Higher Goals
Higher Goals provides an ethnographic account of the "Blades," a Canadian team that plays at the highest levels of women's hockey. With a vivid depiction of life on the Blades, the book follows the team over two seasons, tracing their journey to a national championship. Key issues in the sociology of sport and gender studies are explored, including the construction of community among women athletes; the "feminine apologetic" and pressures on athletes to conform to feminine ideals; homophobia...
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A sociological portrait of a women's Canadian national hockey team. Theberge (kinesiology and sociology, U. of Waterloo) examines general questions of feminist and sports sociology as they arise from her two- year research period with the team. Among the more interesting topics raised are the perception of physicality and aggressiveness (especially as related to the elimination of body checking from the game), the dilemmas of marketing women's sport, the organizational structure of the team, the interactions between players and management, and the responses of women's hockey organizations to unequal treatment (such as not being able to secure the same amount of "ice time" as equivalent men's organizations). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
PrefaceAbbreviationsCh. 1The Blades, Women's Ice Hockey, and Paradoxes of Gender1Ch. 2Competitive Dominance, Class, and the Organization of Women's Hockey19Ch. 3The Dynamics of Team Life: This Team Is about What Happens on the Ice39Ch. 4The Everyday World of Elite Women's Hockey59Ch. 5The Politics of Gender79Ch. 6The Change Room and the Construction of Community101Ch. 7Physicality, Body Contact, and the Construction of Women's Hockey113Ch. 8Gender, Sport, and the Construction of Difference139Ch. 9Female Gladiators and the Road Ahead155Notes165Index177
