This is going to be more of a rant than anything else so bare with me.
Us women have come a long way. Now there’s still a ways to go between equality and the sporting world but this isn’t about what happens on the ice, field, court, diamond, whatever. I’m not going to get all political or feminist on you because quite frankly, that’s not my thing. (Kudos to those who do however.) I’m going to talk about something that has been bothering me for years.
Sports fashion.
I’m not talking about the latest Versace, Stella McCartney, Thierry Mugler threads. (Shocked that I know who they are, aren’t you? Yeah, I surprise myself too sometimes.) Nor am I talking about the pink jerseys and t-shirts or diamond encrusted logos. I’m talking about sizing.
Let me paint a picture. I’m about 5’8′ and all my life I’ve been referred to as being well built. By that I mean, broad manly shoulders, broad hips, huge muscular legs and to put it bluntly…..a large rack. (Sigh. Go ahead and picture it, I’ll wait…..done? Moving on.) You can easily see where I’m going with this, can’t you?
There are many other women in the world who are just what I described above and here’s our dilemma. When it comes to wanting to support our favourite teams through apparel, we are faced with two categories. Women’s section or men’s section.
In the women’s section we have the best designed shirts, beautiful logos and colours, unique abstract patterns, tailored perfectly to fit a women’s curves but there’s one problem. A size XL won’t even fit my left arm. Okay, no worries! (Don’t even get me started on plus size.) We’ll just head over to the men’s side.
The men’s side has the more generic looking t-shirts and whatnot but it’s our team so let’s get pumped! Problem? Yeah, a size small fits me like a dress.
See the dilemma? There’s no happy medium for women who are built like I am. I’ve heard people tell me to just lose weight and I’ll fit into it. Sorry sweetie, but it’s kinda hard to change my bone structure. Well, buy from the mens and shrink it! Yeah, no, a shirt will only shrink so much.
This isn’t a shot at smaller women either so don’t get me wrong. They wear that apparel with pride and I couldn’t be happier seeing more women in teams colours that perfectly accentuate their curves and bodies.
I just wish I could join them some day.
marchhockey.com 
I understand! I’m “stacked” so to speak, and can’t count the number of shirts whose logos live on the underside of my bra. If I’m lucky enough to find some team wear that doesnt do a disappearing act around my breasts, it’s awfully low-cut and I feel like a puck bunny rather than a former player/smart fan. There’s definitely room for improvement in sports fashion!