by Laura Everett 12/23/22

Call it the proverbial straw on the way to Bethlehem that broke this camel’s back:

A full column lamenting that it has been four long years since a men’s team in Boston has won a championship.

Meanwhile, The Boston Pride, of the women’s Premier Hockey Federation, have won TWO back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2021.

So help me, baby Jesus: Boston’s men’s sports columnists would rather spill ink writing about the dearth of male championships then write about the championship women’s teams right in front of them. Anything to avoid women.

This is how slim the pickings are: Boston Globe men’s sports columnist Bob Ryan is writing about the fourth anniversary of the last “duck boat parade” (I read it so you don’t have to). For those outside of Boston, duck boat parades are when decommissioned amphibious military vehicles are redeployed for use as parade floats for championship teams.

And yet, somehow what Bob missed is not that we haven’t had reason for duck boat parades, but that no one cued them up.

Ryan writes an annual review of men’s sports teams, or as he and his editors call them up until 2021, “Boston’s teams.” He even went so far as to include a congrats to the Boston Cannons, the men’s lacrosse team on their championship win in 2020.

What Ryan and so many of his ilk fail to see is not that there’s no reason to celebrate, but that they themselves refuse to cheer. Instead of sucking on lemons and lamenting, he could be rejoicing in two more victories from The Boston Pride. But instead, his sexism limits his vision and pumps out the same old column lamenting another year without duck boats.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy led by the Boston old guard: don’t write about women’s sports, and then no one pays attention; no one pays attention, and then no reason to throw a parade when they win; no parade when they win and no reason to write about women’s sports.

Bob Ryan has been a Boston Globe sports columnist since 1968, and though officially retired, he’s writing a lot still. According to his Globe bio, he been “covering all of Boston’s sports teams.” Bob Ryan is no fool. He knows Boston sports. So how the hell does he choose to miss this?

This was the straw that broke me. The most established sports journalist in all of Boston choosing, yet again, to do everything in his power to avoid women’s sports. And not just ignoring losing teams and amateur sports, but professional sports and back-to-back champions. You’ve got to WORK to avoid women’s sports this excellent. You and your editor’s commitment to upholding the patriarchal status quo has got to be so strong to avoid women this golden, let alone all the other excellent women’s sports in and around Boston.

So I bought this domain name for Boston Women’s Sports, and put up a twitter handle. And next week I’ll apply for a press pass to the next Boston Pride game. Because these women are golden and deserve the coverage that others won’t give.

And so many others do, too.