Breaking: Sexual harassment claims in the NHL!

A few years ago, before famous people were caught in the ongoing sexual harassment scandal, Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch wrote a piece that chronicled sexual harassment toward female sports reporters, hoping to create a positive change for his fellow female colleagues. 

On Tuesday, Deitsch ran the story again, and some excerpts will shock fans out there. The following is taken directly out from Deitsch's article, stating specific incidents where a female reporter was harassed by a player around the National Hockey League. 

The article also covers different sports, including many MLB incidents. You can read the entire investigative piece here. 

"While covering hockey, one West Coast-based sports television reporter recalled a player skating by during a practice to say, “Nice lip gloss, it'll look good on my c--- tonight.” There were the GMs over the years who told the woman that females should not be sports reporters. When traveling on the road with pro teams, the reporter said she had players knocking on her door at 4 a.m. “Lots of the time it all starts on Twitter,” she said. “I follow athletes for information, they follow me back, they message me, continue to message me, etc. I've had a lot of good interactions on Twitter with athletes, professional relationships, but lots take them too far. They call at 5 a.m. They Snapchat inappropriate things. On the road, I make sure to not even make eye contact with players or even really talk to them unless I'm doing an interview. You block everything out or else you become a ‘whistle blower’ and no one wants to have you around.”

Deitsch adds another incident, when a female reporter was caught in a difficult situation, which impacted her credibility and career in the NHL dressing rooms. 

"The worst part was the rumors. At one point there was an NHL player who pulled her aside to say that one of his teammates was telling everyone on the team she covered that they had slept together.

“There was no paper trail, just my word against his, and since I was fighting an unknown enemy, I couldn’t even defend myself,” said the female television sports reporter, who has worked at the network level.

If you think such stories are uncommon, think again. Most women who work in the sports media have similar stories to tell."

Let's hope Deitsch's piece helps women out there in a profession that still seems to bother some men on the field. So unfortunate.