HELP ME UNDERSTAND WOMEN'S HOCKEY

[Travelingman]

Can someone help me understand Women's Hockey???? Seems like every week I find myself baffled by some of the Women's hockey scores. I have been to several games over the past month seen many teams play and then when I am going through the games of the weekend I just can't believe some of the scores. Brown loosing to Northeastern last night prompted me to write this thread because I have seen Brown play and NE play and I would never think NE could beat Brown. I just watched UNH completely dismantle NE and Brown beat UNH 3-2. This is where I think women's and men's hockey is so different You have upsets in the boys, goaltending, off night ect. but not like in women's. I am beginning to believe many girls really don't take the sport as serious. It does seem like Brown is about as erratic a team I have seen. I mean recent scores that :confused: me are Yale 9-1 over Niagra and then Brown looses to Niagra 1-0. BC looses in OT(I believe) to Quinipiac 4-3 and then Quinapiac only beats Vermont 1-0. Harvard ties #1 St. Lawrence and then Brown ties Harvard 1-1. (how do you tie Harvard and then loose to Niagra and NE) Dartmouth looses to Ottowa 5-3 after coming off a decent game with Wisconsin. Weird!!! There are many more strange scores like this but I don't have the time. Does anyone else see this pattern? Maybe it is the same day travel, or just to early in the season yet.

[WSUhugefan]

I hear where you're coming from. I've been attending Women's games for about six years and prior to my daughter playing I had a son who played 3 years Junior A and two years D1. The biggest difference and maybe an explanation (and I disagree with your speculation about girls taking it seriously) is that the match-ups matter much more in Women's hoecky than in Men's. I'm talking line-for-line and player-vs-player and the way a team plays a certian style can really affect another team much more than the Men's game. A "dump-and-chase" team playing against another "dump-and-chase" team may match very evenly but put that team against a team that counts on a controlled breakout and chaos ensues. You don't see that happen as much in the Men's game, even in Boy's travel. And another thing I've noticed is a half-step of speed in the Men's game can be compenasted by upper-body strength (brushing and holding and hooking) wheras a half-step speed in Women's means 20 feet of free skating... that match-up player-to-player causes inconsistancies as well. The bottom line is matching-up style-to-style, line-to-line, player-to-player causes much more diversity in the Women's game so that A > B and B > C doesn't always mean A > C.

My two cents, I'm sure others will disagree.

[Gibber]

My only question is, why can't ANYONE ever spell NiagAra correctly ;)
but seriously... I really enjoy a good women's hockey game. There are a lot of games that aren't very good between the top teams and the bottom teams, but when you get a game like last year's title game (Minny/Harvard) it's really a treat, IMHO. And I wish I had seen the UNH/Wisco game last weekend (instead of staying home for one of the worst men's games I've seen in a long time (UNH/NU) There are a lot of differences between men's and women's hockey, and I can understand those people who don't enjoy it, but I enjoy it, especially the games between the better teams...

[Skate79]

I just watched UNH completely dismantle NE and Brown beat UNH 3-2. This is where I think women's and men's hockey is so different You have upsets in the boys, goaltending, off night ect. but not like in women's. I am beginning to believe many girls really don't take the sport as serious. It does seem like Brown is about as erratic a team I have seen. I mean recent scores that :confused: me are Yale 9-1 over Niagra and then Brown looses to Niagra 1-0. BC looses in OT(I believe) to Quinipiac 4-3 and then Quinapiac only beats Vermont 1-0. Harvard ties #1 St. Lawrence and then Brown ties Harvard 1-1. (how do you tie Harvard and then loose to Niagra and NE) Dartmouth looses to Ottowa 5-3 after coming off a decent game with Wisconsin. Weird!!! There are many more strange scores like this but I don't have the time. Does anyone else see this pattern? Maybe it is the same day travel, or just to early in the season yet.

I have a hard time believing that any hockey player worth her salt does not take playing the game seriously. No coach worth their salt would put up with that and it would become evident very quickly. You can't hide indifference. Not at any level.

As to your point about the scores, you are comparing apples to oranges. Yes, teams have off nights and I think upsets are more common this year because so many of the teams are young with freshmen and sophomores, this being an Olympic year. Comparing scores is an exercise in futility because, for the most part, the differences or similarities in the style of play for each team, who the referee is on that particular night, whether the goalie is on or off, possible injuries, and so forth. There are so many factors on one given night that you just can't say because Brown tied Harvard and Harvard tied SLU, therefore Brown should either tie or beat SLU. That argument doesn't hold water. Team matchups differ greatly on any given night.

Chalk it up to competitive balance. There are few if any dominant teams this year and that will make it interesting for more teams come March.

[Jonesy]

I believe that the problem is related to the large gap between the best and worst players. The pool of players that the teams are built from is much smaller than in mens hockey. In mens hockey there are enough top level close to equally talented players to fill the teams. In womens there aren't enough of those top level players so the teams have to dip into the lower levels. In any particular game those big gaps may or may not hurt you and that will vary from game to game.

[CRZY4HKY]

Travelingman: I think no body checking is the sole reason for erratic scores. Girls teams with 1 or 2 fast skaters can make a huge difference. The girls game is full of breakaways, 2-0's, etc. When you can't "knock" someone off the puck busting into the zone and have to rely on matching speed and playing the perfect angle, it forces teams to rely too heavily on their goalies. I have a daughter playing with the girls and a daughter playing with the boys and I see it all the time! The boys just worry about the player breaking in the zone and take the body. The girls have to worry about so much more including the puck! I would put a girls team defenseman up against a boys team defenseman any day (if you take away the checking) They are much smarter players. The girls goalies are forced to play odd man rushes far more than happens in a boys game. As far as girls taking it seriously... I saw my daughter get 4 stitches at the arena, without so much as an ice cube to numb the pain and then score 6 points in her game 2 hours later... Don't tell me girls don't take it seriously!

[carveman]

I believe that the problem is related to the large gap between the best and worst players. The pool of players that the teams are built from is much smaller than in mens hockey. In mens hockey there are enough top level close to equally talented players to fill the teams. In womens there aren't enough of those top level players so the teams have to dip into the lower levels. In any particular game those big gaps may or may not hurt you and that will vary from game to game.

Well said. I might add that there also don't seem to be nearly the number of natural scorers in the women's game yet; great skating, good hands, terrific work ethic, but not the true snipers that the men's game seems to have. I've seen so many games where one team is absolutely dominant, but simply can't finish, when the night before shots went in by the bunch.

[brookyone]

I believe that the problem is related to the large gap between the best and worst players. The pool of players that the teams are built from is much smaller than in mens hockey. In mens hockey there are enough top level close to equally talented players to fill the teams. In womens there aren't enough of those top level players so the teams have to dip into the lower levels. In any particular game those big gaps may or may not hurt you and that will vary from game to game.
I think Jonesy is on to something here...but I think I've noticed a change in the making. Not gonna be a real quick change by any means. For those so inclined or interested, I would urge getting out to local youth hockey or as in my case, girls high school hockey. In a relatively short period of time the overall skill level of individual players has increased tremendously, as well as become much more widespread throughout all players. There is no longer a prevalence of a small group of very talented players among all participants but rather a considerably larger number of players with excellent skills and a general increase, or widening of the entire talent pool overall. I can't go so fas as to say such a trend is guaranteed to continue...but the signs I see are good and kind of point to that being the case.

[LakersFan]

Don't forget, these players are college students. As a math professor, I hear about how complicated and difficultt their lives are all the time (oh, to be a college student again), and they don't play D-I hockey with all of the travel and other pressures.

When I was a Mercyhurst, I saw the work load the women's team deals with. The travel, the practices, only scheduling Tuesday/Thursday classes to cut down on the number of classes missed, off-ice obligations, the pressure that comes form being mentioned as a NCAA Frozen Four team and having a thin margin of error, statistics exams the day after a road trip to Bemidji, etc. The stuff adds up. Many college kids have similar pressures. They have bad days at work, screw up an exam, turn in a late homework, write a lousy paper, have a fight with a significant other. There just isn't a website that keeps track of their exam grades for all the world to see.

Enjoy the hockey. They do.

[ARM]

I think upsets are just as common in men's hockey, if not more so. The outcome of mosts games on the men's side are in doubt going into the game, because there is less of a difference between the best team in the country and the worst.

On the women's side, if we say Union has been the worst team over the past few years, how many teams do they have a realistic chance of winning against? Hockey is a game which is often decided by a bounce or a goalie "stealing" a game. When only a few goals are scored in each contest, it becomes more likely that a break one way or another can decide it.

[GIMMEMORE]

Thought I would jump in with my two cents worth on this issue.I think Jonesy has a very valid point.If you look at the boy's/men's side- you see a very small gap in talent levels from the top to bottom players.Boy's 'aaa' has a small difference of talent levels that makes it so hard to compete-go to boy's 'aa' and again the gap widens and so on down to 'a'. If you look at the women's/girl's side, you definately see a larger gap of talent at each 'level' of hockey than you would at the men/boy's side.This creates the ability of line matchups that might drastically be one-sided in the women's game, hence a 'lesser' team can be successful.Remember- one goal in the women's game is huge, so that lead is much harder to overcome than it would be in the men's game.The other factor that I see is most women don't have the same grounding that the boy's do. Whether that is starting earlier playing the game or playing 'road hockey' to develop those offensive skills with the stick, I think the girl's are just that little bit behind-but that is changing-slowly but surely.Anyway thats how I see it from where I'm sitting- oh and by the way the girls that I've coached are as tough as many of the boy's -some of them I would'nt want to cross the wrong way- they do have looonnnng memories.

[Skate79]

I believe that the problem is related to the large gap between the best and worst players. The pool of players that the teams are built from is much smaller than in mens hockey. In mens hockey there are enough top level close to equally talented players to fill the teams. In womens there aren't enough of those top level players so the teams have to dip into the lower levels. In any particular game those big gaps may or may not hurt you and that will vary from game to game.

Okay, I'll play contrarion here and take my lumps. While there is a definite gap between world-class players (Olympians for lack of a better term) and others who fill out a women's roster, I do think there are enough talented players to go around with more around the corner.

The problem isn't a talent gap; it's recruiting and how you go about building a team. Look at what Clarkson and Mercyhurst have done in such a short period of time. How about UConn making the HE finals last year? Can you honestly tell me they are doing it night in and night out with top shelf players? Of course not. They play a system that takes advantage of talent, maximizing strengths while minimizing weaknesses. Solid coaching certainly plays a role.

I agree with brookyone in that girls programs are exploding and the coaching is getting better at the lower levels. We recently hosted a girls tournament here on the Cape and the talent was impressive. But getting that talent is to play for your school is the challenge. If Union can't recruit the talent, of course they will have problems beating the top teams. That is true for any school, Harvard included.

[SAMMEE]

The biggest problem is the limited number of girls playing hockey. Even with the increase - which I do not see in most parts of the country- there is a limited player pool. If you are not sending your daughter off to prep-school; how many high schools outside of MA or MN actually have girls' teams? I coach girls' club hockey and reside in the northeast and there has been almost no growth in the last four years in actual numbers. Every new club has been offset by a club folding somewhere and I think the USA Hockey numbers are inflated by some girls playing on two or three teams. When my son was a squirt/peewee at Tier 2 level we could play ten clubs within a hours drive so he got a chance to develope and gain some size and go on to HS hockey and D3 College. My daughter has to travel an hour to play the closest girls club which is top Tier One and get whipped. So a lot of the girls quit and play soccer; lacrosse or softball by fourteen.
Most leagues can tell you the standings before the season starts. USA Hockey has to concentrate more on developement for the younger girls and not worry about the select players. Without a larger pool you will not be able to improve the overall level of Women's College Hockey especially as it is probably not a money producing sport