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Women's hockey
Mar. 14th, 2016 06:59 pmMarch posting meme, already a bit late: a female hockey player/women's hockey
Personal experiences first: about a year and a half ago, thanks to Hockey RPF fandom, I started playing hockey myself. At the same time as our practice, the main part of the rink is always full with kindergarten children. Sometimes they watch us play, and they always stare at us when we skate through the main rink to get to the locker rooms. At all of us, but especially the girls, and sometimes they call after us: "Hey, Eishockeymädchen!" (ice hockey girl(s)!) Most often it's young girls, sometimes boys too. They ask us if we really play hockey (obviously), if it's fun, if we play in tournaments, if it's difficult. Sometimes I see children stare at me when I carry my gear to and from practice, and sometimes I hear adults telling kids "that's an ice hockey stick. Yes, girls play ice hockey too." It makes me feel like a role model, and it feels awesome.
I'd planned to go to more games of Vienna's excellent women's hockey team, the EHV Sabres, this season, but in the end I only saw two live: at first I was busy with uni and then their season was already almost over. I was at the last championship game last Saturday, Vienna won 4-0 against Salzburg and was clearly the dominant team. Not many people in attendance, but it was fun to watch. Hopefully next season I'll go watch more. It looks like some of the best players may leave - not that I begrudge them finding better jobs, but still, having them in Vienna was a nice luxury. Anna Meixner is fast.
This season was the first one for the first professional women's league in North America, the NWHL. Exciting! They streamed almost all of their games online for free, I watched several and enjoyed it a lot. I rooted for the New York Riveters, initially mostly because of their great foreign players, Janine Weber and Lyudmila Belyakova and Nana Fujimoto. (I recently dreamed I watched a kids' hockey practice with Nana and at the end after some begging I was allowed to skate too and take a shot at her, it was great.) Unfortunately they didn't play that well this season, and were swept by the Pride in the playoffs. It's uncertain how many players will come back, but I hope many of them.
I read a lot less about the CWHL, but at least some things, including that the Calgary Inferno upset Les Canadiennes Montréal in the Clarkson Cup final. From my, very recent and limited, perspective, the CWHL isn't as good at PR as the NWHL, but that could change. I hope that the two leagues push each other to do better and raise the profile of women's hockey together. Unfortunately there seems to be some animosity between the leagues' front offices, I don't know what happened behind the scenes but hopefully that gets resolved soon.
I'm not very interested in women's hockey RPF, also because they aren't that famous so I don't feel as comfortable with it. Maybe that'll change when the media coverage increases, or if I encounter a "storyline" that really grabs me, who knows.
Personal experiences first: about a year and a half ago, thanks to Hockey RPF fandom, I started playing hockey myself. At the same time as our practice, the main part of the rink is always full with kindergarten children. Sometimes they watch us play, and they always stare at us when we skate through the main rink to get to the locker rooms. At all of us, but especially the girls, and sometimes they call after us: "Hey, Eishockeymädchen!" (ice hockey girl(s)!) Most often it's young girls, sometimes boys too. They ask us if we really play hockey (obviously), if it's fun, if we play in tournaments, if it's difficult. Sometimes I see children stare at me when I carry my gear to and from practice, and sometimes I hear adults telling kids "that's an ice hockey stick. Yes, girls play ice hockey too." It makes me feel like a role model, and it feels awesome.
I'd planned to go to more games of Vienna's excellent women's hockey team, the EHV Sabres, this season, but in the end I only saw two live: at first I was busy with uni and then their season was already almost over. I was at the last championship game last Saturday, Vienna won 4-0 against Salzburg and was clearly the dominant team. Not many people in attendance, but it was fun to watch. Hopefully next season I'll go watch more. It looks like some of the best players may leave - not that I begrudge them finding better jobs, but still, having them in Vienna was a nice luxury. Anna Meixner is fast.
This season was the first one for the first professional women's league in North America, the NWHL. Exciting! They streamed almost all of their games online for free, I watched several and enjoyed it a lot. I rooted for the New York Riveters, initially mostly because of their great foreign players, Janine Weber and Lyudmila Belyakova and Nana Fujimoto. (I recently dreamed I watched a kids' hockey practice with Nana and at the end after some begging I was allowed to skate too and take a shot at her, it was great.) Unfortunately they didn't play that well this season, and were swept by the Pride in the playoffs. It's uncertain how many players will come back, but I hope many of them.
I read a lot less about the CWHL, but at least some things, including that the Calgary Inferno upset Les Canadiennes Montréal in the Clarkson Cup final. From my, very recent and limited, perspective, the CWHL isn't as good at PR as the NWHL, but that could change. I hope that the two leagues push each other to do better and raise the profile of women's hockey together. Unfortunately there seems to be some animosity between the leagues' front offices, I don't know what happened behind the scenes but hopefully that gets resolved soon.
I'm not very interested in women's hockey RPF, also because they aren't that famous so I don't feel as comfortable with it. Maybe that'll change when the media coverage increases, or if I encounter a "storyline" that really grabs me, who knows.
