speculation idk lol
Surprised you didn’t mention the blackhawks and bedard as well. The Blackhawks have also started a booktok thing with their players, more specifically Connor bedard. They uploaded booktok thirsting videos before he was even 18…
The kraken sending her vids is true, the social media admin for the kraken started this whole thing and actively encouraged it quit a bit. She’s been fired
this has been a problem since even before I was a teenager! (2013) I think it's fine for people to enjoy the sport however they like, but there is a very clear and obvious line that you simply do not cross. You do not sexually harass real people! You don't even involve them in fan communities like that. In these circles it's called the "4th wall rule" and it's best to keep it hard and fast. Don't even mention the community to outsiders if you can avoid it. This isn't a new problem, but it gets much more messy on platforms like tiktok where your name and face are attatched to everything you post! Not good for fanfiction communities, unfortunately.
The Wennberg’s would be wise to make all of their social media accounts private. There’s a reason why it was recently reported that there’s a close link between frequent social network use and teenage depression.
While the parasocial line shouldn't be crossed, I think once someone personally connected to the players says "hey, this is getting out of hand, please stop", you should friggin' stop instead of doubling down. Leave their SM pages alone, take the ruler smack to the back of the hand, and do better. The entitlement of this 1% of claiming to represent Booktok is beyond ridiculous.
I'm not on tiktok but I've known about fan fiction from friends of mine, usually about actors or Marvel characters. I'm okay with fans writing about fictional characters but I think it's wrong to use real people. People really need to understand boundaries and that sexual harassment isn't only directed at women, and it's not okay just because it's directed at a man. I have to wonder now if my own comments are taken out of context sometimes because I'll say I love a certain players but I totally don't mean it in that way. I mean, I love they way they play and what they bring to the team, nothing else. Most of these guys are young enough to be my kids, so that's how I think about them. But even when I was younger I looked up to the players older than me, I never thought about them like that. It's so weird to me. I couldn't imagine posting or saying inappropriate things about these guys. I have too much respect to degrade them.
I was aware that there are hockey romance books almost entirely because before the Kraken branding was announced it was discovered that Sockeyes (which had been popularly thrown out as a suggestion) was already in use by a series of such books.
As a female who genuinely is into hockey and has been harassed? Consent is given until it isn't. They reached a point where it wasn't okay and said something. How Kierra reacted has simply shown how people don't see 'celebrities', or athletes, as real people. I've been on booktok too, because there are some good recs to be found, but most of the people are really unhappy with how Kierra and her fans responded. It's a whole mess.
Also the Kraken have encouraged this from day one. Bouys even posted posing with hockey romance books. That and how they promoted Wenny and Gourde to booktok heavily really does make it look like they knew and didn't care until the Wennbergs publicly called it out
I'm too old for TikTok as well... As a matter of fact I've never been to TikTok, nor do I have any desire to watch TikTok videos. I like videos with substance and how much substance can be provided in a 1 minute video?? I mean TikTok is for people with the attention span of a fly...
Before your time but there was a Hockey Romance book in the 1970s - Face Off by Toronto sportswriter Scott Young (AKA father of Neil) about a rookie Toronto Maple Leaf dating a musician. It was made into a film in 1971, starring Art Hindle and Trudy Young and many NHL players.
I am a huge female hockey fan, and as soon as Seattle started doing thirst traps, I immediately BLOCKED the account. I have also never really been a fan of Kierra Lewis. That is not why I watch hockey and I hate how this whole situation has not put us in a good light. Women hockey fans in general are not all like that. Some of just want to watch the game.
this makes me glad they aren't putting the relationship status on hockey cards. but goodness this situation certainly got out of hand. especially this channel being the most chill sports channel around.
I swear we aren’t a weirdos 😭😭 some of us just have a kindle unlimited account and free time and happen to like hockey!!! This whole thing just really puts everyone in a horrible light. I hope this causing some serious reflection on all ends.
Gonna have to strongly disagree with you on why people will say female sports reporters only got their jobs because of sexual favors. Women in all different fields (but especially in places typically more male-dominated) have had this accusation thrown at them and, therefore, their (non-sexual) abilities questioned and minimized. And these women don't have other women in their places of work visibly making tons of sexual comments towards men. I think blaming other women for people's willingness to question a woman's ablity to land a job based solely on her professional skills (and not just her physical assets) lets those who are making that judgement off the hook and avoid responsibility for their own thoughts. An interesting hockey controversy nonetheless though!
Australian. Never watched hockey. Came here from r/HobbyDrama and I need to say "Dad explains and responds to online bullshit" is a thing I didn't know I needed. Thanks :)
honestly when the booktok stuff came across my fyp i mostly ignored it cuz it felt a bit corny, and how public people were with all the inappropriate comments is fucked up. certainly doesn’t help anyone fem-presenting who has a genuine interest in the game. guess i’m just used to the pits of social media where people are paranoid about maintaining the 4th wall (keeping players etc in the dark)
Thanks for your measured take Shannon. If someone just likes hockey because they think the players are attractive? Fine, you do you, whatever gets more eyes on the game. But behaviour like a lot of what has been on tiktok as of late is truly unacceptable and just so gross and embarrassing. Players are not objects and they and their families deserve respect.
Here in Vegas there was subsection of the fanbase that put up pictures of the players' butts on Facebook and Twatter. It got really nasty when Robin Lehner was brought in and those particular fans were just posting comments about the guy's looks in comparison to Marc-Andre Fleury. The Fleury fandom was out of control.
The “you were fine with it before why are you mad now” argument pisses me off. You can withdraw consent at any time. Maybe they enjoyed it at first and now it’s no longer fun. Maybe something triggered them and they don’t want to be triggered. You don’t get to decide what someone else does and does not consent to.
Exactly this on consent. And you also don't get to decide whether someone else's boundary is reasonable or not, no matter the context. You have to respect that.
As I understand it, things had gotten to the point where even pictures of their children were being comment bombed with sexual comments and it wasn't just the woman that the Kraken flew out to that game, it was loads of them.
I knew nothing about hockey or thirst over hockey players when I started dating the captain of my college’s hockey team at 18. I found out very quickly lol😭 It was weird to hear my friends say that hockey was the “hottest” sport and then go online and realize that many, many people thought this and I just never knew.
There's no excuse for attacks on a player/wife/family. No hockey player or athlete signs up for that. Yes puck bunnies have always been a thing. But that sounds way over the line. I hope Wennberg and his family get far away from this. This is exactly why I've deleted tiktok, because I saw it from the beginning it was messed up. I've seen few if any videos on it that are either entertaining or interesting. It seems mostly very attractive young ladies looking to make a buck. Just my 2 cents.
Stuff like this makes it unfortunately obvious how out of touch sports organizations can be. Feels like Seattle's PR and Marketing definitely should have done a little more digging here...
Personally I think it was supposed to be a fun way to attract new people to the team and sport. It devolved quickly into lunacy. I mean the things these chicks were saying made me cringe and I was in the army for years. I thought I’d heard everything. I’m a Kraken fan and I think they should be apologizing to the Wennbergs first. I think the situation just got out of control
Considering that Seattle has positioned themselves as being inclusive and progressive, it's pretty disappointing if they were encouraging this kind of thing.
As a Kraken fan and someone that has been following this fiasco, it's an extremely messy situation because I feel like there is a lot more to the story that isn't being said, and the only pieces of info we're getting is from both sides of the story. You have Felicia who claims all of this was too much (which she has every right to speak up about), and you have Kierra who claims that she saw Felicia call out the content and reached out to her trying to rectify the situation, but never got a response and then had the Kraken SM team unfollow her out of the blue. The issue is it's starting to turn into a "they said this, they said that" fiasco and it's hard to know which info is the most accurate, and it feels like the only story we don't have is the Kraken Social Media teams side. It's really hard to know if this is happening because of a huge misunderstanding on both parties sides, or if it's because of a much bigger issue with the culture of this booktok stuff.
Yes indeed, it is a complicated story. It is my understanding that Felicia didn't reach out directly because she didn't feel the need to call any one person out, but just wanted things to stop - she thought she could best do that with an honest plea on Instagram for folks to please lower the tone and make it less personal. That's when the replies blew up. I fully support the Winnbergs - Alex is an amazing person both on and off the ice and he and Felicia are active in the community. They were pretty chill about this until it got personal. I do hope to hear a statement from the Kraken front office at some point soon! I don't necessarily want to see anyone fired over this (nor do I think the Winnbergs would), but they should address changes in their social media policies that could prevent this from being replicated.
"We could always use doorstops" 😂 That was a good one. Honest, I am from the book community and have never read any romance books because its not my tea. I didn't exactly know those types of the genre existed. Nor have I heard of the woman doing this until just two days ago. I feel like the hockey players & the player's wife are the true victims in this situation. It crossed a boundary for sure. I saw the videos later they were referring to & they are massively disturbing. As for the hockey team marketing that sent her to the game, I heard they were encouraging it but she had every option to decline making this type of content and decided to push the envelope.
I love reading. I prefer reading fantasy because when I read I'm reading to escape. I also love watching hockey. I have had people tell me to prove that I'm a "real" fan because I'm a woman. I have an Avalanche tattoo so I get it a lot. It's so disheartening when things like this happen because these are people with families. And some of these players are so young. It's just gross behavior. But the Kraken have fault in this too cause they did egg this on especially during playoffs. I feel if this situation was reversed and it was a male fan lusting over a female player who said to stop people would be defending the player. But because it's a female lusting over a male it's treated differently. It's just a whole mess. And even if the player and wife were ok in the beginning, it's completely alright for them to decide it's not ok anymore. People should respect that.
I'm not too old for this... but this whole situation makes me feel too old for the internet regardless 😅 It's all so messed up and nobody views people with any fame or notoriety at all as real humans. It's disgusting and I hope the Wennbergs can get som relief from this.
I am old as well. These players are about my sons ages so it seems creepy. How it impacts the families should be the most important so teams should not support any of it
I agree that the personal comments of harrasment (e.g. DM people, shouting things at athletes on the playing field) are crossing a line and so the concerns Alexandembergare legitimate. That part is uneccessary and should be condemned. Apart from that troublesome aspect, "thirsting" over athletes is not in and of itself a horrible thing. Pro sports is essentially an entertainment product (like movies or live music) so people being enticed to follow it because they find the participants attractive or having crushes on them is, for better or worse, part of the package. A lot of people went to see the "Barbie" movie because they find Margot Robbie and/or Ryan Gosling "hot." Athletes are in prime/peak physical condition and so that is obviously going to be a draw for a portion of people going to watch. I agree that the aspirsion that women who work in male pro sports are not qualified is absurd though part of the negative drawback that some fans have to be fair is not only because of female fans who thirst over players but there have been more than a few female broadcasters who've ended up dating/marrying pro athletes (and there was even that case in Carolina recently where a female member of their in-house media team was accused by multiple Hurricanes' players partners of hooking up with the hockey players. She was eventually fired). That being said, that shouldn't mean female broadcasters should be viewed any differently from their male peers (who no one would say would be looking to marry an athlete to get their job lol).
The kraken tiktok account was definitely encouraging it, they had a ton of videos about booktok and thirsty tiktoks about wennberg on their page, But it's all deleted now so I'm pretty sure their social media person was fired for it. I think the tiktok team and kierra are both in the wrong, the tiktok team definitely shouldn't have encouraged it and just told kierra privately that it's weird or should've ignored it and not make tiktoks that encourage it, then this whole drama wouldn't have happened. The tiktok account should post an apology of sorts. I can also get kierras point, when she was given those tickets and jersey she obviously thought it was okay cause why else would the team do that? Not saying she's in the right it's still weird, but it's good to mention that the kraken tiktok account was also in the wrong. Edit: most of the fans that are attacking felicia also aren't hockey fans, they just like romance books and since hockey romance books apperantly became popular they claimed kierra as the queen of booktok? Idk it's all pretty weird.
Trust me she is not the queen. She’s a self proclaimed but a lot of my side of Booktok has her blocked and don’t claim her. She’s been a problem before and her and her minions have been absolutely ridiculous. I feel bad for the comments on Felicia’s IG from her followers. It’s a mess all around but I’m not even feeling bad for Kierra at this point.
It's been a thing forever, just amplified by magnitudes with the power of social media. I remember my sister crushing HARD on Chris Gratton back in the day lmao
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This is one of the most bizarre sports scandals I’ve ever heard. Social media is a madness rune.
Social media is the worst invention since nuclear weapons for the human race.
its not really a sport scandal since players are not involved in this its just insane women that need mental help
@@redred222 wait what? everyone is equally crazy, both men and women and everyone else? huh. who could've guessed?
"... send me hockey romance books"
The Hockey Guy - 2023
Got him 😂
Nice quote mine, hope you're ready to fall down the metaphorical shaft...
Yeah but in all fairness it was rather innocent at first, and a good laugh. Until people did what people do best and went too far and ruined it.
"We could use some doorstops"
I remember going to some WHL games and just feeling really uncomfortable by having some women in their mid to late 30s cat calling the players until someone nearby yelled “their under 18”
I’ll just say that if I were a parent, I’d probably berate and humiliate them. Honestly how could these women not know that these are minors? It’s a JUNIOR league
"They're under". There are players who are 18, 19 and 20, btw...
@@geoff3103 I genuinely am disgusted by both. It just makes me uncomfortable and angry that parents encourage this.
@@jeffreym.8957 Its more of the principal. They're at a Hockey game, not a strip club.
@@jeffreym.8957feel like if there’s a mix of players and some are under 18 you shouldn’t be catcalling at all…matter of fact maybe just don’t catcall at games….might be tough for some people but important
This is the only person that I want explaining this drama to me.
I’m a female who loves hockey because it’s hockey and yes some of the players are nice looking…but it’s not the reason why I watch the sport. I think the women who do that kind of thing to the married players are being extremely disrespectful to the players and their families.if the shoe was on the other foot the women who are being disrespectful sure wouldn’t like it. They need to grow up! No grown women should act like that! Go Blues! 😜
Couldn’t agree more! Except go yotes!
👏👏👏
I was with you until the last 2 words
This is true, go Habs go.
I live 😊 I have favorite players, but that's because of their skill not their looks. I'm also someone who reads gay hockey romance books. I can't speak for the heterosexual ones though, because I don't know what they are like. You can be a true fan of hockey and enjoy hockey romance books. I have never once screamed sexually charged phrases at a player. That's where the line is for me. Doing that kind of stuff is disrespectful. Hockey romance books aren't. They are all pretend made-up players and scenarios. At least, all the ones I've read.
I saw this video title and my jaw dropped; you finally found out about all this craziness! I'm a 20 y.o. female who grew up in Canada and hockey was my whole life growing up. The getting together with friends and playing on the frozen pond, the traditions, physicality, etc. It's so funny how other girls my age romanticize it. I've lived in New Jersey now for a few years and the funniest thing is seeing girls at Devils games in their Hughes or Mercer jerseys who have NO CLUE what's going on. Half the time they're just on their phones. Not trying to pick on anyone, but it gives me a chuckle from time to time.
Props for being a real one!!!
@@JoeMazzullaaa try to keep up mike
Those women are referred as puck bunnies😂
That’s so funny! I got into hockey via hockey romance books and decided to be a Devils fan but I actually like the game/took the time to figure out what is going on lol
@@mobailey6666It sounds like Booktok is like the hockey version of fanfiction, is that a fair description?
I have a friend who's into hockey romance. I live on Long Island, and it was kinda funny when she was like "Oh I love Mat Barzal" and I was like "Same!!" and then I quickly realized we weren't talking about the same thing. Anyway, I don't quite get the whole hockey romance thing, but it's fine to indulge in it. Who cares, y'know? If you're enjoying it and you're not harming anyone in the process, why should I take that away from you? This whole thing is a different story though. They were actively harassing the Wennbergs, and made their life worse for it. That's not ok
I agree! I have casually read hockey romance just because it's on Kindle Unlimited but some people can't separate their real life from book life. I have never looked at hockey teams and picked them based on their hotness. I follow the canes cause I am in North Carolina not cause I find a player hot. This whole situation makes women again look like they only follow sports because of the guys.
@@_rileyvictoria_Right, like I’m a Preds fan because I’m from Nashville, have we had attractive guys on our roster, sure, Josi, Mike Fisher, O’Riley and James Neil (don’t know why him of all people, but the ladies loved him)🤷🏻♂️
But I don’t watch or go to games too see the guys, I go to see who were loosing to next.
This whole situation just feels icky and gross, especially the harassment of his wife and baby.
This whole situation made us book readers who have also been hockey fans for years get secondhand embarrassment. The parasocial delusions these women had that they acted on were lewd and absurd. I told my boyfriend when the Kraken first fell into pandering a bit with BookTok that it would not end well. And here we are, in the midst of chaos.
I was a fan of Kierra Lewis/ hockey booktok before I saw how she handled the comments Felicia Wennberg made. Kierra took the comments personally, completely missing the point of the broader issue that the thirsting for hockey players has gotten out of hand. Not everyone in booktok is only here for the good looking men. A lot of booktok fans are outraged at how Kierra Lewis and her fans are responding to the situation. So many people became fans of hockey that would have never become a fan had it not been for the mixing of communities. I came here to say that not all of booktok is sending the players dms or commenting outrageous things on their posts. There are those of us out there who can admire a good looking man and leave it at that. The amount of women I have met who found a love of hockey through booktok is really incredible and I am sorry that some crazies out there had to ruin the good thing we had.
I grew up playing hockey for the Scotty Gomez Foundation up here in Alaska so I got to see both sides of this. I think the way SOME members of booktok responded to this is insane, but I promise it is not all of us.
Totally agree with your take. I'm really dumbfounded by the Kierra defenders who can't see that even though this started out as a joke we were all in on that cat calling real people with requests for explicit acts has gone too far. It's sexual harassment, black and white. They don't get to dictate what someone else's boundaries are. Consent is something that can always be taken away at any time. I get being mad at the Kraken (who are partially at fault and encouraged the behavior), but that doesn't give you the right or a pass to continue the sexual harassment because it was okay at one point in time. That's irrelevant, and you've been asked to stop.
Litterally, she kept going on and on and made the situation worst, should have deleted her videos
I didn't know who she was until this situation, all she had to was be like sorry for making you uncomfortable, I'll stop and learn from this and tell her audience to do the same and not send harassment
@@kerri6011 absolutely, but she has over a million followers and gets clout/money from this... So there's her motive for fighting it 🙄 it's a shame
I came to really appreciate hockey bc I read a few hockey romances. I knew nothing about the sport. I got curious, and got into it. Realised I really enjoyed it. And I’ve done my best to learn as much as I can about the sport bc I genuinely want to know more.
Do I find some players really attractive? Well yes, I have eyes. But I never understood how these women could go so crazy and post online the things they post 🫠 it is so cringe-worthy. I always thought they were giving real female sports fans a bad rap. And the irony, is that the topic of rabid fans is very often addressed in those books. How could they not see that they were doing exactly what was criticized in their books? You can’t be that tone deaf.
I never followed Kierra bc her whole internet persona made me grind my teeth. The perma-hysterics are too much to stomach. But I just scrolled down, and did not engage, and never realised it went that far.
And I am also sorry that the crazies ruined everything. It’s truly a shame, and I feel so bad for the Wennbergs. I hope they can quickly move past this.
Hi Shannon! I must say, I was very shocked to see the title of this video - definitely never expected you to talk about this! I got into watching hockey through a friend in early 2022 and have been watching your channel pretty much daily ever since! Hockey has become a huge part of my life and I love watching it, I love discussing it, I love the stats, I love the nerdy history, it's all so much fun and has taken over my evenings in the season!
I've also been a huge reader all my life and read romance books sometimes. I've read a few hockey romance novels and while they are fun and have their merits, I've found them fairly frustrating to read as someone who now knows (I'd like to think) quite a lot about hockey now! The sport accuracy isn't great haha - although I do think this is often on purpose and the authors are often aware of aspects of the game and culture they have to waive in order to make a story! They're entertaining and I definitely see the appeal to people who know less about the sport.
All this to say, I clearly have no issue with hockey romance novels. They're fun! But a line I've found difficult to cross is bringing real hockey players into that space (especially publicly). I don't necessarily have any issue with the content the booktok people are making, but tagging the players directly and going to theit personal social medias to talk about it is way too far and most certainly crosses a line. I think there's a space for that content, but not in public online settings, and definitely not at the people involved's workplace!
It is incredibly hard for women to exist in sports fandom spaces, let alone professional settings, and I can only hope that this whole situation doesn't make that any harder. :)
I'm in pretty much exactly the same place. Got really into hockey last year -- watching games, all shannon's videos, etc. I've read a couple books but not many (honestly I've read more hockey history books/memoirs than romance novels) and I totally agree w your assessment.
Really frustrating when people bring it into the real world/with real people bc I've already seen enough misogyny from hockey fans (commenting on any female hockey player's posts about how they suck, its not real hockey, they'd get hurt in a second against boys) and I'm tired of people thinking I want to be a puckbunny or whatever when I say that I'm interested in hockey.
Honestly you summed it all up super well and I'm just commenting to show my agreement!
The amount of times I've had to "prove" that I'm a "real" fan as a woman is ridiculous and it's already flared up again this weekend because of all of this
I became a fan about four years ago. I totally feel this! People already thought I was a “fake” fan because I never learned how to skate that well when I was growing up. But, I watch it on TV? Like, why do I need to know how to skate to become a fan of my team? Or they thought I was a fake because I didn’t know a random fact about another team I didn’t watch. I’ve gotten a lot of comments over the years saying I just watch hockey because it has hot guys in it. YOU CAN’T SEE THEIR FACES 95% OF THE TIME!
Same thing here!
I lived in Vegas when the knights started and everyone started to bandwagon including me because what else are you going to do the first year? So I have watched every season since and I never knew or learned how to skate because it’s a desert. I have thought some players really cute but I stay because the game is engaging and I learned the game. I still don’t know all of the history and rules but I am learning to be a hockey fan!
Poignant message. When someone is behind a computer screen or phone, too many people lose their face-to-face sense of discreetness or respect. I like the way you linked how this impacts perceptions of professional women and sports. It is demeaning and degrading. It is sad that people on social media still can't mediate the boundaries between novelty and decency. Yes, the internet is a place to have fun and be silly - but everyone still deserves to be treated as a human being.
I got into hockey because I read a hockey romance book (or two), but I genuinely fell in love with the game and watch all of your videos. If you change your mind and want book recommendations I have some 😂 I can think some of the players are hot AND also enjoy the game for what it is. Jack Hughes may or may not be the reason I am a Devils fan. Doesn’t make me any less of a fan. **I’d like to clarify I don’t cat call players at games
I've been subscribed for six years.
This is the most bizzare video I've ever seen you do.
Welcome to the offseason...
The Kraken may have won a handful of real fans but the vast majority were there for the thirst traps and because they felt important to the team. When the Kraken social media team added "mostly booktok" to their description that gave me a lot of ick.
As a female hockey fan being seen as a real fan has always been a challenge, the booktok thing just fell right into the stereotype.
At one point the Kraken posted pretty much no hockey content despite it getting closer to playoff time. I ended up unfollowing them because i was getting such ick over how they treated their players with the constant thrist traps.
After Felicia spoke up the attacks on her were disgusting. The bulk of the new fans wanting to find another team/player to make the same videos about. They posted on Felicia and Alex's pages that she is a r*'cst, jealous and he accusing him of creating. They said Alex doesnt care because he didnt say anything, when he finally did they say he was a sissy with no balls. The behavior is appalling and quite honestly the blame begins with the Kraken social media team and then to this disrespectful handful of women.
It’s a weird day when I watch one of my TH-cam drama channels, Angelika Oles and The Hockey Guy is referenced. Its the crossover I did not expect, nor deserved
One unfortunate side effect of this is that it casts a bad light on all the wonderful, normal female hockey fans who care about the game for the exact same reasons as your typical male fan.
shannon, thank you for talking about this! as a woman who’s a hockey fan, i get stupid comments about how i like it for only the players quite a bit. sure, i agree that the players are attractive, but that’s not the sole reason i watch it. i originally was a bit of a puckbunny when i first started watching, but i never made inappropriate comments towards the players. when i started to learn and understand the game, i absolutely fell in love with the sport, and now i’m a goalie!
kierra’s comment section also shocked me to see all the people defending her. i think alex and felicia did the right think speaking up about it, and i think it’s very weird and disrespectful towards their marriage by making those comments and then harassing them for speaking up about it.
“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!"
Grandpa Simpson
"Don't send me hockey romance books" .....bruh....you just opened the flood gates
I get what you're saying with the "this makes it more difficult for women" point, but I just want to point out that women generally feel like we are not taken seriously in sport regardless of if these types of events occur. There was never a baseline where people would have taken us seriously if the crazies didn't act up. There would always be something to use as fuel for a stereotype because the whole thing about misogyny is that it's irrational. It's not actually based on some cause-and-effect relationship where the crazy women do X thing and that makes men think Y about all women in sports. Things like this are used retroactively to justify their irrational biases, but whether or not that justification happens, the biases and stereotyping are still there.
Other than that I'm glad that you're addressing this because I think we can all agree that the Kraken made a terrible misjudgment by participating in suggestive content with booktok. No one can deny that they implicitly condoned Kierra's conduct by following her platform and giving her a whole team-sponsored game experience. The team will have to own up to their wrongdoing in some way, but at least they listened when the boundary being crossed was made clear and they unfollowed/deleted content -- unlike Kierra who has deluded herself and her giant public platform into believing she's a tragic victim with a righteous cause. Truly wild stuff.
You're absolutely correct. I had an entire conversation recently about how difficult it is to be taken seriously as a female hockey fan. There's no winning, no matter what!
All the best to the Wennberg family, this is so weird. Got to remember that these are likely mostly teenagers looking for a reaction.
I think you’d be surprised how many of these are actual adults.
God I wish that were the case. If you see the ppl making these videos and commenting they're actually in their thirties 😭
@@darcey6392 k that’s wack. I don’t actually go on tik tok and I just assumed, but yeah that somehow makes it even weirder…
Nah, erotica of all kinds, be it wholly original or fanfics, have been a staple of the female internet for a very very long time.
I wish! Teen girls are the ones making the most sense with this incident 😅 it's grown women doing this bullshit
yeah i feel like since the beginning of the pandemic especially, people online have just lost the concept of boundaries entirely. some people seem to completely forget that there are real humans on the other side of screens and that even "joke" comments are being read by someone. people find it really easy to dismiss harassment online nowadays and it's sad because obviously these kinds of comments can cause genuine harm. otherwise they never would have spoken up about it!! if it got SO BAD that the actual PLAYER felt the need to release a statement, then clearly it's a legitimate problem. i just feel really bad for wennberg and his wife especially because she's literally getting hundreds of hate comments attacking her for... asking politely for people to stop sexually harassing her husband at his work and online?? it's crazy
Honestly it's things like this that make me glad I don't have social media.
Thank you so much. Honestly this whole situation is fucking disgusting. And it just confirms that the sexualization of athletes is too fucking normalized.
Felicia only stated "hey i dont care if you write stories about my husband but maybe don't tag him in said stories or post sexual comments on his social media", and the amount of HARASSMENT she and Alex got afterwords is fucking horrifying.
Not to go all "what if", but I feel like there's a double standard involved in this situation. If this was a female player, the fans would get shunned and probably driven off the internet. So how is Alex's situation any different?
And the sad thing is, this isn't new. It's not uncommon to see inappropriate signs at games, and every so often I see sexual comments on a player's pages. And I've already seen people say weird shit about Bedard, who JUST TURNED EIGHTEEN THIS MONTH MIND YOU (yes i know he's technically an adult (18 in the US, 18 or 19 in Canada depending on province if I remember correctly), but the fact that people are doing it now when he's just turned 18- and some were doing it when he was 17 too, is still kind of fucking weird).
Like, I think we as hockey fans tend to forget that these are humans. Not fictional characters. Not toys we get to play with. Humans. Living breathing beings. And they still have boundaries that need to be respected.
"Alex/Felicia were okay with it before, why are they uncomfortable now?" Because consent can be withdrawn. Just because it was okay then doesn't mean it's okay now. If Alex withdraws consent, then he withdraws consent, and that is something that needs to be respected.
Like, writing stories about real life hockey players or RPF isn't a bad thing. And having a crush or fantasies about a player isn't a bad thing. Hell, I'll argue that liking hockey because of how the players look isn't a bad thing (I mean, the NHL certainly won't care as long as they profit off it lol). I'll admit that I've had my fair share of celebrity crushes and some thoughts of my own (teehee).
Does that mean I'm going to comment those things on their Insta pages or tag them in posts where I share those things? Absolutely not, because that's where the line is. They don't need to know what I think about them, and they don't need to know what other people fantasize about them either. And they especially don't need to know about the stories they're in or the RPF. Because fiction is supposed to be just that: Fiction. And if you're tagging or worse even *sending* the player said fanfic, then the "Fiction" in Real Person Fiction... just isn't fiction anymore. It's straight up harassment.
And yeah, the Seattle Kraken are definitely partially responsible for their part as well. In fact, I'd argue the entire NHL encourages this behavior in a way. And honestly, I hope the Kraken make a statement regarding this, but I have doubts.
I'm glad Alex and his wife spoke out against the harassment they got, and I'm honestly hoping it opens up discussions about how we as hockey fans treat players and athletes in general, a discussion that should've been had a long time ago.
The only appropriate hockey romance story was covered in the 1900s classic film “The Cutting Edge” and there is no need to cover more.
Boy am I glad I never installed tik tok... the amount of crazy shit that I keep hearing on that app
Shannon you should definitely make a video reviewing one of these books. That would be the funniest thing on the planet.
I had no idea this was a thing until I saw the r/hockey post about it yesterday.
In the past, I noticed there were alot of ~20 yo women that reply to every single TB Lightning post featuring pictures of the players wearing fitted suits before the game. Many of them beg the Lightning social media admin for new pictures of their favorite player. I assumed they were just fans that were a little more interested in the players than I was, but I just went back and looked at their actual Twitter pages.... 😬
Yeah, the stuff they post gets weird pretty quickly.
i 100% agree with the message of this video. as a gay female hockey fan i cannot imagine liking the sport simply because of the players, the whole game is fun! it makes me sad that this has become so normalised alex’s wife had to put a statement out at all
only thing i’ll say is that i disagree that it is the fault of the girls on booktok if this scandal makes things worse for female presenters. many men have always, in every sport, been against women giving their opinions on a sport, and anyone using this against them is just looking for a new excuse
i will also add especially as a kraken fan it makes me sad that they leaned into this and they didnt see how wrong it was. im 19 and can tell a lot of their social media content is aimed at my demographic, but certain things should just not be encouraged and boundaries should be placed
I mean not only did the Kraken feed into/ encourage this, they had “booktoks favorite team” in their bio and they were fully aware of what was being posted about their own players. And they themselves posted many “thirst traps” of their own players (now have been deleted). ALSO kierra didn’t just go to a game, they FLEW HER OUT (she had made unacceptable posts about Dunn and Wennburg BEFORE this) and THEY GAVE her the sign that said “krack my back”.
Now I’m not defending her at all. She is definitely in the wrong, but Seattle has a lot of responsibility for encouraging this behavior.
Also, I have been a sports fan for my entire life. I’ve never once acted like this and I have still been looked down on for being a women in sports. These situations are used as justification to criticize women in sports, but it’s just an excuse to hid their misogyny. This was a small group that were really loud, but almost every other booktok creator/ female hockey fan is completely against this behavior. Lumping all female sports fans together would be like lumping together the 2010 blackhawks with every other hockey organization.
Sorry you had to endure this THG ❤ we will send you some hockey romance books to make up for it (some actually aren’t too bad) 😂
I've grown up in fandom spaces on the internet and there has always been an understanding among fans that you keep content like that separate from real people and have it on locked down/private accounts. You never leave comments about shipping or fanfiction or whatever on people's actual accounts. Personally, I have no issue with people finding hockey players hot, but the problem starts when you seek out the player and make comments to them/where they can see them. These creators clearly don't understand boundaries and when certain things are appropriate and when they are not.
The amount of jack Hughes thirst accounts is wilddd
So many on Twitter..
I remember a friend of my moms telling me how conservative she thought hockey was; that whole thing about showing up to the game in a suit so the guy looks like your father. So, in a sense, i think if the line between the player and the fan becomes more blurred, then ppl will start to view them as assets instead of these you know 'essential' character pieces. It's already evident in soccer, where the coach or manager or wtv will just plainly state like "ya this guys not worth the contract". I dont think we quite have that yet in the NHL
I'm so ancient. I had no idea that was even a thing, nor do I fully understand even after watching this video. I'll turn into dust and blow away now.
I’m only 25 and this makes ME feel to old for the internet
I’m only 22 and same
The guy you worked with described what we call puck bunnies. They are typically younger girls aged 16 to 22ish, who will basically do anything to sleep with a hockey player that is playing juniors. When I played we had this one girl who sent my goalie partner 52 nude pictures for 52 saves in a game. She was 18 and he was 18 so legal. Everyone but me got nudes from the girl. I didn't talk to her. I didn't want a disease lol.
You wouldn't have got an std from pix though....
When they had the NFL Draft here in Vegas, they had to have a symposium warning the players of women trying to latch on to future players/millionaires. I'm sure the NHL does something similar or I hope they do. Some of these chicks out there are crazy and relentless.
@@geoff3103 yup. That or puck sl*ts. I didn't like that name but it sort of fit.
@@geoff3103oh they’re still called that
Very well done, Shannon! A hard subject to approach... I almost went down that rabbit hole and thought it wasn't worth the time or effort. It did need to be talked about! Kudos
The amount of times I have had to defend my love for hockey reached the point of me memorizing Corsi. Being a life long reader and sports person, this is going to make it harder for a lot of us.
We women who love hockey get this type of 'puck bunny' treatment, too. I disabuse them of their prejudice really fast when I run down stats or player profiles on *THEIR* favorite team. That tends to shut them up.
Don’t worry Shannon, I also feel like I’m too old for the internet… I’m only 32 lol. But yeah I don’t know anything happening on TikTok. Probably because I don’t use it. 🤷♂️
I’m only 29 and I’m too old for this shit 😂🤦🏻♂️
I only have it so my wife can share videos with me. I suspect that’s the case with most (straight) men. 😂
@@tehbeernerd yep…and honestly, she’s on it so much she might as well be married to it. 🤣
It doesn’t even have to be a woman in broadcasting, how about female fans? I am a STH along with my daughter. We genuinely love the game. Games are closely watched. We debate the merits of certain plays or calls. Female hockey fans are just labeled as …well, you know. We aren’t taken seriously.
I promise not all of booktok is like Kierra’s followers. A good amount of her followers aren’t even from booktok, she had a sizeable following before she jumped in to books.
There are SO many of us on booktok that are disgusted by her behavior and even blocked her a long time ago for her screaming, thirsty antics. Our videos in support of the Wennbergs and consent in general aren’t getting the high volume of views, though.
Consent isn’t gendered. Explicit, thirsty behavior focused on real people that have not consented is never okay. Imagine if this were a female athlete instead of a male one! The kinds of comments being tossed at these male athlete if they were said to a female would be abhorrent. Can you imagine a man going to a gymnastics event and yelling from the stands something about filling her h*les while she competed?! They would be arrested for harassment! It’s vile and dangerous. Not to mention that consent can be revoked at any time. Full stop. But she went to a Kraken game and posted TikToks of herself screaming for players to “Krack my back” (or maybe it was break my back, I can’t confirm anymore because the video is gone)! Why did anyone ever think this was ok? And not only ok, why did anyone at Kraken org invite her to a game considering how disgusting her content about the players was? Bottom line is they did… but that implied “consent” can still be revoked at any time.
Kierra isn’t the Queen of Booktok, much as she might like to style herself that way. Because of the size of her following she has a responsibility to call out the behavior of her followers attacking the Wennbergs. Her silence (and even sometimes in live streams her stoking the vitriol) is unethical and wrong. Her three day tantrum at not being allowed to publicly thirst after athletes that object to it is immature and shocking.
Watching this unfold in real time from around the playoffs was so uncomfortable honestly, I think the Krakens social media team is very at fault too, the way they encouraged it and fed into the objectification of their players made fans think that they’re justified in their harassment. You would expect an organization/authority figure to be the one drawing the line when it gets too far, but they haven’t, they failed to protect their players and their families because of corporate greed, and that’s really disappointing.
Love that the main points are highlighted on the whiteboard !! Definitely helped to keep me engaged , you’ve gained a sub hockey guy :)
I agree, the social media team has a huge part in this. I eventually unfollowed their tiktok because I felt both uncomfortable for the players and for female fans.
The players never signed up for their company to post videos like they did or encourage someone like kierra who posts the content she does to do so at their work.
The female fans because we have to work so hard to not be seen this way and the social media team was really highlighting that image.
I wouldn't be surprised if they have a new team now, since it's back to hockey I'm refollowing.
@@jrmints80 same!!! I wanted to see actual content and personalities of the players, not just how fuckable they are. I was honestly embarrassed for them.
Also, I might be wrong here but regarding “not signing up for this” I suspect that it was actually a part of their contracts. By it I mean being used for PR and social media reasons. Tho I don’t think anyone expected to be objectified and sexualized the way they have been. But they most probably felt like they don’t have any legal grounds to complain about it since they did technically sign off on it. But this is just speculation idk lol
I like how you suffered just to explain all of this to us.
im 25 and too old for the internet, don't worry hockey guy hahah
Surprised you didn’t mention the blackhawks and bedard as well.
The Blackhawks have also started a booktok thing with their players, more specifically Connor bedard.
They uploaded booktok thirsting videos before he was even 18…
The kraken sending her vids is true, the social media admin for the kraken started this whole thing and actively encouraged it quit a bit.
She’s been fired
SA and the blackhawks? never would have guessed
THG promised not to read them but TEG has a mind of his own
this has been a problem since even before I was a teenager! (2013)
I think it's fine for people to enjoy the sport however they like, but there is a very clear and obvious line that you simply do not cross. You do not sexually harass real people! You don't even involve them in fan communities like that. In these circles it's called the "4th wall rule" and it's best to keep it hard and fast. Don't even mention the community to outsiders if you can avoid it.
This isn't a new problem, but it gets much more messy on platforms like tiktok where your name and face are attatched to everything you post! Not good for fanfiction communities, unfortunately.
100% agree!! Well said
"I'm too old for the internet" I hear you brother
When I saw the board saying "hockey romance" I thought, "please don't tell me that Shannon has read Icebreaker lmao.
The Wennberg’s would be wise to make all of their social media accounts private. There’s a reason why it was recently reported that there’s a close link between frequent social network use and teenage depression.
Why do people think they need a Facebook or instagram or TikTok? The solution is so simple yet it seems foreign and out of reach for people.
???
While the parasocial line shouldn't be crossed, I think once someone personally connected to the players says "hey, this is getting out of hand, please stop", you should friggin' stop instead of doubling down.
Leave their SM pages alone, take the ruler smack to the back of the hand, and do better. The entitlement of this 1% of claiming to represent Booktok is beyond ridiculous.
I'm not on tiktok but I've known about fan fiction from friends of mine, usually about actors or Marvel characters. I'm okay with fans writing about fictional characters but I think it's wrong to use real people. People really need to understand boundaries and that sexual harassment isn't only directed at women, and it's not okay just because it's directed at a man.
I have to wonder now if my own comments are taken out of context sometimes because I'll say I love a certain players but I totally don't mean it in that way. I mean, I love they way they play and what they bring to the team, nothing else. Most of these guys are young enough to be my kids, so that's how I think about them. But even when I was younger I looked up to the players older than me, I never thought about them like that. It's so weird to me. I couldn't imagine posting or saying inappropriate things about these guys. I have too much respect to degrade them.
Glad you covered this, saw it developing over the week.
Totally agree and stand by Felicia Wennberg. Well done for speaking up.
I was aware that there are hockey romance books almost entirely because before the Kraken branding was announced it was discovered that Sockeyes (which had been popularly thrown out as a suggestion) was already in use by a series of such books.
As a female who genuinely is into hockey and has been harassed? Consent is given until it isn't. They reached a point where it wasn't okay and said something. How Kierra reacted has simply shown how people don't see 'celebrities', or athletes, as real people. I've been on booktok too, because there are some good recs to be found, but most of the people are really unhappy with how Kierra and her fans responded. It's a whole mess.
Also the Kraken have encouraged this from day one. Bouys even posted posing with hockey romance books. That and how they promoted Wenny and Gourde to booktok heavily really does make it look like they knew and didn't care until the Wennbergs publicly called it out
I'm too old for TikTok as well... As a matter of fact I've never been to TikTok, nor do I have any desire to watch TikTok videos. I like videos with substance and how much substance can be provided in a 1 minute video?? I mean TikTok is for people with the attention span of a fly...
Before your time but there was a Hockey Romance book in the 1970s - Face Off by Toronto sportswriter Scott Young (AKA father of Neil) about a rookie Toronto Maple Leaf dating a musician. It was made into a film in 1971, starring Art Hindle and Trudy Young and many NHL players.
People are going to be sending you some hockey romance books now.
China's involvement in Tic Toc should be reason enough not to go down that road. Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from that as possible.
awwww ,Shannon, I'm betting you have your very own "Puck Bunnies"...lmao...
I am a huge female hockey fan, and as soon as Seattle started doing thirst traps, I immediately BLOCKED the account. I have also never really been a fan of Kierra Lewis. That is not why I watch hockey and I hate how this whole situation has not put us in a good light. Women hockey fans in general are not all like that. Some of just want to watch the game.
And also GO STARS GOOOOOO💚💚
this makes me glad they aren't putting the relationship status on hockey cards.
but goodness this situation certainly got out of hand. especially this channel being the most chill sports channel around.
I just feel so bad for the wennberg family this woman is just a cyberbully
I swear we aren’t a weirdos 😭😭 some of us just have a kindle unlimited account and free time and happen to like hockey!!! This whole thing just really puts everyone in a horrible light. I hope this causing some serious reflection on all ends.
Gonna have to strongly disagree with you on why people will say female sports reporters only got their jobs because of sexual favors. Women in all different fields (but especially in places typically more male-dominated) have had this accusation thrown at them and, therefore, their (non-sexual) abilities questioned and minimized. And these women don't have other women in their places of work visibly making tons of sexual comments towards men.
I think blaming other women for people's willingness to question a woman's ablity to land a job based solely on her professional skills (and not just her physical assets) lets those who are making that judgement off the hook and avoid responsibility for their own thoughts.
An interesting hockey controversy nonetheless though!
Yes, this is exactly it.
Australian. Never watched hockey. Came here from r/HobbyDrama and I need to say "Dad explains and responds to online bullshit" is a thing I didn't know I needed. Thanks :)
honestly when the booktok stuff came across my fyp i mostly ignored it cuz it felt a bit corny, and how public people were with all the inappropriate comments is fucked up. certainly doesn’t help anyone fem-presenting who has a genuine interest in the game. guess i’m just used to the pits of social media where people are paranoid about maintaining the 4th wall (keeping players etc in the dark)
you know now that he's said it so many people are going to send him hockey romance books
Thanks for your measured take Shannon. If someone just likes hockey because they think the players are attractive? Fine, you do you, whatever gets more eyes on the game. But behaviour like a lot of what has been on tiktok as of late is truly unacceptable and just so gross and embarrassing. Players are not objects and they and their families deserve respect.
The Freddy Kruger Jersey says how you really feel about this.
It's not a Freddy jersey. It's Jason. Which I freaking love and want ❤
Here in Vegas there was subsection of the fanbase that put up pictures of the players' butts on Facebook and Twatter. It got really nasty when Robin Lehner was brought in and those particular fans were just posting comments about the guy's looks in comparison to Marc-Andre Fleury. The Fleury fandom was out of control.
The “you were fine with it before why are you mad now” argument pisses me off. You can withdraw consent at any time. Maybe they enjoyed it at first and now it’s no longer fun. Maybe something triggered them and they don’t want to be triggered. You don’t get to decide what someone else does and does not consent to.
Exactly this on consent. And you also don't get to decide whether someone else's boundary is reasonable or not, no matter the context. You have to respect that.
As I understand it, things had gotten to the point where even pictures of their children were being comment bombed with sexual comments and it wasn't just the woman that the Kraken flew out to that game, it was loads of them.
I knew nothing about hockey or thirst over hockey players when I started dating the captain of my college’s hockey team at 18. I found out very quickly lol😭 It was weird to hear my friends say that hockey was the “hottest” sport and then go online and realize that many, many people thought this and I just never knew.
There's no excuse for attacks on a player/wife/family. No hockey player or athlete signs up for that. Yes puck bunnies have always been a thing. But that sounds way over the line. I hope Wennberg and his family get far away from this. This is exactly why I've deleted tiktok, because I saw it from the beginning it was messed up. I've seen few if any videos on it that are either entertaining or interesting. It seems mostly very attractive young ladies looking to make a buck. Just my 2 cents.
What a weird thing. Thank you for summarizing it, because I don't know what the fuck people were on about and wasn't interested in reading into it.
Stuff like this makes it unfortunately obvious how out of touch sports organizations can be. Feels like Seattle's PR and Marketing definitely should have done a little more digging here...
Personally I think it was supposed to be a fun way to attract new people to the team and sport. It devolved quickly into lunacy. I mean the things these chicks were saying made me cringe and I was in the army for years. I thought I’d heard everything. I’m a Kraken fan and I think they should be apologizing to the Wennbergs first. I think the situation just got out of control
I’m Gen Z and Tiktok makes me feel like a Vietnam vet
Considering that Seattle has positioned themselves as being inclusive and progressive, it's pretty disappointing if they were encouraging this kind of thing.
I love how depressing this video title is
Less diving? MLS and Premier League, take notes
This has to be the strangests off season of all time...
1:40 ... It's too late. I can bet there's about 100 already on their way.
As a Kraken fan and someone that has been following this fiasco, it's an extremely messy situation because I feel like there is a lot more to the story that isn't being said, and the only pieces of info we're getting is from both sides of the story. You have Felicia who claims all of this was too much (which she has every right to speak up about), and you have Kierra who claims that she saw Felicia call out the content and reached out to her trying to rectify the situation, but never got a response and then had the Kraken SM team unfollow her out of the blue. The issue is it's starting to turn into a "they said this, they said that" fiasco and it's hard to know which info is the most accurate, and it feels like the only story we don't have is the Kraken Social Media teams side. It's really hard to know if this is happening because of a huge misunderstanding on both parties sides, or if it's because of a much bigger issue with the culture of this booktok stuff.
Yes indeed, it is a complicated story. It is my understanding that Felicia didn't reach out directly because she didn't feel the need to call any one person out, but just wanted things to stop - she thought she could best do that with an honest plea on Instagram for folks to please lower the tone and make it less personal. That's when the replies blew up.
I fully support the Winnbergs - Alex is an amazing person both on and off the ice and he and Felicia are active in the community. They were pretty chill about this until it got personal. I do hope to hear a statement from the Kraken front office at some point soon! I don't necessarily want to see anyone fired over this (nor do I think the Winnbergs would), but they should address changes in their social media policies that could prevent this from being replicated.
great analysis old man. seriously, really good, fair analysis.
"We could always use doorstops" 😂 That was a good one.
Honest, I am from the book community and have never read any romance books because its not my tea. I didn't exactly know those types of the genre existed. Nor have I heard of the woman doing this until just two days ago. I feel like the hockey players & the player's wife are the true victims in this situation. It crossed a boundary for sure. I saw the videos later they were referring to & they are massively disturbing.
As for the hockey team marketing that sent her to the game, I heard they were encouraging it but she had every option to decline making this type of content and decided to push the envelope.
I love reading. I prefer reading fantasy because when I read I'm reading to escape. I also love watching hockey. I have had people tell me to prove that I'm a "real" fan because I'm a woman. I have an Avalanche tattoo so I get it a lot. It's so disheartening when things like this happen because these are people with families. And some of these players are so young. It's just gross behavior. But the Kraken have fault in this too cause they did egg this on especially during playoffs. I feel if this situation was reversed and it was a male fan lusting over a female player who said to stop people would be defending the player. But because it's a female lusting over a male it's treated differently. It's just a whole mess. And even if the player and wife were ok in the beginning, it's completely alright for them to decide it's not ok anymore. People should respect that.
I’m not on tik tok at all, but I’m seeing similar levels of obsession from “hockey girls” on Twitter. It’s gross
Same! Have you heard of the Bruins Jake debrusk stalker? Crazy stuff!!
How many likes on this vid for a stream of you reading a "Hockeytok" book...whatever that is 😳
I'm not too old for this... but this whole situation makes me feel too old for the internet regardless 😅 It's all so messed up and nobody views people with any fame or notoriety at all as real humans. It's disgusting and I hope the Wennbergs can get som relief from this.
I am old as well. These players are about my sons ages so it seems creepy. How it impacts the families should be the most important so teams should not support any of it
I agree that the personal comments of harrasment (e.g. DM people, shouting things at athletes on the playing field) are crossing a line and so the concerns Alexandembergare legitimate. That part is uneccessary and should be condemned.
Apart from that troublesome aspect, "thirsting" over athletes is not in and of itself a horrible thing. Pro sports is essentially an entertainment product (like movies or live music) so people being enticed to follow it because they find the participants attractive or having crushes on them is, for better or worse, part of the package. A lot of people went to see the "Barbie" movie because they find Margot Robbie and/or Ryan Gosling "hot." Athletes are in prime/peak physical condition and so that is obviously going to be a draw for a portion of people going to watch.
I agree that the aspirsion that women who work in male pro sports are not qualified is absurd though part of the negative drawback that some fans have to be fair is not only because of female fans who thirst over players but there have been more than a few female broadcasters who've ended up dating/marrying pro athletes (and there was even that case in Carolina recently where a female member of their in-house media team was accused by multiple Hurricanes' players partners of hooking up with the hockey players. She was eventually fired). That being said, that shouldn't mean female broadcasters should be viewed any differently from their male peers (who no one would say would be looking to marry an athlete to get their job lol).
I mean TH-camrs have been dealing with this for years
The kraken tiktok account was definitely encouraging it, they had a ton of videos about booktok and thirsty tiktoks about wennberg on their page, But it's all deleted now so I'm pretty sure their social media person was fired for it. I think the tiktok team and kierra are both in the wrong, the tiktok team definitely shouldn't have encouraged it and just told kierra privately that it's weird or should've ignored it and not make tiktoks that encourage it, then this whole drama wouldn't have happened. The tiktok account should post an apology of sorts. I can also get kierras point, when she was given those tickets and jersey she obviously thought it was okay cause why else would the team do that? Not saying she's in the right it's still weird, but it's good to mention that the kraken tiktok account was also in the wrong.
Edit: most of the fans that are attacking felicia also aren't hockey fans, they just like romance books and since hockey romance books apperantly became popular they claimed kierra as the queen of booktok? Idk it's all pretty weird.
Trust me she is not the queen. She’s a self proclaimed but a lot of my side of Booktok has her blocked and don’t claim her. She’s been a problem before and her and her minions have been absolutely ridiculous. I feel bad for the comments on Felicia’s IG from her followers. It’s a mess all around but I’m not even feeling bad for Kierra at this point.
It's been a thing forever, just amplified by magnitudes with the power of social media. I remember my sister crushing HARD on Chris Gratton back in the day lmao
I don’t think nhl teams should hire young intern social media managers and give them the power that they do
We need a puck bunny power rankings 😂