I was recently at the World Hockey Summit in Toronto, a gathering of 400 of hockey’s global ambassadors.
Liked:
- drinking beer with hockey’s power brokers and super-nerds
- meeting thoughtful and sophisticated players in today’s game like Hayley Wickenheiser and Ottawa Senators’ captain Daniel Alfredsson
(a gallant, soft-spoken Swede!)
- an opening to the geopolitics of hockey (ex. I nosed my way into a conversation between Russian legend Slava Fetisov – who has the ear of Vladislav Tretiak and PM Putin – and the Canadian Women’s Hockey League brass about how to support the top Russian women players to come play in the restructured CWHL, a pilot pro league which begins play this month.)
Disliked:
- That predictably, the summit was a sausage fest
- You could count the non-white attendees on ten fingers
- That ashen look that comes over a room whenever Emperor Bettman presides.
-
The focus on the business of the NHL.
- While fans were welcome to Summit, at 350$ a pop, the ticket price cost more than admission to see the local Leafs.
Play-by-play:
I attended most of the sessions at the Summit – which covered everything from Skill Development to Jr Development In the World to a Vancouver 2010 Evaluation to the Global Events Agenda. I discovered that, even in 2010, women’s hockey still isn’t included in key issues about the grassroots game and has zero influence over how the NHL runs. Is it so hard for the hockey world to understand that:
- 98% of all hockey moms know more about hockey than your average male fan
- Over 40% of NHL fans are actually women
(tho’ you wouldn’t know it…)
- Women’s game=no hitting or fighting=good example for youth and rec hockey
- Apparently, women decide a lot of what goes on in the household (including what sports their kids play)
(BUT, why complain? This was the first time women were invited to a global hockey meeting – definitely a step in the right direction, so excuse that turn into angry hockey dyke for a sec there!)
Women’s Hockey:
The “women’s hockey panel” turned out to be a fiery response to IOC president Jacque Rogge’s comment at the Oympics in Vancouver that women’s hockey needs to improve at the international level or else face expulsion from the Games. Rogge made the comment only hours prior to the highly anticipated gold medal match-up between CAN-USA, which became the second highest-rated TV show in Canadian broadcast history after the men’s gold medal final. Despite the incredible victory by Team Canada’s women, they faced a media smackdown for smokin’ cigars and drinking beers in celebration.
Can anyone ever recall a dynasty in men’s sport that was reprimanded for weakening their sport, or worse, shamed for being over-jubilant in victory?
Of course, there are truthier reasons for the ongoing lack of parity in women’s international hockey go something like this…
chronic underfunding
= less encouragement =
= less participation =
= less leadership/coaching =
= less competition =
= lopsided results =
Nothing illustrates this paradox more than Russia and the Czech Republic.
Both are proud hockey nations, right? So why do they each have less than 300 women players enrolled in the sport?!
300!
I once talked to tennis wonder woman Martina Navratilova about hockey. Navratilova grew up next to a frozen pond in the Czech Republic, but said her mom never let her strap on hockey skates because she said the sport wasn’t…
“lady-like.”
Wickenheiser speaks out:
While hockey players tend to be the strong, silent, obedient (toothless) type,
both Hayley Wickenheiser and Team Canada coach Melody Davidson gave gutsy presentations that came from the heart. In fact, in both cases, I got shivers.
The captain and the coach started off pointing out that they wouldn’t even be at this Summit without their parents’ unconditionally belief in them:
(I ditto that – thx mom&dad!).
They also talked about the discrimination, prejudice and inertia that still holds back women players around the world from achieving excellence in hockey, while also sharing their own personal stories…
Did you know?
Wickenheiser played men’s pro hockey in Europe because there is NO PRO HOCKEY FOR WOMEN
Only 7 of 14 hockey federations have a director in charge of female hockey
Also on the panel was longtime coach Finnish coach, the very suave Arto Seippi. He told his own hilarious story of being a misogynist hockey dude before being convinced by his boss – along with cajoling from his wife – to give coaching elite Finnish women hockey players a shot. It paid off for Seippi at the Vancouver Olympics. His team upset the favoured Swedes to take the bronze medal in a game he says lifted the nation.
Even Finland’s first female President, Tarja Halonen, joined the jubilant team and coach Seippi for the celebrations!
Press notes
I highly recommend you listen to Wickenheiser’s, Davidson’s and Seippi’s impassioned presentations here. They are some of the most moving rhetoric you’ll hear about our national sport… Wickenheiser’s presentation also covered more ground than all the women’s hockey reporting combined during the Olympics! She did the digging in the corners too – including naming the hockey countries that need to improve funding to women’s hockey and pin-pointed which federations, either because they are willfully ignorant, passing the buck or outright sexist, don’t adequately support girls and women in the game.
The consensus at the Summit was that the next big step in the women’s game is to create a modest pro league where girls can dream of playing pro, the top international players can play between Olympics and college stars can continue in the game after their post-secondary careers.
