Wickenheiser takes her message to world summit

I hope this produces some positive results.

It would be a shame to see Women's hockey scratched from the Olympics.

Unless the rest of the world gets onboard it will remain a two horse race, which, to be quite honest is getting tiring to watch, even for hockey fans.



Haley may be on the right track but she forgot the most important thing about what it takes to develop programs................time.

She seems to expect the development of womens hockey to be instantaneous and bring them up to the same level as the men in a unrealistically short period of time.

Unfortunately, even Brian Burke can't change the fact that mens hockey has been developing for well over a hundred years and womens hockey has only really been in exhistance since the sixties and an Olympics sport since 92.


So, if sports like baseball, lacrosse, golf and cricket can be cut from the Olympics why would they keep an uncompetetive two country sport like Womens Hockey?

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They did mention the time issue. Part of their wanting to see an increase in funding was so the other teams could devote the same amount of time to playing as our team does.

They did mention the time issue. Part of their wanting to see an increase in funding was so the other teams could devote the same amount of time to playing as our team does.


That'd help, but I don't think it's the answer. These countries have to get onboard with their Womens hockey programs or it just isn't going to happen. Like I said before it takes time and she seems to want development to happen yesterday rather than tommorow, which IMO is unrealistic.

Let's say these other countries do increase funding for their womens hockey teams (which I don't think will happen) how does playing in an inferior league with inferior players bring them up to North American Standards?

The answer is it doesn't. So the only solution appears to be, increase the public funding of these teams so they can travel to North America and play in a league with our women and I think it'll be a frosty friday before you see that happening.

So despite Haley's refrain, I think sometime in the foreseeable future womens hockey will removed from the Olympics until it grows and matures into more than a two country sport.

They did mention the time issue. Part of their wanting to see an increase in funding was so the other teams could devote the same amount of time to playing as our team does.


That'd help, but I don't think it's the answer. These countries have to get onboard with their Womens hockey programs or it just isn't going to happen. Like I said before it takes time and she seems to want development to happen yesterday rather than tommorow, which IMO is unrealistic.

Let's say these other countries do increase funding for their womens hockey teams (which I don't think will happen) how does playing in an inferior league with inferior players bring them up to North American Standards?

The answer is it doesn't. So the only solution appears to be, increase the public funding of these teams so they can travel to North America and play in a league with our women and I think it'll be a frosty friday before you see that happening.

So despite Haley's refrain, I think sometime in the foreseeable future womens hockey will removed from the Olympics until it grows and matures into more than a two country sport.

Sadly, you're most likely correct. It would be nice to think, however, that whatever progress she could make today, might give Women's hockey the legs it needs to down the road.

It's a waste of time. These other Countries are miles behind Canada and the US with no improvement in sight for years to come. Scrap the event and hold something with more International interest

I'm guess the Olympic brain trust put womens hockey in the Olympics in the hope that it'd garner a large following in the Hockey mad countries of Europe and lead to some competition for the North American Teams.

After not seeing this happen they'll do what most rational people would consider inevitable and scrap Womens hockey, which is unfortunate since we could always count on our team for an Olympic medal.

If Haley Wickenheiser was serious about growing the sport she'd be better served to gather some of the retired North American Women hockey players and moving them to Europe, where they could help start leagues, coach and train people.

Thats how the mens sport grew over there, so why should the women be any different? As it stands now it's like she wants her sport to get a free ride on the coattails of mens hockey without the scrafices.

But is womens' hockey any more a "two country" showdown than most other sports? I understand the argument, but there are lots of Olympic sports that are largely dominated by a very small number of countries.

What really makes Olympic womens' hockey hard to pallate is the calibre of the officiating. I understand the push to have female officials officiate womens' hockey, but it's SO BRUTAL. The best thing they could do to advance womens' hockey, at the elite level, would be to get elite calibre officials and, sorry to say, that means men refereeing their games.

I agree that there are sports that are dominated by a small group of countries but none fail as miserably as womens hockey when it comes to meeting the Olympic standard.

If your really looked at it from logical point of view, womens hockey should never have qualified to become a sport given the criteria for inclusion in the Olympics:



I'd like to know what 40 countries on which three continents have womens hockey leagues?

Although they did get around the requirement for having a governing International Federation, by becomming part of the IIHF, which, was nice enough to include womens hockey in their mandate and definately helped them get in the Olympics.

Womens hockey in the Olympics as a full time sport appears to have been achieved more by slight of hand than by meeting criteria and until they actually get enough teams, players, equal competition and maybe even their own international governing body we likely won't see it in the Olmypics for years to come.

Canada winning all the time is bad? Not our fault the rest of the world's hockey programs (save the U.S.) sucks major ass. I read in the newspapers after the Vancouver Olympics that other countries' hockey programs felt inadequate compared to Canada and the U.S.

They should pump more money into their programs, maybe even hire the odd Canadian or American coach and build a more successful program rather than always whining and crying when Canada keeps steamrolling them.

-J.

I'm just wondering which 75 countries on four continents play mens hockey?

You're right. I looked and I can't find 75 teams for the men on four continents either. As it stands now according the IIHF the men have 48 teams ranked and the women have 34, but what I can't find out is how many other countries have mens and womens hockey leagues, recreational and amateur which would make a big difference.

My guess would be that since Mens hockey has been a sport in the olympics since 1920 and actually predated the first Winter Olympics in 1924 they don't have to fufill the new sport requirements like the women who started in 1998.