The Vegas Golden Knights, the National Hockey League’s newest expansion team, has a Twitter account that can sometimes be downright brutal towards opposing teams.
Sunday night, however, the Golden Knights Tweeted disparaging remarks about the Boston Bruins, and now the Internet is outraged, calling the team’s social media presence “sexist” and insisting it needs to shape up before Tweeting again.
Before the game, the Golden Knights Tweeted a mock Bruins starting lineup, quoting a series of women’s names, “Dakota-Sierra, Mandy-Samantha, Autumn-Ruby,” — a list copied nearly word-for-word from the script for the 2011 movie, Ted — from a scene where star and Bruins fan, Mark Wahlberg, lists of a bunch of “white trash” female names to help his giant, sentient teddy bear remember the name of the girl he asked out at work.
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The Tweets, honestly, aren’t that funny, especially since they reference a movie that came out more than five years ago. Until USA Today‘s sportswriter complained, we were sort of lost as to what the Golden Knights were even getting at. I mean, okay, they were calling the Bruins a bunch of women. But…what? Who?…Huh?
But the Internet will never allow poor construction or an outdated reference to stand in the way of a true, total meltdown, and that’s precisely what happened. The Vegas Golden Knights were absolutely roasted for being “deliberately sexist,” and “insensitive,” particularly in light of the litany of sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein, which have brought workplace harassment and unwanted advances to the forefront of the news cycle.
Apparently, accusing hockey players of being women is not just unfunny, it’s also misogynistic.
Whatever anger feminists had been holding in this week — unable to vent their frustration at the Democratic politicians and “women’s rights” organizations hanging on to Weinstein’s money — was delivered straight to the Golden Knights’ doorstep.
“poor taste” it took @GoldenKnights how many fckin hrs to apologize w/ weak-ass-ness? SAY IT OUT LOUD: IT WAS SEXIST https://t.co/FOApMVa6Wr
— laur (@lenofi) October 16, 2017
I hope the @GoldenKnights fired whoever was running their twitter feed and posted the sexist bullshit. The NHL is better than this.
— Mr. TRICK Charles (@MrNickCharles) October 16, 2017
Wow — I’d missed this. Disgusting @GoldenKnights. Nothing like announcing yourself as a franchise w/ sexist BS: https://t.co/lnhNIhFYM8 https://t.co/z992gM8PsF
— Lindsay Gibbs (@linzsports) October 16, 2017
The Vegas Golden Knights issued an apology Monday morning, noting that the Tweets were in “poor taste” but also that they were, in fact, copied directly from a movie.
“Before Sunday’s game against the Boston Bruins, we issued a series of tweets quoting a Boston-based movie with a bear as its main character that were in poor taste. By no means were the tweets intended to disparage females or female hockey players in any way. We do not condone sexism in any form and fully support the inclusive culture of hockey that makes our sport great. We accept full responsibility for our actions and apologize to those who were offended.”
The Tweets have now been deleted, and the account is back to just roasting its fans, and not necessarily other teams. The team itself went on to beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1.