Welcoming the ladies with one foot on the brake: Swedish women’s ice hockey’s road towards legitimacy in the early 1980s

This article focuses on the structural establishment of Swedish women’s icehockey during the early 1980s and the years leading up to the first organisedwomen’s hockey league in Sweden. Mainly, the article is based on archivematerial from The Swedish Ice Hockey Association, especially two committeesthat were appointed to work to establish women’s hockey between the yearsof 1981 and 1984: The Women’s Committee, later re-created as The Women’sand Veteran’s Committee. These two committees were different in severalways, but the most remarkable difference is that The Women’s and Veterans’Committee was part of a larger action plan constructed by The SwedishSports Confederation. This led to a different approach to creating structuresto establish women’s hockey compared to its predecessor. The transitiondescribed is analysed using concepts from new institutional theory with aparticular focus on feminist institutionalism. Moreover, analyses ofnewspapers reveal how attitudes towards women’s hockey in Sweden werearticulated in the later 1980s. The results show that several actions weretaken by the organisations to implement women’s hockey without disruptingthe male dominance that ensured the cultural continuity of the association.