Women's Hockey

Last night our spring league team played a girls team. They came with 18 or 20 players, we had something like 11. The refs called penalties every time we touched them, but nothing when one of their players would do a full check on our players. If they're going to let the girls teams play the women's teams, then maybe the rules should be the same. We should be allowed to hit them just as hard back and maybe they wouldn't pull the crap they do. I get tired of the full checks, the hits from behind, the sticks across the head. It's all because they know they will get away with it because they're 'kids'.

What makes it worse is their parents in the stands. The condone what's happening, cheering little dirty Susy on with every cheapshot she makes, while yelling obscenities at the adult players when we make any motion to touch their little darlings. The coaches tell these girls to hit behind the plays. They encourage cheap checks and slashes to the head. What does that say for the future of women's hockey in our area if this continues?

I remember when the girls Phantoms played. Yes, they were mouthly little snots, but they had talent. The girls I see playing now are still mouthy, but can't compete on a level with the other Nationals bound teams I've seen. Maybe if they concentrated on playing instead of making hits behind the play, they might actually make something of themselves.

I still wish we as adults would be allowed to hit these girls back the way we would in a real game against other women. They have no clue as to how much we hold back when playing them. We know that if we lay out one of them, we have to deal with the crap refs, the crap parents, and the people running the spring league. The girls think they're tough, but they have no clue as to what some of these women players can do.

Most of us played this game when it wasn't 'cool' to play hockey. We came to the rinks with people giving us weird looks. We put up with shitty ice slots, no locker rooms, getting dressed in bathrooms, getting yelled and screamed at and run at in open hockey.

We, the women of the game, have gone through so much to make it easier for the girls to play, but they don't think of any of that. They think they're cool, they think they're special and that we, the adults, have no place on the ice with them. Actually it's the other way around. We're the ones that made it possible for them to be playing in the first place. We've paved the way through stubborness and persistence. We put up with so much so they don't have to do anything other than show up and play.

It's a shame they don't see what was done for them, but that's to be expected. The young don't care about the past, all they see is the now. Maybe they should start thinking that now is the time to improve their game instead of trying to show how tough they are by checking someone from behind that has to get up and go to work the next day. Or how about they think that it's not so cool to win by 3-1 over a group of women who maybe get to play once a week if they're lucky and not practice as a team a few times a week.

The women's teams in spring league are made up of players from all skill levels, and different teams. We don't play together as a team during the regular season. We don't practice with one another. Some of us play once a week, some of us twice if we're lucky. Some don't even get that much ice time. So the next time a girls team beats a women's team composed of people mostly in their thirties and forties, don't be so fast to pat yourself on the back. Think about those other girls teams who repeatedly smacked your ass all season because your team isn't exactly the best thing on the ice.

And so endeth the lesson.  ;)