It's been three months and 127,000 views since the UBC women's hockey team blended one part viral video with one part cutting, social message to create a media frenzy.
 
The viral video was the YouTube posting "Stupid Questions Female Hockey Players Get Asked", a slickly shot and cleverly narrated two and a half minute class project produced by fourth-year defender Kirsten Toth (Langley, B.C.). The cutting, social message was the sharp commentary of the video's content, which took precision aim at the sometimes offensive questions women hockey players are asked. Such questions as 'Do you wear make-up when you play?' or 'Do you pull each other's hair?'.
 
The viral video project was worth well over 100%, as within twenty fours hours of the video being posted members of the Thunderbirds were receiving media queries from dozens of news outlets.


 
But was the message of the video absorbed? UBC forward and team captain Stephanie Schaupmeyer (Kelowna, B.C.) thinks so.
 
"People are taking us more seriously. It seems like we are filling up the stands a bit more, which is cool," she said while resting up as her team prepares for what it hopes is a long run in the playoffs.
 
Despite the added media and fan interest, Shaupmeyer believes the Thunderbird players haven't changed their approach one bit.
 
"For us as female hockey players we are still going out and playing hockey because we love it, and trying to bring awareness for young female athletes."
 
This wasn't the first time social media was used to further the campaign of gender equality in sport. Around the same time as the Thunderbirds video another campaign was making waves. The "#CoverTheAthlete" video was spurred on when an Australian reporter asked Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard to "give us a twirl and tell us about your outfit". The video showed what would happen if similar questions were asked of superstar male athletes. "#CoverTheAthlete" has been viewed 1.6 million times and counting.


 
As for the Thunderbirds they are just happy their video reached the right eyeballs. The evidence is when they talk to minor hockey teams, who began showing up in larger numbers to games after the video's release.
 
"The parents would come up to us and say 'We saw your video on the news, I saw it online'. Because some of their daughters were younger we wondered if they would get the satirical nature of it," Shaupmeyer explained. "But I think for even the younger girls it was just good for them to see athletes they look up to, just getting attention for playing hockey."
 
When the Thunderbirds and Regina Cougars battle for playoff supremacy this weekend and all the post-game questions are hockey related, somewhere in the dressing room Toth, Schaupmeyer and their teammates should take a bow.