Hockey is a pretty popular sport. However, women’s hockey is very undermined by those who aren’t fans. Even some fans of men’s hockey don’t know how big of a deal women’s hockey is. Let me tell you a little more about why women’s hockey is a big thing!

Winter Olympics

This year, at the Winter Olympics in South Korea’s city Pyeongchang, there will be women’s teams from many countries competing including: Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Korea, Finland, USA, and Canada. The teams will face of against each other and fight for the gold. So far, the only two teams to be on the Olympic women’s hockey podium is Canada and the USA. Thusfar, the USA team has advanced to the gold medal game because of their victory over Finland. They will face off against Canada in gold.

The winner of the 2018 Winter Olympics women’s hockey is the USA.

United States

Here in the US, there are women’s hockey teams in several states who compete against each other in the NCAA Frozen Four. The frozen four is a tournament for college teams to play in and face off against teams of like skill. Last year, Wisconsin faced off against Clarkson university NY,in the final game. Clarkson won and took the 1st place rank from Wisconsin with a score of 3-0. This year, the Frozen Four is planned to take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the 16th through the 18th of March.

Women vs. Men

Woman’s hockey, while similar to men’s hockey has several differences. One of the main differences is, women’s hockey has no checking. Checking is when one player wants to get the puck from an apposing player and will hit them with their body in order to make them fall or hit the boards allowing the person who gave the check to get the puck. However, in women’s hockey, players are allowed body impact and are able to use this to their advantage. Also, women’s hockey is thought to be much more strategic than men’s hockey. They have to think about how they are going to get the puck without checking or causing an interference. This is why you might see a lot more passing happen in women’s hockey than in men’s hockey. Women playing this sport are also known to be much less violent and will not fight with opposing players if they can help it.

My Experience

As a female hockey player, playing the game is one of the best things in my life. I play for the Lexington Thoroughbred Bantams and we won the Thunderbolts Classic (hockey tournament), on February 18 2018, and are getting closer to the end of our season. On my team there is only one other girl while the rest of the team is boys–meaning it’s a co-ed team. But being a girl makes me no difference between me and anyone else on the team. I am treated as an equal, and because of this I am able to play to my full strength and play a sport a genuinely enjoy with my fellow team mates beside me. I will not say playing hockey is all friendship and rainbows–it is fun and serious.

On the more serious side, hockey can be dangerous; I’ve had a minor concussion because of it. I even had a team member break a collar bone.  This may be why we practice twice a week and train off ice as well. My team trains hard to play to our fullest potential and sometimes that means doing suicides (skating down the ice and back repetitively), for five minutes straight. But, even when this happens, my team always supports each other and we are like one big, very loud, family.

To be truthful, women’s hockey is something that most of us don’t think about when in reality it is exiting and fun to watch and play! I hope that this sport can come into the spotlight with the 2018 Olympics and gain some popularity with the wider population.