Women’s Olympic Hockey; Doomed to win?

Posted by on Feb 27, 2010 in Olympics | Comments Off

The Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team beat the United states in the gold medal game recently in Vancouver. They always seem to do this and according to the IOC, this is a problem. So much so that, unless there is a balance of competition in the next few years, the IOC will possibly pull the women’s version of the sport from the Olympics.

That would be unfortunate.

There are lots of sports which are dominated by a particular country or region. Men’s hockey was a play toy of the USSR until the NHLers started to participate. The austrians are always at the top of the ski rankings. In the summer games, Table tennis hasn’t been competitive in years. Outside of the Olympics, the Tour de France saw Lance Armstrong win year after year without batting an eye. Schumacher couldn’t lose an F1 title if he tried during his time and yet the fans kept coming out.

So what’s the worry?

If indeed the olympics are about encouraging sport and its wide ranging benefits around the world, I could think of nothing worse than to pull a women’s event. Women need sport, arguably more than guys do. It provides an opportunity for women to develop life skills that they otherwise may not have a chance to work on. Sports inject confidence, a hard work ethic and co-operative attributes in all its participants. The world can only gain by having more confident women.

Despite this, women’s sports are always underfunded. It’s a real shame. Pulling women’s hockey from the Olympics will remove one more incentive of countries to fund women’s sports. If anything, the lack of competition shows that we have a lack of funding that needs to be addressed. Spending more should be the call; not pulling the plug. The IOC should be looking to increase the number of female sports at the sacrifice of the men’s. I’d rather remove the men’s hockey tournament – where the NHL and other elite leagues provide more than enough incentive for young boys to play hockey – than the women’s where there is little visible examples for young girls to follow.

If the IOC wants to be a guiding light, it will re-affirm its commitment to women’s sports with investments rather than threats of termination. Women need sports and the world needs more women to play sports.

As a last option, should the IOC continue to press, I would suggest that the US and Canadian teams agree to not compete at the Olympics. If that’s what it takes to ensure that the sport continues to receive attention and money, then we should be happy to make the sacrifice. It would be a shame but ultimately a worthwhile sacrifice.