Women's hockey belongs in the Olympics, but...
With the gap between the world's superpowers and the rest growing bigger, those who promote and foster the women's game have to do a better job, a much better job
The people who run and support women’s hockey should absolutely be concerned that, going into tonight’s game between Canada and USA at the Olympics, the two hockey superpowers have outscored their opponents by a 47-5 margin and outshot them 347-92 in six games. Think about that for a minute. The North American teams have averaged almost eight goals a game, while giving up fewer than one. They’ve averaged almost 60 shots per game, while surrendering only slightly more than 15.
Yes, this should concern people, particularly given that the format for the women’s tournament for 2022 was supposed to prevent these kinds of blowouts from happening so regularly. They should be wondering how the people whose jobs it is to grow the women’s game and make it more competitive on the global level have failed so badly.
But they should even be more concerned about what unfolded at the National Indoor Stadium Monday night (Monday morning in North America). It was there that Switzerland defeated Finland 3-2 to drop the Finnish team to 0-3-0 in the tournament. No doubt it was a defining moment for women’s hockey and one to celebrate for sure in Switzerland, but it’s pretty sobering to consider that the Swiss themselves were outscored by a combined 20-1 and outshot 136-27 by Canada and USA.
It should set off alarm bells galore that Finland, a country that has consistently been the third-best team in the world and has been at least competitive against the world powers, has fallen so far, so fast. After all, it was only three years ago that Finland came a controversy away from defeating USA in the gold medal game of the World Championship in 2019. Is this a case of simply having a weak group that has had difficulty replacing its veterans? Was it a colossal error to leave Noora Raty at home for two goalies who have so far put up a combined .847 save percentage? Or is it a sign that the Finnish program is in decline? Either way, it has to be an enormous disappointment.
Five Olympics ago on home ice, Sweden upset USA 3-2 in a shootout in the semifinal before losing the gold medal game 4-1 to Canada. In 2022, Sweden has lost to Japan and barely squeaked by China. This is the same country that had a player revolt in 2019, largely because the players weren’t getting anywhere near equitable treatment compared to their male counterparts. Man, you know things are bad when you can’t even achieve equality in a social democracy like Sweden. (This, of course, is all on the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation. Real improvement begins with national federations and domestic leagues, and that doesn’t materialize when players are treated like second-class citizens.)
What should be a huge red flag for women’s hockey is that the format of the tournament has changed to put the top five seeds in one group and the second five in another. The purpose of doing this was supposed to minimize blowouts. So you can be assured that those huge goal margins you’re seeing now would be probably be doubled if Canada and USA were playing teams in Group B.
On Monday, Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno opined that women’s hockey should be bodychecked out of the Olympics because of the disparity in competition. The blowback was so very predictable. She was ratioed and piled on by the masses, including people in her own industry, because that’s what people do these days when someone has an opinion that goes against the grain. (See Campbell, Ken.) But if those same people would simply look beyond their pom-poms for just a moment, they would see that the quality of the women’s game on the world stage and the lack of competition is a discussion that needs to be had.
Because anyone, even the most ardent supporters of the women’s game, who can look at what went down in the Canada and USA games this past week and surmise that this tournament overall has a competition level and quality of play that is befitting of the Olympics, well…not sure what they’re watching. It is one thing to celebrate the achievements of these athletes, as they should be, and to insist that women’s hockey must remain part of the Olympics, as they should. But it is quite another to be so blind to reality to think that anyone who has a contrary opinion is a sexist cretin for whom brain cells are a precious commodity. These conversations need to happen if things are going to improve. Otherwise, it just allows all the European hockey federations and the International Ice Hockey Federation to continue to be enablers and puts no actual pressure on them to improve their programs.
It took decades for some of the men’s programs around the world to gain equal footing with Canada in hockey, a country that was once a speedbag in sports such as basketball and soccer. And women’s hockey should be afforded the same time. But in return, there also has to be some indication things are moving forward, not backward. And just so you know, none of this comes with a pro league. It comes from national federations making the financial commitment to the game, developing domestic leagues that create real competition, and funding the sport at the grassroots to make it attractive to kids.
Until that happens, Canada and USA are going to continue to push the limits of excellence and the rest of the world is going to fall further behind. Then it may get to the point where they’ll never be able to catch up.