As today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day, I figured there was no better time to talk about my experiences with women’s hockey.  As with almost all sports, the women’s side of hockey is generally overlooked.  This oversight can be linked to objective things like lower participation levels as well as subjective and debatable things such as lower skill level or physicality.

However, in my opinion, women’s hockey is just as entertaining as men’s hockey.  While there may not be the high speed collisions and fights that people love in the men’s games happening in women’s hockey, the skill level is the same.  In fact, as with many sports based on physicality, the women have to learn to be more skilled in their play because they can’t use brute force to control their opponent.  This is also why women’s sports tend to be “dirtier” games, in which players are taught and learn how to bend or sneakily break the rules in ways that give them an advantage.  This change can be very interesting for both well-versed fans and those who know little, because it is a new experience.

If I’m being honestly, I have only seen women’s hockey a few times, with those begin heavily concentrated in Olympic years when the world finally decides to focus on women’s sports again.  However, this is in part due to the lack of exposure.  Besides Olympic hockey every four years, professional women’s hockey is never on TV.  The only other places I’ve experienced women’s games were at college events, through both my local team Mercyhurst University and here at Penn State.

I was lucky to have my first exposure to women’s games come in the form of Mercyhurst, led by now Canadian gold medalist Megan Augusta.  In the years I became interested in hockey, the team was very good.  This caused my hometown of Erie, PA to be chosen by the NCAA to host the Frozen Four (NCAA Championships) in 2011.  Over the course of that weekend, I watched Wisconsin, Cornell, Boston College, and Boston University duke it out for a championship.  While I no longer remember the winner of the tournament, what has stuck with me was the appreciation for women’s hockey.

Coming to PSU, I had hoped to get both men’s and women’s season tickets. However, upon investigation, I learned that women’s hockey games are not given scheduling preference above of anything, making the games frequently be in the late afternoon or even on weeknights.  Because of these weird game times, I could not commit to going to all of the games.

I have however, made it to one PSU women’s game.  The weekend after we came back to school, I went to the pink out game against Syracuse.  The game was great, and our women’s team is actually really good!  It was a sad event though, as the arena was extremely empty and quiet, and this crowd of just under 1,5000 was the second highest attendance for a women’s game EVER.  There was no student section and no loud Penn State cheers echoing through the arena throughout the game as I am used to with the men.

Women’s hockey is great, and I wish more people paid attention to women in sports.  These women are skilled and great at what we do, and they deserved to be shown more respect and attention for what they do. That being said, celebrating National Girls and Women in Sport day is a good way to start.