Snowy suds make it feel like Christmas. Photo by Pete Zamplas.
By Pete Zamplas- Life is going around in circles — for plenty of fun — on a skating rink in Downtown Hendersonville for the rest of this week and on New Year’s Day.
The synthetic ice 40-by-30-foot rink is on part of the Visitor’s Information Center parking lot, at 201 S. Main St.
The rink will be open daily and even on Saturday, New Year’s Eve for the usual 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Hours are 1-5 p.m. on New Year’s Day, as they were on Christmas. The rink has stayed open late such as to 9:30 p.m., when customer traffic keeps flowing and volunteers stay on.
Night skating has extra illumination from fire at a pit. Marshmallow s’mores are roasted in that pit. Other concessions include snacks and hot chocolate, to further raise money and as part of local Home for the Holidays activities. There are no food trucks, to avoid competing with local eateries so they might benefit from people visiting downtown, organizer Mia Freeman said.
Some stride mightily, on the synthetic ice. Photo by Pete Zamplas.
This unique holiday family activity treat is a benefit for the non-profit America In Bloom Committee. The Ohio-based national awards program rates communities on “what they do with what they have.” The skating is organized by the group’s local head, Freeman, a Hendersonville merchant.
The Henderson County Tourism Development Authority paid for three-fourths of the rink and equipment rental totaling over $18,000, she said, while she and her group covered the rest.
TDA was a catalyst to launch the program, but plans to step aside next year, she said. Thus, it will be riskier for Freeman and the Bloom group to go alone and she will weigh it largely on this trial run’s turnout.
A bigger rink might cost nearly double that, she said, but is an option if there is an overwhelming response to this trial run. Freeman said ice hockey players from the area called asking if they could play the sport on the rink. She might allow for that next year, needing a larger rink than the one used now which holds 40 skaters at a time or in addition to it if cost-effective enough.
Some fashion their own style of skating, on the rink downtown. Photo by Pete Zamplas.
Two hour time slots sold out to capacity, in the first two days, Freeman said. Other times it was half-full, with plenty of space for skaters to do laps and avoid each other. Attendance was 125 for the first day and second day as of 7 p.m.
The fee is $8 per adults and $5 per children, for a 45-minute session often starting at the top of the hour. That covers rental of skates, or else booties for those wanting to walk on the surface but not skate. Freeman said most skaters did one session. She hopes many return during the activity’s two-week run.
The EZ Glide all-weather synthetic ice is polymer — a thin plastic that skate blades can penetrate for traction better than actual ice — topped by slick silicon for gliding which is reapplied between sessions, volunteer Michael Arrowood noted. He helps coordinate special events for TDA. He has sprayed snow-like suds onto skaters, as they gathered to him near the end of their session. The surface can still be skated on during rain, and is not chilled.
More than 30 volunteers also help in such ways as cleaning skate blades, handling tickets and skate rentals, and getting waiver forms signed for youths younger than 18. The nearby Wells Fargo bank branch is among businesses with some workers volunteering, such as with tickets.
Falls lead to laughs, for skaters of various ages. Photo by Pete Zamplas.
Andrew Schultz, 12, was among prolific skaters Dec. 21, the second day. He easily changed directions. He learned skating basics while living in D. C. He said the local rink access “helps you learn to skate better.”
Metal fencing borders the rectangular rink. To deter people sneaking onto the rink after hours, it has security lighting and extra police patrol, Freeman noted. Volunteers monitor rink behavior. She is impressed that as of press time, rink decorum was strong as skaters did not purposely smash into each other.
Those who slipped on their own and fell typically grinned, and tried again to learn to skate. Many skaters too breaks during a session, to pace energy.
The two-week attraction began Dec. 20. It is typically busiest from 3 p.m. on, Freeman said, but is actively used most of the day with children out of school. A slow hour of 10 a.m. is promoted for groups; the fee is $1 off per person with 10 or more in the group.
Slipping doesn’t deter this lad. Photo by Pete Zamplas.
EZ Glide is made by Ice Rink Engineering and Mfg., LLC, of Greenville, S. C., which is among few nearby cities that have skating during these holidays, and has shipped its rinks to New York City and also L. A. for year-round use, Freeman said.
Freeman owns two downtown shops, near the Historic Courthouse. Mia’s Marketplace features “vintage collectibles” in 14 shops, and is at 241 N. Main (698-4600). Nearby is her Black, White and Jeans boutique (595-9818).
She acted in Tom Orr’s historic play Unwrapping Local History, portraying a townsperson in various decades of the last century and narrating about Brock’s as a teen hangout in the Fifties.
For group reservations, call Mia Freeman at 768-4413. For more info on the skating, call her or TDA’s Visitor Center at 693-9708. For more on the skating fundraiser’s beneficiary, check AmericainBloom.org.

Similarity rank: 1.1

Sentiment rank: 11.2

© Source: http://www.thetribunepapers.com/2016/12/28/hendersonville-skating-rink-open-through-new-years-day/
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They fought on, and on, and on, and on.
As a darkly clouded afternoon became a chilly night in Pasadena Monday, the USC football team fought Penn State for a Rose Bowl championship that seemed continually out of reach.
The Trojans fought through breathtaking Nittany Lions scores, limb-twisting Nittany Lions tackles, and a two-touchdown deficit with less than a dozen minutes remaining in the game.
They fought through deafening noise from thousands of white-clad Penn State fans, a brutal ankle injury to their most explosive player, and yellow penalty flags that constantly fluttered at their feet.
They fought with jabs from a kid quarterback, roundhouses from acrobatic receivers and knockdowns by giant linemen.
They fought and fought and then, in their final breaths they hit Penn State with a force that USC football lore will remember forever.
Sam Darnold tossed a 27-yard touchdown pass to Deontay Burnett with one minute 20 seconds remaining to tie the score. Moments later, Leon McQuay III intercepted a lofted pass from Penn State’s Trace McSorley.
Then, with the stunned Trojans nation holding its collective breath, Matt Boermeester sent them into full scream by kicking a 46-yard field goal as time ran out to give USC a 52-49 victory in arguably their greatest Rose Bowl victory ever.
“If that’s not the definition of ‘Fight On,’ I don’t know what is,’’ said Coach Clay Helton, barking out the Trojan slogan as he stood red-faced amid the postgame madness.
Even before the ball sailed through the uprights, the confident Boermeester turned his back and began running toward the far end of the field. Soon he was followed by sprinting, dancing teammates who were quickly engulfed in hugs and confetti.
“It still doesn’t feel like we won,’’ said nose tackle Stevie Tu’Ikolovatu, the game’s defensive MVP. “This was the scariest, then the craziest.’’
This was enough to bring a 6-foot-9, 360-pound man to his knees, as Trojans tackle Zach Banner watched the field goal, fell to the wet grass and dissolved in tears.
USC makes its 33rd Rose Bowl appearance, facing Big Ten conference winner Penn State.
“I’m on the ground and feeling feelings that I don’t know how to describe,’’ he said. “I cried my ass off.’’
This also brought several players to the front of the Trojans band, where they directed the fight song with both the sword and the Rose Bowl trophy while teammates surrounded them with eyes wide with disbelief.
“It’s unreal, it feels fake right now,’’ receiver De’Quan Hampton said. “It feels like a dream.’’
The reality is that with this win, USC emerged from eight years in the probation-cluttered wilderness to become a force in college football again. A Trojans team that began this season with a 1-3 record and Helton on the coaching hot seat has finished with nine consecutive victories and an aura that few other teams can match.
There are probably only two teams that would be favored against USC if they played next week, and both of them, Clemson and Alabama, are playing for the national championship.
“If we’re not back, I don’t know who is,’’ said Willie McGinest, a former Trojans great who was walking the sidelines. “Being without all our scholarships, being undermanned for so many years, then to finish like this, it’s very special.’’
It’s time to rewrite much of the Rose Bowl record book after USC and Penn State combined for 101 points in the Trojans’ thrilling 52-49 win Monday.
Here’s a look at some of the records that fell and other top-10 performances:
Individual:
USC quarterback Sam Darnold’s five touchdown passes are a…
It’s time to rewrite much of the Rose Bowl record book after USC and Penn State combined for 101 points in the Trojans’ thrilling 52-49 win Monday.
Here’s a look at some of the records that fell and other top-10 performances:
Individual:
USC quarterback Sam Darnold’s five touchdown passes are a…
They finished by winning their record 25 th Rose Bowl, the most victories by any college team in any bowl. They finished by winning a game featuring the highest combined score in Rose Bowl history, with Darnold throwing the most touchdown passes — five — in Rose Bowl history while the freshman also finished with a Rose Bowl record 473 total yards.
But the Trojans very nearly didn’t finish anything. Like the kid said, before crazy, there was scary.
USC led 27-21 at halftime but then was stunned by a 79-yard touchdown run by Penn State’s Saquon Barkley in which he broke six tackles. That was followed moments later by a tipped pass that Penn State receiver Chris Godwin turned into a 72-yard touchdown pass.
There’s more. On the next Trojan possession, a Penn State interception led to a three-yard McSorley run that gave the Nittany Lions a 42-27 lead. That’s 21 unanswered Penn State points in less than three minutes, and the Trojans seemed done.
Except for, you know, all that “Conquest’’ business.
“I don’t know if it was the man upstairs, I don’t know what it was,’’ Banner said. “But I’m not going to call it a miracle, because we earned everything we got, we earned getting here, we earned winning the game, we earned this.’’
They earned it with a soaring sideline catch by JuJu Smith-Schuster, diving grabs by Burnett, and third-down backfield tackle by Michael Hutchings, and a renewed urgency after star Adoree’ Jackson hobbled off the field in the third quarter with a right ankle injury.
Defensive backs don’t last long — not in major college football, not in any kind of football — unless they have exceedingly short memories.
So Leon McQuay III could not spend more than a moment or two kicking himself over the nearly certain interception he had just let slip through his hands.
With…
Defensive backs don’t last long — not in major college football, not in any kind of football — unless they have exceedingly short memories.
So Leon McQuay III could not spend more than a moment or two kicking himself over the nearly certain interception he had just let slip through his hands.
With…
“I hugged him and I said, ‘We’re going to win this game for you,’’’ safety Chris Hawkins said.
In the end, who would have thought the game would actually be won by a junior-college transfer who had not made a kick for USC until this season, who had not made a game-winning kick all season, and had missed two kicks earlier in the game?
Boermeester, that’s who.
“I wasn’t too concerned with the distance,’’ Boermeester said. “Wherever it was at, I was kicking it.’’
Translated? “We have dudes on this team who have ice-cold water in their veins,’’ Hawkins said.
The ball punched through the goal posts, through the chilly night air, and accompanied by a cardinal-clad crowd whose roar will be remembered through history, a new USC football era has begun.
“It’s like the ripple in the pond,’’ Banner said. “You know when you the drop the rock and the ripple starts? We are that rock.’’
Goodness, what a splash.
The Rams blew a 14-point lead late in the fourth quarter to fall to the San Francisco 49ers, 22-21, for the second time this season.
–
Sierra Canyon receiver JJ Hernandez
The St. John Bosco Braves win in frigid conditions.
The St. John Bosco Braves win in frigid conditions.

Similarity rank: 3.4

Sentiment rank: 5.6

© Source: http://www.latimes.com/la-sp-usc-rose-bowl-plaschke-20170102-story.html
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Theresa May’s interest is served by keeping Brexit to a series of binary questions in which the alternative to acceding to her will means abandoning Brexit. Will Parliament treat the referendum result as binding though it was technically advisory? Will it approve the triggering of Article 50? Will it legislate to end the primacy of EU law (the Great Repeal Bill)? The moral force of the referendum result, and the self-preservation instincts of the majority of MPs whose constituencies voted Leave, mean the answer to such questions is always likely to be yes.
But more awkward questions, such as what kind of Brexit the British people voted for; whether Brexit implies withdrawal from the single market; and whether the UK should remain a part of the customs union, are to be avoided at all costs, because there is no coherent position on which a majority in Parliament, or more importantly for May, her own Conservative party, agrees. Most MPs want full, unimpeded access to the single market, the reestablishment of border controls, and freedom from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In other words, they want the benefits of EU membership without the responsibilities.
But the EU27 is unwilling to compromise the integrity of the four freedoms (free movement of goods, capital, services and people), and the authority of the ECJ is required to ensure that the rules of the single market are adhered to. So the positions of the UK and the EU27 are in inherent contradiction, a non-overlapping Venn diagram, which, as long as it persists, will make efforts to find a compromise futile.
This is our central view. It is a story which ends with the UK falling back on WTO rules, cross-Channel supply chains being disrupted, and non-tariff barriers being re-erected to the cost of UK-based firms. All the available evidence suggests the two key premises on which this narrative is based (that the EU will not compromise on the four freedoms and that the UK will insist on “taking back control” of its borders and laws) are sound. But if they are not, there may be a different story to tell. The EU ain’t bluffing
We don’t adhere to the view that the EU is “bluffing”, or that their repeatedly-stated position is an opening bid in negotiations. A “sweetheart deal”, in which the UK enjoys better terms as a non-member than it could as a member is not possible in our view – the stability of the project for the remaining EU27 is the top priority. But we also believe that the quest to ensure the stability of the EU could ultimately undermine the case for Brexit itself.
Key EU countries are facing similar populist pressures that have led the UK to Brexit and the US to Donald Trump. Disillusionment with the EU and its strictures is finding an outlet in the domestic politics of countries typically thought to make up the “core” of the eurozone and the EU. Of the three major EU elections next year, eurosceptic parties lead in the Netherlands, lie second in France and in third place in Germany. Angela Merkel’s announcement that she intends to ban the wearing of the burkha “wherever possible” was a striking indication that Alternative für Deutschland, Germany’s right-wing eurosceptic party, is influencing her policy platform.
Francois Fillon, favourite to win the French presidency next year, has also spoken of the need to reform the EU and tighten the controls on Schengen’s external border to reduce immigration. The need to reconnect with the voters who object to the change that has accompanied globalisation and mass immigration, the kind of voters who chose Brexit, appears to have reached the top echelons of European politics.
So could the EU embark on a path of reform? Potentially yes. Could that involve changes to free movement rules? That is more of a stretch, the key stumbling block being that any substantive changes would require treaty change, which in turn requires unanimity among member states. Eastern European states, many of whose citizens work abroad and whose economies benefit from remittances they send home, would be likely to object.
In all likelihood next year will see Merkel re-elected and Marine le Pen defeated, but Eurosceptic, anti-system parties may not have to take power in those countries to convince their leaders that the EU’s current path is unsustainable. A turning point
If, for the sake of argument an EU reform process looks to be in the offing, and, as the UK edges nearer to the precipice of a hard Brexit, with negotiations yielding little to cushion the blow (as we expect will be the case) the urge to pull back from the edge may start to grow stronger. What, if suggested now, would be dismissed as denying the referendum result, could start to look more a credible option as the realities of a hard Brexit and its potential impact are explored by the media.
Until that point is reached, public opinion seems unlikely to turn, meaning the UK will have to be well on the path to Brexit before it can consider changing course. Pulling back from the edge will likely require the withdrawal of the UK’s Article 50 notification. Whether this is possible is a legal question, which may ultimately be decided by the ECJ, assuming the European Council does not agree an interpretative guideline. For the ECJ to rule, a reference must be sought by a lower court. Reports indicate a case may be brought in Ireland within weeks with a view to inducing such a reference. In our non-learned opinion, based on the publicly stated views of various politicians and lawyers, and more cynically on the basic interest that the EU would serve by allowing those countries that wish to stay to do so rather than forcing them out, the ECJ is likely to rule that notification can be withdrawn.
The final binary question served up by Theresa May seems likely to be: Deal or no deal? If in two or so years the EU has started on a path to reform, the possibility of withdrawing an Article 50 notification has been confirmed, and the exit terms look singularly unattractive, will the answer be an inevitable yes? Perhaps not.
Richard Mylles is a political analyst at Absolute Strategy .
There are few things on this planet which never disappoint. The World Darts Championship is one of them. Every year on the year, it bestows an unstoppable fortnight of dramatic brilliance, amplified by a bloody lot of bloody fun. There is nothing like it.
The game itself is simple, repetitive, comforting and compelling; sending a dart from hand to board is a rhythmic, hypnotic, idiosyncratic treat – the bass beat on contact complemented by the intellectual thrill of calculating scores and predicting outshots (the finishing sequences). Because it is immediately obvious what is going on, it is immediately absorbing, and because so many of us know how easy it is to play but how impossible it is to play well, we have a handy frame of reference to swiftly make it about ourselves.
Nor does it stop there. Darts is about far more than chucking a pointy thing at a flat thing; it tells a story of humanity that is animated and crystallised in close-up and high-definition. No other sport shows, simultaneously, action and reaction; on stage and on camera, there is nowhere to hide.
Brooking neither luck nor tactics, darts facilitates neither refereeing errors nor stalemates; excuses do not exist. Players can do nothing to affect one another. If things are going badly, no teammate will be along to save them, and there is no option to roll into the reds, deadbat a few or cover up on the ropes. Their only option is to throw better.
As such, there is no more exacting test of pressure, no examination of vertebrae more thorough. Under lights, on camera and in front of a crowd, perform a fine motor skill predicated on a steady hand and an empty mind – good luck with that.
“But is it a sport?” ask the kind of funsters who, in other scenarios, prattle on about the differences between indica, sativa, serotonin and empathogens. The correct answer, of course, is: “Who gives a shit?”
One of the most beautiful things about sport is that it allows us to share the most exhilarating, demoralising moments of people’s lives, entwining them with our own and supplying an intensity otherwise lacking – and darts takes that to another level. We see every expression of tension, fear, devastation and ecstasy – you might call it love – so feel that we know the players, and accordingly, can imagine that they know us too.
Because of that, darts offers a study in humanity to captivate not just those who like darts but those who like anything – its themes the same as those found in literature, theatre, cinema and art. Or, put another way, enjoying it is not a matter of taste; rather, there are those who do and those yet to discover that they do.
And, at the moment, darts is the best sport in the world. This is partly because others are regenerating; there are very few great teams and great individuals currently at their peaks. Darts, on the other hand, has never been played better. Michael van Gerwen won 25 tournaments last year, and 18 tournaments in 2015. He also set a new record for the highest three-dart average ever recorded on television, 123.40 .
Van Gerwen is not just the best dart player in the world but the best anything in the world; one of the best anythings in the history of everything. And he is only 27.
But, as with any great sportsperson, to assess van Gerwen by his numbers is to miss the point entirely. A wondrous bolus of uncut genius, his competitive charisma is startling – a mix of passion, intimidation, egomania, and the most distinctive phizog of all-time. He throws darts like flaming javelins, celebrates like a psychopath, and because it is impossible not to know how good he is, he makes no attempt not to know how good he is. He is perfect.
But he has won only one World Championship, in 2014 – the two since then taken by Gary Anderson, his good friend and polar opposite. A laidback, likeable Scot, Anderson is prone to miscounting and, until very recently, to mis-seeing. Only recently did he start wearing the glasses that he’s needed for years. Early in his career, Anderson was the man who faltered at crucial moments, but after working through family tragedy and adding another son to the two he already had, he convinced himself that it wasn’t important whether he won or lost and suddenly became the man who peaks at the right time.
The World Championship format is to his advantage. Generally, matches take place over legs, a succession of races from 501 to zero. But here, each forms part of a set, offering a margin of error to the inconsistent and absent-minded – playing legs against someone as relentless as van Gerwen is almost impossible.
And tonight, the pair meets in the dream final. Anderson, almost disquietingly relaxed, has sailed through his half of the draw, while van Gerwen recorded the competition’s highest ever average in last night’s win over Raymond van Barneveld. It is not unreasonable to anticipate as gripping a contest as has ever been played.
Yet Anderson and van Gerwen are simply part of a sprawling ensemble cast, the limelight shared not just with their opponents but the crowd. The simple genius of an affordable piss-up stretching the length of the piss-up season has created an experience unlike any other, part fancy dress party, part community singalong.
Nauseatingly cringeworthy though that sounds, the ethos of abandon cool all ye who enter here makes an enveloping, uplifting change from the self-conscious self-regard that compromises most other places of enjoyment. The atmosphere is partisan, but in support of everything; the feeling is tribal, but as one. At the start of 2017, we have never needed darts more.
Daniel Harris is a writer, and co-directed House of Flying Arrows, a documentary about darts, for Universal Pictures. Watch the trailer , and buy the film here. Harris tweets @DanielHarris.

Similarity rank: 0.4

Sentiment rank: 1.2

© Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/12/what-if-uk-reverses-its-decision-exit-eu
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Chicago Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler became on Monday night the eighth player this season to uncork a 50-point game, which tied the NBA’s single-season record.
There are 100 days left in the regular season for the record to be broken after Butler rumbled for 52 points to lead the Bulls to a 118-111 home victory over the Charlotte Hornets without the ailing Dwyane Wade and the benched Rajon Rondo .
Butler’s second career 50-point outing put him alongside Houston’s James Harden , Boston’s Isaiah Thomas , Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins , Washington’s John Wall , Golden State’s Klay Thompson and New Orleans’ Anthony Davis on the list of players to post a 50-point game already this season. Thompson has the high mark within the group, with 60 points against Indiana on Dec. 6.
Editor’s Picks Jimmy Butler drops 52 in win over Hornets
He tried to brush off some of the praise afterward, but there’s no question this was one of the most dominant games of Jimmy Butler’s career. Butler has 52 to help Bulls top Walker, Hornets
Jimmy Butler scored 52 points and outdueled Kemba Walker, carrying the Chicago Bulls in a 118-111 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night. Bulls’ Wade out vs. Hornets with swollen knee
Bulls guard Dwyane Wade did not play Monday against the Hornets because of swelling in his knee.
2 Related
He tried to brush off some of the praise afterward, but there’s no question this was one of the most dominant games of Jimmy Butler’s career.
Jimmy Butler scored 52 points and outdueled Kemba Walker, carrying the Chicago Bulls in a 118-111 victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night.
Bulls guard Dwyane Wade did not play Monday against the Hornets because of swelling in his knee.
There are 19 more active players, furthermore, who have produced at least one 50-point game in their careers before this season and have yet to do so in the 2016-17 campaign, including the Golden State duo of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant , Cleveland’s LeBron James and Kyrie Irving , Portland’s Damian Lillard and New York’s Carmelo Anthony .
As recently as four seasons ago, 50-point games in the NBA were more rare than no-hitters in baseball. There were just three 50-point games during the NBA’s 2012-13 regular season, compared to seven no-hitters during Major League Baseball’s 2012 campaign.
Butler also joined Michael Jordan as the only players in Bulls history with multiple 50-point games. Jordan had 30 such games with Chicago.

Similarity rank: 1.1

Sentiment rank: -0.9

© Source: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18398108/jimmy-butler-chicago-bulls-ties-nba-season-record-eighth-player-score-50
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It’s the New Year, when many of us vow to kick-start our workouts. If you’re a woman shopping for new gym gear, however, beware. Pink kit is everywhere, and it may leave you looking like an escapee from Barbie’s Dream House.
The colour’s sheer ubiquity only dawned on me recently while looking for some new trainers. In the shoe aisle of a major sporting goods retailer, I encountered a colour divide as drastic as a toy shop’s. On the men’s side, blue, black and splashes of neon yellow. On the women’s side, a hot pink hellscape. I searched carefully for some non-pink shoes and then started to wonder. Was I in the kids’ aisle?
If you don’t believe me, consider these snapshots. At the time of writing, on JDSports.co.uk, 70 per cent of the Nike accessories specifically for women only come in pink. Just five products meant for women, a few bags, a cap and some head bands, eschew pink for other colours.
At the time of writing, nearly 70 per cent of the women’s running shoes on Decathlon’s website have pink on them, as do almost half of those featured on JohnLewis.com. Almost 60 per cent of the women’s running clothes in Sports Direct’s Karrimor line that are not black, white or grey are pink, or have pink trim (and that’s not even including the Karrimor logo that often appears in pink).
What is going on? When I think pink, I think Power Rangers. My Little Pony. Peppa Pig. “It’s a very infantilising colour,” says sports sociologist Professor Cheryl Cooky of Purdue University, Indiana. “It’s a colour we associate not simply with femininity, but with a kind of youthful femininity, a girlish femininity.”
A selection of women-only Nike items available on JDSports.co.uk in December 2016. Photo: a collage of images from JDSports.co.uk
Even if not every women’s sports item is pink, it’s hard to argue that the colour is not overrepresented. Why are brands and retailers dressing adult women like pretty, pretty princesses?
There’s no denying that pink is a political colour. Just look at the furore raised recently when an English Football Association document intended to get girls into sport recommended providing them with “pink whistles”, as well as pink water bottles, pink shin pads, pink gloves and pink hairbands. “We aren’t brainless Barbie dolls. We don’t all like the same colour (pink),” one ten-year-old footballer called Grace wrote in response.
The movement to end “pinkification” of products for girls has been gaining momentum for years, with campaigns like Pinkstinks and Let Toys be Toys convincing children’s retailers to give up their “pink for girls”, “blue for boys” signage and marketing. But what about grown women? Are we happy to accept our pink water bottles and hairbands?
This isn’t just a matter of colours. As with toy shops, it’s about suggesting, even subconsciously, which activities are appropriate for which gender. John Lewis sells own-brand hand weights , for instance, which progress from bubblegum pink to purple to grey to navy as they get bigger, implying that your femininity drains away as you lift heavier weights. If you doubt that this colour-coding carries any meaning, imagine if it were the other way around, and the heaviest weights were baby pink. (John Lewis responds that “there is not a conscious link between the colours and the weight”.)
On the JD Sports site, meanwhile, there’s a “shop by activity” tab, which, for women, offers “Running, Gym, Yoga, Spin, Cardio”. For men, there’s “Football, Basketball, Tennis, Running, Rugby”. At the time of writing, footballs are included in the men’s accessories section, but not the women’s. What would the young footballer Grace have to say about that?
When I contact stores to ask why they stock so many pink sports items, the reasons vary. John Lewis says that “to a large extent” their colours are “predetermined” by suppliers. Decathlon says its palette of pink and turquoise is a feminine version of the red and blue it uses for men: “Originally, [the colours of sportswear for men] were [mainly derived from] flags and blazons. Products intended for a male public. Blue, white, red dominate flags and thus became the basic (basal) colours of performance. To widen the target to the feminine market, the pink and turquoise replaced the red and the blue.”
It adds: “Pink and turquoise are sport colours [used for] ten years in Decathlon. After black and white, which are the more basic colours, blue and red (so turquoise and pink for women) were the two other colours added in our ranges.”
Both Decathlon and John Lewis, however, also point to sales as a driving force. While John Lewis’ most popular sportswear is black and grey, pink and particularly purple have recently “generated great interest and sales”, a spokesperson says. And Benoît Buronfosse, the brand design manager of Decathlon sub-brand Kalenji, notes that, based on a decade of sales figures, “pink is the preferred colour for women!”
JD Sports and Sports Direct declined to comment.
Sports industry analyst Matt Powell , who writes the blog Sneakernomics for Forbes, backs this up. “Brands don’t make many products that no one wants to buy,” he says. “Tough way to stay in business.”
But if pink is popular with women, there’s still the question of why. After all, it wasn’t until the 1980s that pink became associated with femininity, according to historian Jo Paoletti, a professor at the University of Maryland and author of the culture blog Pink is for Boys. “This stuff is culturally constructed, it’s artificial, it changes over time, it’s different in different cultures. So the idea that women have a natural desire to dress in a certain way is just wrong,” she says.
To be sure, some people just look good in the colour. But Purdue’s Professor Cooky suggests there may be something else. “Sports in most societies are still male-dominated,” she says. “For some female athletes and fans, wearing pink may be a way to reassert a notion of conventional femininity in those highly masculinised spaces.”
In other words, if you’re a woman in the sports world, you may feel the need to wear things that shout, “I’m not a dude!” The stereotype of the manly sportswoman clearly weighs on the mind of many female athletes. In a day and age when Serena and Venus Williams can be referred to publicly as ” the Williams brothers ” by a member of the International Olympic Committee, no wonder active women are reaching for hyper-feminine signifiers.
Still, there is evidence that not all women want all pink, all the time. Take the USA’s National Football League. Around the year 2000, the NFL entered the women’s apparel market. (Women, it turns out, account for nearly half of NFL fans.) At first, the NFL focused on pink products that could stand out on the shop floor. “At the time it was maybe the easiest way to communicate that we had moved into that space,” says Rhiannon Madden, the NFL’s director of apparel.
Since then, however, the NFL has broadening the range to include team colours in green, yellow, red and brown. “As we got smarter and engaged more with our fans, and learned more about what they were looking for, we expanded our offering,” says Maddon. The switch, and an ad campaign in 2012 to promote it, resulted in a triple-digit growth in sales.
The NFL’s early approach, common in the sporting industry, has come to be known as “shrink it and pink it” – the practice of downsizing a men’s product and slapping a “girly” colour on it. And while many companies have come a long way from “shrink and pink”, there’s still room for improvement, says Powell. “The female consumer has been horribly underserved by the sports brands. There are not enough women-specific products,” he says, adding that companies need to focus more on products that will, “help female athletes perform at a higher level”.
In the meantime, it would be nice if sports retailers would offer us more non-pink options. Using the colour may, like the FA’s pink whistles, simply be an attempt to include women in sports. But, as Professor Cooky points out, it can also alienate those who “may not wish to subscribe to that sort of girly colour palette”. One such woman, a friend in her early 30s, told me how at the two triathlons she has raced in, the women were handed pink swimming caps. Her reaction? “Give them to the dudes!”
Take a break from the remaining Strawberry Delights abandoned at the bottom of your forlorn Quality Street tin to spare a thought for Sarah Vine this bank holiday.
The poor journalist (and wife of Michael Gove) has just confessed in a Mail Online column that she has spent the last day shedding tears, so many tears, for today’s young women. Why? Not because (alas! alack!) she has taken Gove off the market, but because many of them (women, that is) went outside on New Year’s Eve and – those of a sensitive disposition might want to look away now – got drunk.
Under the headline “Pictures that make me weep for today’s young women”, Vine opines that it is “more depressing” to see photographs of drunk young women – photographs, by the way, helpfully provided to outrage and definitely not, never, ever, to titillate Mail readers – than it is to see those of men.
Your mole notices Vine offers little explanation for why she finds images of drunk women more offensive than seeing men in the same state, but surely it cannot be that she feels women should be held to higher standards of decorum and decency than their male counterparts? That, after all, would be sexism, and if there is one thing that Vine is not – while she weeps out her caring, heartfelt thoughts about women next to candid upskirt pictures of them celebrating a night out – it’s sexist.
That is to say nothing of the fact that the pictures that Vine features are, for the most part, not that bad at all. Women helping their friends to walk and fighting off males should invoke feelings of pride, not prudish moral outrage at the fact they happened to do it while – gasp! – showing off their bare legs.
Furthermore – as your mole embodied while catching up on Sherlock instead of popping down to the local Public Burrow last night – binge-drinking in youths is actually at an all-time low , rendering Vine’s sentiments about “Tony Blair’s brave new world of 24-hour drinking” completely redundant.
Further-further-more, substance abuse researchers for Glasgow University have also revealed that despite the fact twice as many men die from alcohol misuse than women every year, the media focuses disproportionately on women. “We found a strong emphasis on the deterioration of women’s physical appearance and attractiveness due to alcohol,” they wrote.
And this, dear readers, is the crux of the issue. A woman looks “out of control” if her hair is unbrushed or her dress slips slightly, while a man would have to go to far more extreme lengths to be identified by appearance as a problem drinker. The double standards are ridiculous, and also damaging – the media misleads us by focusing on binge-drinking women, meaning that men who drink dangerously may struggle to identify their behaviour as problematic.
Still, it is nice to know that depsite the world-shaking events of 2016, the UK’s moral compass is still able to align with the earth’s magnetic field and point us all in the right direction. Which is to say, backwards.

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