Let me start off this argument that I think Women's Hockey is great, it's growth has been amazing for female hockey players who 20 years ago only had the option of playing hockey against boys/men, and most female hockey players had to drop out at the Pee Wee levels when boys started checking and "maturing". I think it's awesome what women's hockey has done.
With that said, here's where I think Women's Hockey should look at changing, and the reason they should look at changing is because for every male fan, coach, player, scout that loves and completely respects Women's Hockey, there's ten fans, players, coaches, scouts, etc. that have little respect for Women's Hockey, and they see it very much unequal compared to Men's Hockey or "Real Hockey". Here's my problem with Women's Hockey: NO CHECKING. Because girls/women can't legally make a clean hockey check to defend against a puck carrier, there's more time and space for a player to carry a puck. Thus in non-checking leagues (Mites, Squirts, Old-Timers/Beer Leaguers included), the most skilled team always wins. At times watching my sister's games, it looks like the better team in the game is on a 5 on 5 powerplay, and there's many times in Women's Hockey where the score gets run up by 6, 12, hell even 20 goals. In my sister's travel league she played in one year the toughest team they faced one season, they beat all 3 times they played them by a total score of 16-6. That year her team won the State Championship and went the whole entire season with 5 losses, all against Canadian teams. In the end, because Women's Hockey is all about skill and puck possession, there is a tremendous competitive imbalance.
And here's an even bigger piece of evidence of a competitive imbalance in Women's Hockey, the Women's Olympic Hockey Tournament. Since the Women's Olympic Hockey Tournament has been around (1998 Winter Olympics was the 1st tournament) In the 4 Olympic tournaments, the only time a North American team lost a game was when the Americans lost to the Swedish in the 2006 Gold Medal Semi-Final Game. During it's 4 tournaments, Women's Olympic Hockey has featured teams from China, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, Slovakia, and Kazakhstan. However other than the 2006 Olympics, the 3 other Gold Medal games featured America and Canada. In the most recent 2010 games the Canadian and American teams out scored their opponents 41-2 and 31-1 respectively. And this has been the same exact case the previous 3 tournaments. Clearly the North American teams have tremendous skill over teams from all other continents which is why there is a major debate going on in the Olympic Committee of whether or not Women's Hockey should be a competitive sport.
Hockey is an incredible sport. It is a balance between offensive skill and defensive skill, speed, grit, determination, physicality, and many other attributes. In men's hockey all games are competitive, just look at the NHL. I was watching the Phoenix Coyotes v. Columbus Blue Jackets game the other day, Phoenix a team battling for their playoff lives went in to Columbus to face a team that is dead last in the NHL, Phoenix had all the reasons to win yet Columbus managed a way to squeak out a win. With checking in the game of hockey it gives teams with lesser skill than their opponents a legitimate chance to win, and a lot of times in checking leagues, the skill discrepancy between two teams is erased by hard work and determination. Women's Hockey is all about skill and puck possession and 99.9% of the time the most skilled team wins, usually leaving little doubt of who was the better team. When it's routine for a team to lose by 4, 5, 6, 7, even 10+ goals it's not competitive hockey.
And that's why I feel Women's Hockey is to an extent, NOT "REAL HOCKEY".
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