Women's World Hockey Championship

The US won the Women's World Hockey Championship, defeating Canada 4-3. I see a few girls youth and high school games every year, and the talent pool is growing every year. Exciting hockey and fun to watch. Congrats!

www.cbc.ca/cp/sports/080412/s041247A.html

 

USA! USA! USA!

For me, a great season in the women's hockey world -- the UMD Bulldogs take the NCAA title and Team USA wins the world title.

I'm happy.

 

Meh ... we'll let you have one every once in a while.

 

The problem with women's hockey is that there really only two countries that can field competitive teams; USA and Canada.

 

Finns and Swiss played for bronze. Sweden was upset along the way. Talent pool is getting a little deeper all the time. It takes time for the game to develop and grow. I know I've watched it take off in our area over the last eight or nine years and the calibre of hockey and number of girls playing has improved dramatically in that time

 

Huntsie, Do you know if Kim Martin was in goal for Sweden? Like you said, it takes time to grow, but it is getting better and better.

JR, there's no problem as far as I can tell. It's growing and more hockey is always a good thing, right?

 

Gary Bettman will love you for saying that.

 

But would Clarence Campbell?

 

Danny Gallivan may even shed a tear of thanks.

 

Flash, you started playing a few years ago you said at some point here. Have you seen the growth where you are?

 

Girls, it seems, have always played hockey out west, especially in the big cities.

Growth at the minor levels? At times ... the population levels are still low enough, though, that midget has to incorporate 13- to 18-year-olds in some areas.

And thus, if a girl truly wants to be better at her game, she plays rep-level with the boys.

What impresses the hell out of me is the growth back home. Teams in my home town have had provincial champions at all age levels in the last 10 years. Back in my day, we weren't allowed to play ... we were only allowed to date hockey players.

 

U.S. girls have great role models (not that Canadian girls don't but it just seems to be a more important factor south of the 49th). Angela Ruggerio is terrific and Cammi Granato was always a good rep, too.