Like I said yesterday, and like many of my American friends have admitted, it is pretty much impossible for an American hockey fan to understand the puck bunny culture and the culture of hockey that we have here in the great white north. It goes beyond giving priority and privilege to young athletes, as I know also happens in the States with baseball, football, and basketball players predominately. In Canada, it’s like hockey is the ONLY sport. Sure, we have young football players, basketball players, etc, but you don’t typically see them get anywhere with the exception of Steve Nash and many, many low income NLL talents. Male hockey players get all the glory; they are seen as the future “heroes” of the country. There was a recent legal battle here over designated ice time at a community rink. The girls hockey team was being jerked around so the boys team could get more use of the rink. That’s pretty heavy stuff.

I was browsing a bookstore a few years back and I opened an autobiography that was laying out on one of the display tables. The very first line of the book was something to the effect of, “As a Canadian boy I knew that I would either grow up to be a hockey player or grow up to be failure.” That’s about right. As I said in my post about the Olympics, the glorification of the “hockey gods” is what really got me into the whole puck bunny culture in the first place. Professional hockey players have always been privileged. Not just in terms of getting pity grades in school, or having the entire country graveling at their feet. They all come from privileged lifestyles and good homes. I’m sure there are probably only a handful, if any, of hockey players who clawed their way up from the gutter to the NHL on hard work and dedication alone. Hockey is an expensive sport. Every winter, since they were five years old, their parents had to put up money for new skates and equipment, not to mention the fees attached to playing at a competitive level. Not everyone can afford to do this stuff for their kids, so I guess what I’m saying is that these guys are likely to have been spoiled their whole lives, not just when they made it big and had the cash to blow on the collagen injections and eyelash implants of their stripper-like girlfriends. Where is the “hero” in all of this?

Now I’m definitely not saying that American women don’t throw themselves at hockey players, of course they do. Some of my hockey buddies were so pumped when they found out they were going to play in the States because they heard American girls were sluttier. Apparently, they “do more.” Whatever that means. Anyway, what I’m saying is that these women are likely not puck bunnies. Much like the anti-fans who can’t seem to grasp the basic ideas I’ve been laying out, many people cannot get past the basic stereotypes surrounding the “puck bunny” as an entity. Generally, people just assume that these are girls who have sex with hockey players just because they have status, money, and fame. Sorry, that’s not quite it. Any individual possessing those things will have groupies, like musicians, celebrities, athletes, politicians, business tycoons, etc. The puck bunny seems to be the ONLY type of groupie in existence that is attracted solely by the game the hockey player plays on the ice without the influence of money or, in many cases, tremendous skill.

When I was researching puck bunnies, I discovered that there were nearly twenty different kinds that all exist on a spectrum with varying degrees of interactions with the players. Very few puck bunnies try to have physical relationships with the hockey players. And I think this is the factor that kind of blows the mind of the average American trying to understand this concept. I had several Americans say to me, “Well, this puck bunny thing just sounds like the way girls are with all athletes.” Like I mentioned above, all athletes will bring groupies and gold-diggers out of the woodwork; money will do that. The puck bunny culture, however, is strongest at the Canadian junior level where the hockey players have local fame only and no money. In Canada, hockey players are to be revered period. Such reverence does not include blow jobs. It is simply the glorification of the player because he plays “our game.” Hell, many puck bunnies are guys!

Like I said, I’m not saying American women cannot display puck bunny like behaviour, but likely this behaviour comes from the influence of the Bartender Factor and not puck bunny culture. The Bartender Factor is what I used to describe the competitive female drive in socialized dating scenes. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations that ALL women do this, but come on, you know you’ve seen your friends do it at least once. Perhaps it’s the fact that humans are biologically polygynous, so women naturally seem to try to compete for the best possible “mate.” I don’t know about you, but in my circle of friends we tend to refer to the guys that we are dating by their profession so we don’t get them all mixed up. I knew a girl that dated a guy that worked at a golf course, just so she could tell everyone he was a “pro” golfer LOL! But anyway, women tend to be attracted to the guy who stands out of the crowd, and I don’t mean in the sense that he’s cuter or nicer than the others, I mean in the sense that he has some type of authority over the masses. Like the bartender, for example. The bartender may not be the best looking guy or the funniest guy at the bar, but he has one thing the other hundreds of guys in the building don’t have; he’s BEHIND the bar. This area behind the bar puts him at a level of authority, and makes him a rarer and much more valuable kill. If you hit it off with the bartender, not only will your friends be “impressed,” but every other girl in the bar will be jealous of you. Plus it’s easier to say you hooked up with the bartender, than “that guy in the white shirt that said he worked in Hamilton, and I think his name was Mike.” And I’m definitely not off on this theory. The stories some of my guy friends have told me about their “bartending” days rival the dirt quality in the stories coming from the hockey player camp. Heard that expression, “I love a man in uniform?” That’s essentially the Bartender Factor talking. Essentially, even to women who may not understand the culture surrounding hockey or even care about the sport, they will still find the few guys skating on the ice far more appealing than the thousands of guys in the stands for just this reason.

Anyway, I am starting to believe that true puck bunnies have to have been brought up in the excessive hockey culture that we have here in Canada. Again, the difference between the puck bunny genus in Canada versus the gold-digger/groupie genus in the US likely is the byproduct of Canada have one predominant sport and the US having three (or four if you count NASCAR). In the US, baseball season becomes football season, and football season becomes basketball season. There is always a new sport to get into, and so one sport does not get all the attention or all the cultural significance. In Canada it is hockey season all year round. The coverage never stops even when the players are out golfing or vacationing at their summer homes.

I hope I’ve helped you understand the puck bunny culture a little more with this entry. I’m sorry my thoughts have been so scattered lately. I’ve been watching too much Supernatural over the last ten days, and I swear that show is made of crack. Speaking of…I have to get going; I think I hear Sam and Dean calling…

No white shirt wearing Hamiltonians named Mike were raped during the writing of this blog post.

10. She decided it would be cool to talk like you and your hockey buddies, “Sick dangle. I knew you’d snipe tonight. You’re a WHEEL!” She also calls you by your hockey nickname instead of your real name.

1. She’s American. She didn’t know who you were, and only cared once you told her you played pro hockey. If you had given your NHL ID to your childhood friend or your brother, it’d be their boys she’d be s*cking. The end.