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COMPLAINTS ABOUT HOCKEY SHOULD PRECLUDE WOMEN'S GAME
  
Monday, April 7, 1997
By Gare Joyce

ONCE regarded as heresy, complaints about the game of hockey have been
taken up by an ever-expanding chorus.

Different verses for the game's perceived curses. The players are too
big. The rink has become too small. The game is less skilled than it
used to be. Money means more than winning.

By now you have nodded in agreement or drawn a mustache on the picture
of your correspondent. You have probably made the assumption, a big
one, that the game in question is the National Hockey League, circa
1997. You may have already concluded that some of these criticisms
might also be lodged against the minor pro ranks, the major-junior
leagues, the collegiate game and so on right down to atom.

References to the game of hockey conjure up enduring images,
long-standing frames of reference. These days, when many despair about
the state of the game, criticisms are made sweepingly, broadly. Too
broadly.

When we speak of hockey, it is by assumption the NHL and other lesser
leagues. And it is a game played by men and mostly boys. That's too
bad, for as the world women's hockey championship proved last week in
Kitchener, Ont., there is much to recommend about the game that's
played on the other side of gender assumption.

Anyone taking in play at these championships would have a hard time
claiming that the players are too big, the rink too small, the play
too ham-handed or money too prominent. It wasn't a game in need of
reform. It was just hockey to enjoy. Everything seemed just right.

On Saturday afternoon in the semi-final, Canada defeated Finland 2-1
in a game that was as fine as any you'll see this season and most
other seasons. It was as good as any contest you'd watch back in those
supposed glory days, since nostalgically enhanced.

Canada came out flat in the first period and Finland took a
well-deserved 1-0 lead seven minutes in on a slapshot by blueliner
Kirsten Haenninen. Hayley Wickenheiser, the 18-year-old phenom from
Calgary, knotted the game in the second.

Thereafter, it seemed like the tense game was destined for an even
more tense overtime period. The suspense was heightened by a dozen
good scoring chances for both teams. The shots on goal, 36 by Canada,
20 by Finland, looked more one-sided than the game action.

With half a minute left in regulation time, Vicky Sunohara sneaked
behind the Finnish defence, took a pass from defencewoman Geraldine
Heaney and deked goaltender Tuula Puputti. The netminder slid across
the crease and extended her right leg, but neither toe nor pad could
keep the puck from finding the back of the net. Canada, 2-1, with 24
seconds left. Storybook stuff.

That was the game, but what of the state of the game? For an expert
opinion, we asked Heaney, Canada's player of the game in the
semi-final, a 29-year-old veteran of Canada's world-championship
teams.

"The level of skill on this team and in this tournament is so much
higher now than at the first world tournament," Heaney said before
last night's final against the United States. "Back then there was
probably two lines that we wanted on the ice at important times during
the game. Now this team and teams like the Finns and the Americans are
a lot deeper. There are just a lot more skilled players out there."

Because players at this level can skate and handle the puck and
because they are not Kjell Samuelsson-sized, you can watch a
back-and-forth game and count the dump-and-chases on the fingers of
one hand. When the women in this tournament gained the blueline, they
looked to keep possession and make plays.

On the last-minute winning goal, Heaney used her speed to take the
puck down the right wing. Even in such a close and crucial contest,
even though she and defence partner Cassie Campbell had been on the
ice for eight of the previous 10 minutes, Heaney never contemplated
the dump-and-chase.

Dump-and-chase is the NHL game. That is also the major-junior game.
That is not, however, the game for the international women's elite.
Theirs is a more positive approach--making something happen rather
than waiting for an opponent's error, initiating rather than
counterpunching.

The tournament in Kitchener has been a great showcase for the women's
game, but Heaney expressed reservations about the size of the rink. "I
don't know if it would be a better game for the spectators on the
Olympic rink," she said. "I know we'd like to play our games on the
bigger ice surface because we're a skating team. We can play in the
North American rink, but it's to our advantage to play with more ice
to go wide."

There are a few criticisms lodged specifically against international
women's hockey. There are only three teams--Canada, the United States
and Finland--that have a legitimate shot at the medals. The game has
been fast-tracked to medal status for the Winter Olympics next year in
Nagano, Japan. Corporations want the game accorded that
gold-silver-and bronze-plated legitimacy so that hockey hardware can
be more easily marketed to coming generations of women players,
effectively doubling the potential market.

These complaints all go to the administration of the sport and not the
play of the game. If you don't think women's hockey is worth watching,
if you can't enjoy watching a game like Saturday's semi-final between
the defending champions and a game Finnish squad, you can grouse about
hockey to your heart's content in utter ignorance.
Gare Joyce can be reached via E-mail:
gjoyce@GlobeAndMail.ca

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