Less than a year after it was removed, the Niagara IceDogs have allowed a controversial rink board advertisement that uses femininity to put down their Ontario Hockey League opponents to be reinstalled.

But the OHL, which is primed to launch a new program educating players and staff about respect for women, says it is coming down.

The ad, installed directly below the visitors' bench in the city-owned Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, shows a row of men's legs in bright pink tutus.

A nearly identical ad became a lightning rod for debate on social media after The Spectator first drew attention to it in a tweet Jan. 31. Two days later, IceDogs president Denise Burke said the team had no intention of pulling it. She also characterized it as light hearted humour and said she failed to see how it was misogynistic or sexist "in any way."

By Feb. 4, however, the image in the ad had been swapped out for a row of babies' legs in diapers. No explanation was ever given by the team, which is responsible for advertising in the arena, or the OHL.

Fast forward to the 2016-17 season. Sometime between Oct. 1, when the Hamilton Bulldogs first visited the IceDogs, and Nov. 3, a new tutu ad was installed. The only difference between this one and the original is that it shows five sets of men's legs rather than four.

Contacted Tuesday, Ted Baker, the OHL's vice-president, said he wasn't aware a new ad had been installed. He also said the league would look into it, and he didn't want to make any assumptions as to the message the advertiser was trying to get across.

In a followup email Wednesday, he told The Spectator the IceDogs had addressed the matter internally. "The rink board is temporary while an alternative is being produced by the advertiser," he added.

Neither Burke nor an IceDogs spokesperson responded to requests for comment.

The ad's installation — and subsequent decision to remove it — comes just weeks before the OHL is scheduled to launch a new leaguewide initiative to educate players and staff about respect for women. The On Side program deals with topics such as sexual violence, hazing and healthy masculinity and will be delivered by a coalition of agencies, including Hamilton's SACHA Sexual Assault Centre, in OHL cities across Ontario, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

SACHA director Lenore Lukasik-Foss is familiar with the program curriculum, developed by the league in partnership with sexual assault centres in Peterborough and Kitchener. To her, the ad is "clearly directly at odds" with the lessons the OHL is attempting to instil.

"This kind of ad is not meant to confer on these players strength and agility or anything else that might be associated with ballet performers," she added. "This is about diminishing them by feminizing them, so saying they are weak like women. I don't know how you could read it any other way than as trying to diminish the strength or 'maleness' of the players."

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Lukasik-Foss said she imagines there will be some people who interpret the ad as harmless fun — and indeed, some Twitter users have made that case. However, the reason it is a joke is because it buys into stereotypes and slanders about women and about mocking men for being too girlie — "all those kind of horrible things we're trying to fight against in this curriculum, and that leads to a culture where violence against women is allowed.

"So, I know people talk about this is just a joke and come on lighten up and you're just humourless, but it really isn't just a joke," she added. "I'm really trying to figure out ways to communicate that because I think there are legitimately lots of people out there who really don't understand what the big deal is."