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Sharks fans not pleased with team's plan to hire ice girls

Matt Kartozian / USA TODAY Sports

The hot NHL topic of late centers around maintenance of the ice surface, an admirable concern until you learn ice girls are at the core of the debate.

NHL teams employ ice girls to either cheer, appear at community events, scrape the ice in little outfits, or a combination of all three. Generally, they are paid very little and asked to work outside of their comfort zone according to a report.

The San Jose Sharks are having their own fiasco as they decided to hire ice girls and are being met with backlash that includes a Facebook page, a change.org petition, and a Twitter meltdown.

Fans are looking at the decision to hire a crew of ice girls matter of factly: spend money on girls to scrape the ice in tight outfits, or use the money elsewhere to help the team?

Sharks chief operating officer John Tortora told David Pollak of the San Jose Mercury News, "We are not modeling our ice team in the same manner as other teams do in the NHL or other professional sports teams with cheerleaders."

Then why not have an ice crew instead of ice girls? "We're doing it in a way that works for us within our game experience and that is tasteful for San Jose."

The uniforms of the ice girls are said to be "more modest" than other NHL franchises and the gender split is 50/50 as far as applications go.

The job of an ice girl is fine; shovel the ice between stoppages, get rid of excess slush around the benches. It's also a fine job for a man, too.

Tortora said, "We're hoping people hold off judgment until the team is selected and we see what their functions are."

It appears as though the fans have already made up their minds.

[h/t/ Puck Daddy]

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