Feminist is a 21st Century Word - Hockey

            Hockey is not the first word that comes to mind a lot of the times when a person is thinking of women’s sports. Vise versa, women’s hockey in general does not pop up in most minds when thinking about the topic of hockey as a whole. However that is trying to be changed.

Women fall in the dominance of men when it comes to hockey today. During the previous Winter Olympic Games the men’s hockey semifinal game between the United States and Canada brought in over twenty million viewers. Four years before that, the championship game between the U.S. and Canada brought in almost twenty five million viewers making it one of the most watched hockey games of all time. Now in comparison to women’s hockey, those are astronomical numbers. The previous Olympic games featured Canada and the U.S. in the championship game as well. However, the championship match up only racked up a little more than ten million viewers. About half the viewers that the men’s received. Although hockey isn’t the dominant sport in the U.S., one would think that a rivalry game of that caliber would get a few more viewers than that.

In response to that, the women from team U.S.A. have been making very big efforts to get more girls to have an interest in hockey. They are making efforts to inform them that they are not just a bunch of tomboys out to hit one another. That they are playing because they love the game. That is why they are having the U.S.A. Hockey's Girls Try Hockey for Free Day every October 12th sponsored by World Girls' Ice Hockey Week in hopes to get more girls to have interests in playing hockey.

Even though women’s hockey isn’t the most predominant sport in today’s culture. But efforts are being made to try getting more and more girls playing the game. It may not be the biggest jump in numbers but slowly women are moving up in the hockey world.

Citations:

Tucker, Erika. "Is Women's Hockey an Endangered Olympic Event?" Global News. N.p., 21 Feb. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

NHL.com. "Olympic Final Most-watched Hockey Game in 30 Years." NHL.com. N.p., 1 Mar. 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.

NHL.com. "United States Olympian Hilary Knight Practices with Anaheim Ducks." NHL.com. N.p., 3 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.