Hockey Dads, Party Boys, and Devoted Players? Digital Representations of Men and Masculinities amongst Norwegian and Swedish Ice Hockey Players

Abstract

Men’s elite ice hockey is one of the most commercialised, popular and patriarchal sports in the global north. With reference to the scarce corpus of ice hockey research from non-American countries, in this article we examine the online portrayals of men who play professional ice hockey in 2 clubs in Norway and Sweden. We pose two research questions and theoretically informed hypothetical assumptions associated with them that we evaluate with the overall aim of broadening the empirical scope of critical studies on men and masculinities in ice hockey. Using a quantitative content analysis, we compare and cross-analyse the online representations of men and masculinities by investigating the Instagram posts of 21 players from Frölunda HC and Vålerenga Hockey. The results demonstrate the importance of a situational and contextual understanding of hegemonic masculinity and broaden the scope of the ‘ice hockey playing man’ that is often perceived as a narrow stereotype.