Notes on the Women’s World’s Hockey Tournament.
Touching on Rivalries, A Canadian Women’s league, three by three play, and Swiss Cheeses.
I have spend a week and a half mostly immersed in something much more cheerful than my usual topics of pandemic and class conflict. August has been a great month to resume my interest in women’s athletics. The long drought is over; I have seen the summer olympics and now the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) championships. The winter olympics is coming.
All this has given me a topic to blog about which I think will be of interest to those who are also interested in this topic, and its subtopics. That is, if I can reach such people over the increasingly fractured internet. I do not see some of these ideas being discussed much anywhere else.
You will find at the bottom of this post a couple of links to fill in some history relevant to my discussions. One is a link to an excellent documentary about the rivalry between the USA and Canada teams. It was made before the collapse of the old Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) and the advent of Professional Women Hockey Players Association (PWHPA), when the best North American women players learned to work together.
The other is to my recent blogging about women’s teams at the olympics; especially the section “The Case of Ice Hockey.”
On Women’s Hockey in Canada
I have been happy to discover that at least one professional Canadian Woman hockey player is entertaining an idea similar to mine about a Women’s League in Canada. Scattered throughout coverage of the tournament were these insets in which athlete’s written answers to questions were given. They were usually silly topics like; what is your greatest unknown skill? “Mowing the lawn” replied one ace scorer to this.
But Nat Spooner answered thus to the question; “What would you do if you were Prime Minister for a Day?” She wrote; “Fund a National Women’s Ice Hockey and Soccer league.”
If you read my blog about the summer olympics, you will know that certain members of the Canadian Women’s Soccer League, with gold objects around their necks, spoke on Camera about the need for a paid Canadian league, so that they did not have to leave their country to practice their craft. I expanded on that idea, discussing Ice Hockey, Basketball, and perhaps Rugby leagues.
By ‘paid’ I mean; with the players being paid a salary that is in line with being able to train full time and make a fair living considering the other life opportunities passed on in order to pursue these short and uncertain careers.
There may be a good economic case for such leagues, but that is not the same as a good business case. If business is unwilling to go forward on it, then one of the main functions of government is to deliver what is needed and which private enterprise will not do.
Governments massively subsidize professional sports leagues which often make huge profits. It would not cost too much to get a women’s hockey league going in Canada and in a fairly short time it could pay for itself. There is less need for access to ‘big barns’ these days as most revenue is from video.
On an American League
The biggest problem with a publicly supported league is that it would be a Canadian only league. The American mentality would not support that; at least, not until there is a revolution down there and the socialists take over. That could take awhile yet.
So, just when the rivals from both sides of the border are learning to work together to create a league of their own, they will discover that only the Canadians can do that. This would likely lead to a decline in the quality of play of the Americans relative to the Canadians.
Some pointy head will no doubt claim that there already is in existence what amounts to an American League and it is totally private. That is, the National Women’s Hockey League. (NWHL) That is the problem with this entity; it is completely a “private enterprise” type of thing.
NWHL will develop into something which could improve the quality of play in the USA about when they open the first hockey arena in hell. To develop play to the highest possible level, the players must be paid so they can train full time.
NWHL has been described as a “glorified beer league.” Some of its former players describe playing conditions that a beer league would not tolerate. They sound much worse than what caused Swedish women players to quit.
A women’s league would need substantial investment or a relationship with a men’s league. The only professional men’s league in North America, the NHL, is clearly uninterested. A women’s league with some money behind it could be profitable, but not profitable enough to attract real investment.
We live under something called capitalism. Within the dynamics of capitalism is something called ‘rate of profit.’ To attract investment you can’t just make money, you have to make lots of it.
On Women’s Leagues in Lesser Hockey Lands
Another point to make about a Canadian Womens’ league is that it cannot be allowed to be a fiasco like it seems all the European Women’s leagues are. They seem to be bureaucratized operations where everybody is making a nice living except the players who are the organization’s reason to exist.
For example, the Swedish national team was once a power in the IIHF women’s league. The entire Swedish league collapsed when the national team players quit over the way they were being treated. They have been ‘relegated’ and no longer compete in ‘division one’ tournaments.
So, the North American idea of the women players having some real control over their leagues seems wise.
Perhaps within this lies the ultimate solution for a problem the IIHF women’s league has always had. That is that there is a wide difference in the skill level of teams from different countries.
I find it strange that this actually causes some people in the international hockey community to talk about dissolving the women’s league, instead of doing more to increase the overall quality of play. To repeat, giving the players more control might help this.
Something which seems to be proposed occasionally but never gets anywhere, is a multinational European League. Limited resources and good players could be concentrated into a few good teams.
I would love to see a composite team of the best European players taking on the US and Canada teams. I wonder how a firing line of Alina Muller, Petra Nieminen and Olga Sosina, with someone like Andrea Brändli holding down the fort at the other end, would do against the Canadian team.
Another way of achieving balance would be to handicap teams. Give the Swiss team three free points when playing against Canada/USA. Or, have the dominant team play short handed; a sixty minute long Swiss power play.
Yodel-adey-hoo
I have developed an affection for the Swiss team. It is partly because I get my web hosting there, to defeat efforts to shut me down because I sometimes put up controversial stuff and I seem to be on somebody’s permanent shit list. It is complicated to explain but every so often my web site and e-mail address gets blocked as a potential… something or other.
Then I have to phone the folks in Switzerland and get them to reset everything. They seem to have to deal with these issues with many of their customers. They imply it has something to do with intelligence agencies trying to run the net.
But they will reverse phone charges and seem to have time on their hands, so while we wait for things to reset we get into conversations. A big topic this time was the travails of the Swiss women’s hockey team. Swiss internet technicians seem to tend to pessimistic natures.
He thought the Swiss sucked at hockey. I kept saying they aren’t all that bad. The women’s team has won the bronze twice. They are rarely below fifth. He may be thinking of the men’s team which has been dismal in recent years, though it has taken silver in living memory.
We did agree that we hate the Americans, everybody hates Americans, and we would love to see the Canadian team clean up the American team at the gold medal game. Also, that when a Canadian moves to the USA, he/she increases the average I.Q. of both countries.
I began to follow the Swiss cows. They had a lot of bad luck but still got to fourth. Their star shooter broke a leg early on and hopped around up in the stands on the other leg, cheering her team on. Others banged on an equipment case with skate guards.
I am sure they did not mean to shoot Poulin in the throat. It definitely did not impair her performance later on against the awful Americans. No hard feelings, Switzerland.
I was happy to see them win just one game, when it really counted. Besides, they have the prettiest national anthem in the tournament.
Doing it Three by Three
I should conclude this with an idea I have had about ice hockey, strengthened by watching the ‘three on three’ to end the tied gold medal game between the USA and Canada. This is; that hockey played like that would be much more exciting to watch.
In fact, it seems to me that most team sports work better when you reduce the number of players in the space. For example; I am following women’s rugby seven’s a lot. Rugby used to be played by teams of fifteen. Now ‘fifteen a side’ seems to be disappearing, replaced by ‘sevens.’
Because there is much more open space, the sevens game is much faster, much more about running than just throwing the ball around. The length of games has been made much shorter. This format is perfect for video, which is where most professional athletics is seen nowadays.
I have not seen it, but I hear that people are starting to play three to a side basketball with great success.
Three to a side hockey seems to have started out as a way of training teams for full games. It is often played on half a rink so another match could be played on the other half. Now it is used as a tie breaker in place of the odious ‘shoot outs’.
As was seen last week in Calgary, ‘three a side’ is a faster hockey game, with more shooting. It greatly reduces all this passing the puck around and trying to box in the opposing team. There seems to be less body contact. It is much easier to watch and to follow on the video screen.
I am wondering how three a side hockey could take hold. There would have to be some adjustments. ‘D line’ players would become unemployed.
I think if it comes to be generally used to break tie games more people will see three by three and like it. Some full games could be tried this way. It would take some time to replace old style hockey.
Some Memories to End With.
One final thing I could say about this tournament; some cell phone snips of the Canadian women’s victory celebration were sent out, presumably for the amusement of their adoring public. These generated a few strange responses from people who seem to dislike women and anyone having fun. Fortunately most of this was soon deleted.
The hockey gals had just won back the gold medal. They were celebrating. They are people who know how to have fun. Are they expected to live like nuns?
One sad/funny memory; the Canadian player who broke her ankle during the victory pile on. It surprises me that such injuries do not happen more often, given the exuberance of these pile ons.
I think the most beautiful memory of this tournament will be the redefinition of hockey mom. One player had her year old son there. She would keep coming over to give kisses through the plexiglass, or shoot pucks at him.
There could not be better ‘reality’ shows than tournaments like these.
Now, pop some popcorn and watch this;
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=womens+hockey+documetary