Chris Spearman, the mayor of Lethbridge, has removed a photo from his personal Facebook page after the posting drew the ire of a number of people on social media.

A shirt in the display window of a Banff retailer caught the eye of Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman during his recent visit to the mountain town for a recycling conference. Spearman photographed the shirt listing the ‘Top 10 Reasons Hockey is Better than Women’ and posted it online for his friends and family members to see. Spearman captioned the photo “Hockey is our national sport” and tagged five people in the image.

Spearman has a personal and a professional Facebook account and assumed the photograph would remain private.

Following a backlash on Twitter to the insensitive photo, Spearman apologized for the posting and removed the photograph.

"It was an inappropriate message," said Spearman in a Friday morning phone interview with CTV. "I do apologize for that posting. I didn't intend it to be a public posting but it was a public posting. I recognize that violence against women, violence against children and violence in any form is not appropriate. I don't encourage it, I don't condone it and it's not what we want to be in the city of Lethbridge."

Spearman says his position as Lethbridge mayor is a round-the-clock role and the posting of material which may be considered offensive is not acceptable.