Women's World Hockey Championship

As the old lady hockey player, I am beyond astounded to see the growth of the women's game over the past 25 years.

Never, ever in my wildest dreams way back when would I have imagined NCAA or Olympic championships for women hockey players.

 

Growth at the youth level here has been tremendous over the last 10 years. Some girls will play youth with the boys.

Back to Bettman, I had dealings with a couple of people in the NHL when he came over from the NBA. Looking back, things didn't turned out the way they hoped at the time..."David Stern's right-hand man!"

 

He can go back to the NBA any time now.

 

U19 teams have really taken off here, too.

 

Agreed.

Maybe we should get the girls together. Get the team back together. [/lame Blues Brothers reference]

Then we could kick his butt out of there.

 

Rosie ... I'll clear your crease any day.

 

Girls hockey is growing by leaps and bounds out west. Problem I see is depth, even at their rep levels. Always one or two real solid players, then there is a large drop off to everyone else. Also, the goalies are generally far advanced of the rest of the players, especially if they played boys hockey before switching over to girls hockey.

It's great that they are playing more and more, but as someone who covers it as well as boys hockey I find it one of the most frustrating sports to watch because of the no hitting. It seems every second pass is a sui, and I keep telling myself someone is going to get plastered, yet nothing happens. At most there is a feined attempt at a poke check. Far too often the defenceman just backs off. it's terrible fundamental hockey in this regard. Incredibly anti-climatic.


Oh and Congrats to Team USA. It's better for the rivalry if we lose every once in a while just to keep things interesting.

 

Thanks, Flash. 8)

Beef, I will agree with you that the no-check rule is a bad thing. That's something a majority of women players have complained about for years and years.

 

Just to chime in, there's a very strong girls hockey movement here in SoCal, too. The desker we just hired at my old paper played college hockey up your way, Rosie -- (she was all-conference at Concordia) -- and is coaching youth travel teams down here on the side, now.

 

Third ... if I could have hit one or two people legally, I might still be able to play today.

 

So's ya know ...

http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=234335

Despite losing to the United States in the gold medal game at the World Women's Hockey Championship in China on the weekend, Canada remains ranked number one in the IIHF rankings.

Canada has 2950 points in the rankings, 20 more than the second place Americans. That means Canada will be the top seed at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

There was some movement at the top of the rankings, with Finland overtaking Sweden for the third spot.

The 2008 IIHF rankings determine which teams qualify automatically to the 2010 Olympic Games, as well as the seedings for that tournament. The top six teams have already qualified: 1. Canada (2950 points); 2. United States (2930); 3. Finland (2770); 4. Sweden (2760); 5. Switzerland (2645); 6. Russia (2575).

Pre-Olympic qualifications in September 2008 and final Olympic qualifications in November 2008 will determine the final two spots for the eight-team 2010 Olympic tournament.

 

Any guess as to who the final two will most likely be?