Skating on Thin Ice: Professional Hockey, Rape Culture, and Violence against Women

Skating on Thin Ice exposes the culture of toxic masculinity in professional hockey and suggests how sport and society can change the narrative on sexual assault and violence.

Why is it that professional sports, and notably hockey, remain a bastion for rape culture and violence against women? What are the conditions that allow a culture of toxic masculinity to persist despite awakenings elsewhere in society? What is the path forward, and how do we make officials, coaches, and athletes accountable?

Drawing on decades of award-winning sociological research and sports journalism, Walter S. DeKeseredy, Martin D. Schwartz, and veteran sportswriter Stu Cowan find answers to these questions in Skating on Thin Ice.

The book examines the abusive, misogynistic, racist, and homophobic behaviors found in professional hockey and explains the larger societal forces that perpetuate and legitimate these harms. Confirming a recent federal government inquiry into Hockey Canada’s handling of sexual assault allegations, the book reveals that young men enter the NHL and other revenue-generating hockey leagues already trained and primed to treat women as objects – and often to commit violent acts against them. Rooted in the authors’ work in the sports world as well as their work with activists and governments, Skating on Thin Ice doesn’t just highlight the problem of hockey and rape culture, it also provides collaborative solutions for fixing it.

Walter S. DeKeseredy is the Anna Deane Carlson endowed chair of social sciences, director of the Research Center on Violence, and a professor of sociology at West Virginia University. The author of 30 books and more than 150 journal articles, he was named fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

Stu Cowan is a sports columnist with the Montreal Gazette with over 35 years of experience in the sports department. Before becoming a sports columnist, he worked as a scoreboard-page statistics editor, reporter, and sports editor. He is a regular panelist on the Hockey Inside/Out Show.