Written by Brian van Vliet - November 15, 2008 (As Seen In Hockey Now)
I am so sick and tired of women’s hockey being treated as the third class citizen in a society with only two classes. In this week’s missive, I will outline my beefs pertaining to the treatment of women’s hockey as a whole and provide a solution that I believe is long overdue.
For those of you that saw “women’s hockey” in the title of this article, and moved on to the next, you just proved my point.
At the minor league level, girl’s hockey is dismissed amongst many as an inconvenience. It’s looked upon as something that takes up a lot of ice in a city that has a shortage. In the top level of Bantam female hockey in Calgary, the girls are getting mainly half ice practices!! Due to this nonsense, there is now a perception that girls need to stay in boy’s hockey as long as possible in order to properly develop as players.
Talk to any girl that plays in a boys league and they will tell you that they are there because girls hockey does not provide them with enough challenge to excel.
How sad is that? Try being a girl on a boy’s team. My daughter did it for a number of years. Outside of the usual murmurs and ostracizing that goes along with being the “only girl”, comes the old boys club mentality that girls are soft, they don’t have good shots, can’t take the contact and the list goes on.
Most of these perceptions are absolutely laughable. The female athlete has changed so much over the last few years. Girls are doing rigorous ground and strength training, following meticulously laid out diet plans, working on their shooting and passing skills and in many instances working much harder than their male counterparts. Many of today’s female athletes are strong, fast and mentally ferocious.
It is for this reason that I think it is time to bring a new element into the female game at both the minor league and professional levels. BODY CHECKING.
I’m not referring to the little rub outs that take place now. I mean making girl’s hockey a full contact sport!!!
Girls could start hitting in Pee Wee just as the boys do. It will be girls hitting girls.
The results of this would be phenomenal. Girl’s hockey would be more exciting to the spectators which would in turn draw more players to the sport. The female game would be taken more seriously, drawing better coaches to the game thus eliminating the need for them to play in boys leagues.
Agree or disagree, I’m off the goalpost.
