I do with all my heart and soul believe that Mary Valentich, a retired professor of social work at the University of Calgary, ought to re-order her priorities. Instead, she has chosen to conduct a social survey of women who bared their breasts amidst Stanely Cup hockey mania in Calgary two years ago, and tell the Globe and Mail all about it. You might have thought women flashed their boobs because they're boobs; or had a lot to drink; or are just rather starved for attention. But, no, see, it runs deeper than that.

It was two years ago and the Calgary Flames were battling for the Stanley Cup. Thousands of euphoric fans clad in red flocked to a city street known as the Red Mile where, every now and then, a woman lifted her top. While most commentators disparaged the breast baring as the antics of drunken, foolish women, new research concludes it was motivated by a complex set of factors, including a desire to celebrate the Flames victories, a desire to break the rules, feelings of stardom and a sense of history. "The context was so important," said Mary Valentich, professor emeritus of social work at the University of Calgary. "You just wouldn't necessarily do this elsewhere. It had to be the right kind of setting.....Prof. Valentich conducted her qualitative study, which she is presenting next month at a sexual-health conference in Calgary and also plans to publish, after recruiting and interviewing a half-dozen women who participated in varying degrees in the Red Mile phenomenon."

Look, I'm no prude. In fact, I'm all for breasts, really. What red-blooded male isn't? Further, I have no complaint with nudists, in their place. But the need to flash in public is fairly juvenile. And lending a patina of academic inquiry to the practice underscores the vapidity of the modern-day academy. Is there no other topic more worthy of illumination for this retired professor of social work?

Like, say, the transgressive suppositions motivating alternative party politics in British Columbia?

TECHNORATI TAGS: BREAST BARING, CALGARY, CALGARY FLAMES, HOCKEY, RED MILE, MARY VALENTICH, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY, ALBERTA, BRITISH COLUMBIA