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halfamoonA WOMAN'S HOCKEY PRIMER
Hockey is, in this writer's humble opinion, the best sport in the world, and the women's game is the best version that this sport has to offer. Here's a bit about women's hockey and why you should be watching it.
Hockey 101
Each team usually has six players on the ice at a given time- three forwards (left wing, right wing, center), two players on defense, and a goaltender. The object is to get a puck (a black disc of vulcanized rubber) past the goaltender and into a 4' x 6' net more times than your opponent. The ice surface is divided into three zones by two blue lines – an offensive zone, where the other team's goaltender resides, the defensive zone, where your team's goaltender resides, and the neutral zone, the space between the blue lines and the benches where neither team has an advantage. The teams will switch sides after a period of twenty minutes- there are three of these periods in a regulation hockey game. Fun note- the second period is often referred to as “the period of the long change” because the defensive zone is further from each teams bench.
Most of the time, play is considered 5-on-5, meaning there are five skaters on the ice for both teams. There are exceptions- when a penalty is called, a player is sent to the penalty box for a set period of time, the penalized team is called shorthanded (or on the penalty kill) and the non-penalized team has the “man advantage” (or on the power-play). The penalized player can come back on the ice when the penalty time has elapsed or in the case of a 2-minute minor penalty as soon as a goal is scored by the team on the power-play. Teams can be short as many as two penalized players, but a 5-on-3 advantage is fairly rare. Another exception can happen at the end of the game when a team losing by a small margin can elect to “pull the goaltender” and substitute an extra skater for her.
If you watch any women's hockey at all, particularly in international play, at some point during the broadcast the announcers will say that body contact is permitted but body checking is not. Body contact is just that incidental contact that happens during puck battles. Body checking is when a player drives her shoulder or forearm deliberately into another player to move them off the puck or into the boards. Body checking carries with it a two-minute minor penalty. For anyone who says there's no physicality in the women's game, they need to watch just ten minutes of a US-Canada match to see otherwise. The two teams do not like each other very much. (On the ice, only. Off the ice, there has been more than one marriage between players on the two rival factions.)
Depending on the league, if a game is tied at the end of 60 minutes, then an overtime may be played. Some games have five minutes of 3-on-3 overtime, some have a sudden death period (complete with an extra intermission beforehand). If the game is still tied at the end of overtime, it will go to a shootout. In a shootout, each team chooses three shooters to have a breakaway opportunity on the opposing goaltender. If the teams are still tied after each has taken three shots, then each team is given a shot attempt until one team emerges victorious.
Leagues
There are two North American entities for hockey. They are:
The Professional Hockey Federation (PHF) which was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League. The PHF currently has seven teams- four in the Northeast United States, one in Minnesota, and two in Canada. They are the Boston Pride, Buffalo Beauts, Connecticut Whale, Metropolitan (NY/NJ Metro area) Riveters, Montreal Force, Minnesota Whitecaps, and Toronto Six. The salary cap for the 2023-24 season is 1.5 million.
The Professional Women Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) was formed in 2019 by a group of players from both the US and Canadian National Women's Teams. It was formed so that these elite players could continue to train and play at the level of competition they were used to until a sustainable women's league could be formed. The Association has training centers in five areas – Boston, Calgary, Minnesota, Montreal, and Toronto. One hundred players are ranked in terms of skill, experience, and tryout performance and then divided between four non-regional teams that participate in exhibition tournaments throughout the U.S. and Canada.
There has been much discussion over the years regarding the need for one women's hockey league in North America. With the two sides as they are, they are never going to agree on how to do things and those people who want the National Hockey League to come in and take it over probably haven't looked at how the NHL has been run. It is not the well-oiled machine that people like to think it is.
**If you are reading this after June 2023, you'll know that the information in the previous 3 paragraphs has changed, check out this post where I talk about the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
Internationally, the Svenska damhockeyligan (SDHL) is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. There are 9 teams in that league. Naisten Liiga is the top Finnish women's ice hockey league. Ten teams compete in that league. The Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) consists of five teams and they play their games in the warmer months from November-March. The European Women's Hockey League (EWHL) contains ten teams in six countries – Austria, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Slovakia.
Events"
As interest in women's hockey continues to grow, many more countries around the globe participate in international tournaments. The biggest of these tournaments is the Winter Olympics. 2022 was the last time there was participation in the Winter Olympics with Canada taking the gold medal, the U.S. taking silver, and Finland winning bronze. Seven other teams participated- host country China, Switzerland, Sweden, ROC (Russia), Japan, the Czech Republic, and Denmark.
Teams for the Olympics are chosen based on both past Olympic performance and performance in the annual Women's World Championship. Canada and the United States typically dominate these tournaments. Finland is the third most successful team. Ten teams play in the tournament. It is a round robin tournament. The top four tournament teams from one year will go on to Group A in the next year's game. There is a knockout round between teams who have lost in the quarterfinals to see who will be the last team to go into next year's Group A and a 3-game relegation tournament between the bottom two teams from Group B. This year's tournament will run from April 5 to April 16 in Brampton, Ontario with the first US-Canada matchup on April 10. There is also an under-18 version of the World Championship that is held at a separate time and location.
The National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship is the college competition that happens annually in the U.S. as a single elimination tournament between the top eleven teams. The semifinals are known as the Women's Frozen Four. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota-Duluth, Clarkson, and Ohio State have all won the tournament.
Players you need to know
Marie-Philip Poulin – Captain of the Canadian National Team, also known as Captain Clutch, forward. Best player in hockey (all of hockey, I didn't stutter). I once saw her score an overtime goal live in an exhibition against the USWNT. She's the real deal. Here's a video of her highlights
Hilary Knight – forward for the US Women's National Team – record holder for points in the Women's Worlds Championships. Here's a tribute that the IIHF made after she broke the record.
Sarah Nurse – forward for the Canadian Women's National Team – first Black woman to win gold in Olympic ice hockey. To see how incredible she was in the 2022 Olympics, check out this video
Jenni Hiirikoski – Captain of the Finnish National Team, one of the best defensemen in the world. Here's a feature on her.
Nela Lopusanova – 14 year old phenom from Slovakia. The forward turned heads with her performance at the U18 Worlds this year. Here are highlights of the nine goals she scored.
Nana Fujimoto – goaltender for the Japan Women's National Team, first Japanese player to play in the NWHL. Here is a fun video of her gearing up and warming up.
Resources
Wikipedia Women's Ice Hockey entry
The Ice Garden - fantastic resource to keep you current with the wonderful world of WoHo. Sadly, it may no longer be in existence at this site as of February 28 2023.
PHF Site
PWHPA Site
SDHL Site - it's in Swedish, but the highlights are accessible and seeing women happy after scoring goals translates to any language.
AWIHL Site - Games are available to be streamed live for free. And if you're not in Australia and not a night owl, the replays are also available to watch.
EWHL Site - Despite what you see on the first page, the schedule and scores are up-to-date and so are the stats. Bonus for people visiting the site, the page “EWHL Bad Girls” shows the league leaders in penalty minutes.
Information on Women's Hockey from the Hockey Hall of Fame website. Did you know that there are only nine women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as of 2022? This page lists all of them and has some other fun facts and stats about the history of women's hockey
Women's Hockey RPF entries at Ao3 - Because sometimes after watching the US & Canada in action, you've just got to read... or write.
The Athletic's Women's Hockey Section - This is subscriber-only, but if you subscribe, be sure to check out the articles here.
How to watch
If you're in a city with a team, go to a live game. It's always a great experience.
If you're not, the PHF currently streams on ESPN+/Hulu. The PHWPA is currently shown on CBCsports.ca. The Women's World Championships streamed on NHL Network for US & Canada games and ESPN+ for all others. NCAA hockey is on ESPN+, but the championships may be on a combination of ESPNU, ESPN+, or ESPN2. AWIHL streams on Cluch.
And if you're not convinced yet... here are two more videos.
Highlights from Japan vs. Sweden in the 2022 Women's Worlds – wonderful game with a fantastic finish that never fails to make me smile
If you feel like you're ready to make the jump into the full immersive experience, here is a YouTube link to the 2018 Olympic Gold Medal Game between Canada and the United States which may go down as one of the greatest games of all time. There is an overtime and a shootout involved.
How can you help to grow the game and draw more attention to women's hockey? Talk about it, write about it, and read articles about it. These are the best athletes in the world, playing the best game in the world, so if you have a chance, get out there to see them and bring a friend or two along for the ride.
If you have any questions or want to know more, leave me a note in the comments.
Hockey is, in this writer's humble opinion, the best sport in the world, and the women's game is the best version that this sport has to offer. Here's a bit about women's hockey and why you should be watching it.
Hockey 101
Each team usually has six players on the ice at a given time- three forwards (left wing, right wing, center), two players on defense, and a goaltender. The object is to get a puck (a black disc of vulcanized rubber) past the goaltender and into a 4' x 6' net more times than your opponent. The ice surface is divided into three zones by two blue lines – an offensive zone, where the other team's goaltender resides, the defensive zone, where your team's goaltender resides, and the neutral zone, the space between the blue lines and the benches where neither team has an advantage. The teams will switch sides after a period of twenty minutes- there are three of these periods in a regulation hockey game. Fun note- the second period is often referred to as “the period of the long change” because the defensive zone is further from each teams bench.
Most of the time, play is considered 5-on-5, meaning there are five skaters on the ice for both teams. There are exceptions- when a penalty is called, a player is sent to the penalty box for a set period of time, the penalized team is called shorthanded (or on the penalty kill) and the non-penalized team has the “man advantage” (or on the power-play). The penalized player can come back on the ice when the penalty time has elapsed or in the case of a 2-minute minor penalty as soon as a goal is scored by the team on the power-play. Teams can be short as many as two penalized players, but a 5-on-3 advantage is fairly rare. Another exception can happen at the end of the game when a team losing by a small margin can elect to “pull the goaltender” and substitute an extra skater for her.
If you watch any women's hockey at all, particularly in international play, at some point during the broadcast the announcers will say that body contact is permitted but body checking is not. Body contact is just that incidental contact that happens during puck battles. Body checking is when a player drives her shoulder or forearm deliberately into another player to move them off the puck or into the boards. Body checking carries with it a two-minute minor penalty. For anyone who says there's no physicality in the women's game, they need to watch just ten minutes of a US-Canada match to see otherwise. The two teams do not like each other very much. (On the ice, only. Off the ice, there has been more than one marriage between players on the two rival factions.)
Depending on the league, if a game is tied at the end of 60 minutes, then an overtime may be played. Some games have five minutes of 3-on-3 overtime, some have a sudden death period (complete with an extra intermission beforehand). If the game is still tied at the end of overtime, it will go to a shootout. In a shootout, each team chooses three shooters to have a breakaway opportunity on the opposing goaltender. If the teams are still tied after each has taken three shots, then each team is given a shot attempt until one team emerges victorious.
Leagues
There are two North American entities for hockey. They are:
The Professional Hockey Federation (PHF) which was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League. The PHF currently has seven teams- four in the Northeast United States, one in Minnesota, and two in Canada. They are the Boston Pride, Buffalo Beauts, Connecticut Whale, Metropolitan (NY/NJ Metro area) Riveters, Montreal Force, Minnesota Whitecaps, and Toronto Six. The salary cap for the 2023-24 season is 1.5 million.
The Professional Women Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) was formed in 2019 by a group of players from both the US and Canadian National Women's Teams. It was formed so that these elite players could continue to train and play at the level of competition they were used to until a sustainable women's league could be formed. The Association has training centers in five areas – Boston, Calgary, Minnesota, Montreal, and Toronto. One hundred players are ranked in terms of skill, experience, and tryout performance and then divided between four non-regional teams that participate in exhibition tournaments throughout the U.S. and Canada.
There has been much discussion over the years regarding the need for one women's hockey league in North America. With the two sides as they are, they are never going to agree on how to do things and those people who want the National Hockey League to come in and take it over probably haven't looked at how the NHL has been run. It is not the well-oiled machine that people like to think it is.
**If you are reading this after June 2023, you'll know that the information in the previous 3 paragraphs has changed, check out this post where I talk about the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
Internationally, the Svenska damhockeyligan (SDHL) is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. There are 9 teams in that league. Naisten Liiga is the top Finnish women's ice hockey league. Ten teams compete in that league. The Australian Women's Ice Hockey League (AWIHL) consists of five teams and they play their games in the warmer months from November-March. The European Women's Hockey League (EWHL) contains ten teams in six countries – Austria, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Slovakia.
Events"
As interest in women's hockey continues to grow, many more countries around the globe participate in international tournaments. The biggest of these tournaments is the Winter Olympics. 2022 was the last time there was participation in the Winter Olympics with Canada taking the gold medal, the U.S. taking silver, and Finland winning bronze. Seven other teams participated- host country China, Switzerland, Sweden, ROC (Russia), Japan, the Czech Republic, and Denmark.
Teams for the Olympics are chosen based on both past Olympic performance and performance in the annual Women's World Championship. Canada and the United States typically dominate these tournaments. Finland is the third most successful team. Ten teams play in the tournament. It is a round robin tournament. The top four tournament teams from one year will go on to Group A in the next year's game. There is a knockout round between teams who have lost in the quarterfinals to see who will be the last team to go into next year's Group A and a 3-game relegation tournament between the bottom two teams from Group B. This year's tournament will run from April 5 to April 16 in Brampton, Ontario with the first US-Canada matchup on April 10. There is also an under-18 version of the World Championship that is held at a separate time and location.
The National Collegiate Women's Ice Hockey Championship is the college competition that happens annually in the U.S. as a single elimination tournament between the top eleven teams. The semifinals are known as the Women's Frozen Four. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota-Duluth, Clarkson, and Ohio State have all won the tournament.
Players you need to know
Marie-Philip Poulin – Captain of the Canadian National Team, also known as Captain Clutch, forward. Best player in hockey (all of hockey, I didn't stutter). I once saw her score an overtime goal live in an exhibition against the USWNT. She's the real deal. Here's a video of her highlights
Hilary Knight – forward for the US Women's National Team – record holder for points in the Women's Worlds Championships. Here's a tribute that the IIHF made after she broke the record.
Sarah Nurse – forward for the Canadian Women's National Team – first Black woman to win gold in Olympic ice hockey. To see how incredible she was in the 2022 Olympics, check out this video
Jenni Hiirikoski – Captain of the Finnish National Team, one of the best defensemen in the world. Here's a feature on her.
Nela Lopusanova – 14 year old phenom from Slovakia. The forward turned heads with her performance at the U18 Worlds this year. Here are highlights of the nine goals she scored.
Nana Fujimoto – goaltender for the Japan Women's National Team, first Japanese player to play in the NWHL. Here is a fun video of her gearing up and warming up.
Resources
Wikipedia Women's Ice Hockey entry
The Ice Garden - fantastic resource to keep you current with the wonderful world of WoHo. Sadly, it may no longer be in existence at this site as of February 28 2023.
PHF Site
PWHPA Site
SDHL Site - it's in Swedish, but the highlights are accessible and seeing women happy after scoring goals translates to any language.
AWIHL Site - Games are available to be streamed live for free. And if you're not in Australia and not a night owl, the replays are also available to watch.
EWHL Site - Despite what you see on the first page, the schedule and scores are up-to-date and so are the stats. Bonus for people visiting the site, the page “EWHL Bad Girls” shows the league leaders in penalty minutes.
Information on Women's Hockey from the Hockey Hall of Fame website. Did you know that there are only nine women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as of 2022? This page lists all of them and has some other fun facts and stats about the history of women's hockey
Women's Hockey RPF entries at Ao3 - Because sometimes after watching the US & Canada in action, you've just got to read... or write.
The Athletic's Women's Hockey Section - This is subscriber-only, but if you subscribe, be sure to check out the articles here.
How to watch
If you're in a city with a team, go to a live game. It's always a great experience.
If you're not, the PHF currently streams on ESPN+/Hulu. The PHWPA is currently shown on CBCsports.ca. The Women's World Championships streamed on NHL Network for US & Canada games and ESPN+ for all others. NCAA hockey is on ESPN+, but the championships may be on a combination of ESPNU, ESPN+, or ESPN2. AWIHL streams on Cluch.
And if you're not convinced yet... here are two more videos.
Highlights from Japan vs. Sweden in the 2022 Women's Worlds – wonderful game with a fantastic finish that never fails to make me smile
If you feel like you're ready to make the jump into the full immersive experience, here is a YouTube link to the 2018 Olympic Gold Medal Game between Canada and the United States which may go down as one of the greatest games of all time. There is an overtime and a shootout involved.
How can you help to grow the game and draw more attention to women's hockey? Talk about it, write about it, and read articles about it. These are the best athletes in the world, playing the best game in the world, so if you have a chance, get out there to see them and bring a friend or two along for the ride.
If you have any questions or want to know more, leave me a note in the comments.
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Date: 2023-02-03 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-03 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-03 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-03 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-03 10:04 am (UTC)Woo! This is a really great primer and I am so delighted to read it!
I fell in love with women's hockey in late 2020, and I started out watching the SDHL (100 euros gets you streaming/archive of every game in the regular season), but will watch PHF when I timezones allow, and went to Women's Worlds last year in Denmark. Hiirikoski is one of my heroes and I have a Lopusanova shirt on its way from her boys team.
I'm now a beginner amateur player in a couple of women's teams in the UK, and hockey is not only the best game to watch, it is the very best game to play, and it is so much fun.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-03 02:18 pm (UTC)And it's so great that you're out there playing as well. It's something I'd love to do but I'd need to learn to stay upright on skates first!
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Date: 2023-02-03 04:37 pm (UTC)Thanks for the superb writeup! This post made me seriously consider getting an ESPN+ subscription lol
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Date: 2023-02-03 06:06 pm (UTC)Thanks for taking a look at this!
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Date: 2023-02-05 07:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-05 01:17 pm (UTC)