Pretty good, that’s how good. The gold-medal game, like all of the games I can remember between the only two consistently-elite women’s teams — Canada and the USA — was certainly a thrill from start to finish.
But when we ask, “how good is it?” we usually mean, “how does it compare to men’s hockey?” This is a hard question to answer; but not impossible.
It is always difficult to compare the quality of play of teams that do not get to play each other, or even to play any teams in common. We couldn’t judge how good Soviet men’s hockey was until we watched them battle the best in the NHL to a virtual draw in the famous 8-game “Summit” series in 1972.
It is always something of a mug’s game to compare great teams from two different eras. The strategic elements of the sport evolve, and so do the skills and conditioning levels of players. But this is essentially what we have to do, in part, to compare women’s hockey to men’s.
I submit that by-and-large, the quality of play of the two teams in the gold-medal game on Thursday night was better than what one would find in a typical NHL game in, say, the 1960s. Or to put it another way, if there was a way to teletransport the Canadian women’s team back to, say, 1960, or perhaps even 1970, then I think it would not be a crazy to bet on them to beat an NHL team (let’s assume the game is played with the women’s rules prohibiting punishing body checks… and fighting). Moreover, if someone wanted to put in the effort, I think we could actually bring hard evidence to bear on this question. Here is what we might find:
- on average the women now have better shots, and on average they have much better slap shots, than men did 40 or 50 years ago. As late as the early 70s most men did not have an effective slap shot, and those who did tended to need a wind up that makes Tim Tebow’s throwing motion look like a model of efficiency.
- I suspect every one of the women is in much better shape than anyone on a typical NHL team in the 1960s, when they did virtually no conditioning off season or off the ice (and many players actually smoked a pack a day or more). They would be measurably better in many agility drills, and I suspect many could bench-press more than the weaker of the men back in the day.
- I suspect the average woman on the top teams is both a better skater, and a faster skater, than the average NHL player 40 years ago. Speed could be easily measured by analyzing game films…
- The best women goalies today may well be better than any male goalie who played before 1970. Goaltending has become a science, where it used to be a mixture of reflex, courage, and stupidity (especially in the era, which lasted into the 1970s, when wearing a mask was considered unmanly). The best women today can and do play goalie in men’s leagues at the junior, college, and minor-league levels. Manon Rhéaume played for the farm team of the Tampa Bay Lightening and started in one pre-season game for the NHL team.
- And yet, despite the high quality of goaltending (which was very much on display in the gold-medal game), the skaters are able to score. So they must be pretty good too. Certainly capable of scoring bountifully on goalies of their father’s or grandfather’s generation.
- The strategic aspect of hockey is vastly superior these days, and the women have largely mastered these formations and plays. They would dazzle a 1960s men’s team that had never imagined such possibilities.
(My “evidence” for some of these claims comes from watching the DVDs of the aforementioned 8-game Canada-USSR series from 1972. One cannot but be struck by how slow the players skated, how weak most of their shots were, and how much they relied on unsophisticated and now thoroughly beatable strategies. An unobstructed backhand from 20 feet out was considered a viable scoring option!)
Here are a few other things we know. In addition to the goalies playing on equal terms with men in leagues that feed the NHL and other elite leagues, at least one forward, Hayley Wickenheiser, has played successfully in 2nd- and 3rd-division minor-league teams in Europe.
We also know that the US women’s team has played a number of games against elite men’s (boys’?) high school teams, winning some and losing some. That’s probably as good an indication as any of where women’s hockey ranks overall in skill level. Of course, most of the above comparisons with NHL hockey in the 1960s should hold for elite male teenage players as well.
So it is not a total mug’s game to compare the quality of women’s and men’s hockey. Nor is it outrageous to think there should be substantial overlap in quality levels over time. After all, in sports measured by distance and time, this is uncontroversial. We know that Paula Radcliffe’s women’s marathon record of 2:15.25, set in 2003, was not surpassed by men until 1958. Flo-Jo’s 100m sprint record or 10.49, set in 1988, would have been the men’s record as late as 1921.
And we are now fully aware that there is very little difference between the on-ice celebrations of boys and girls when they win the big one.
Wayne Norman
This Sporting Life 
Sue
February 21, 2013
Why is it that the top,bowlers,chess players,curlers,dart players,pool players are men?The top women in these sports (games) cannot compete against the top men, and there is no physical strength or endurance issues?
BC
June 10, 2015
Women’s hockey has come a long way. 1960’s and 1970’s skills of men were haphazard and non-scientific at best. However, today’s women would have still been beaten fairly easily by men for two main reasons (assuming we had a time machine to transport them back and assuming they were playing under the same rules that existed at the time especially allowing body checking):
1. The men would wear them down physically;
2. The men would quickly learn from their play and adapt as Canada did against the USSR, even in a short series like the Summit Series
The best comparison is to compare apples with apples. Where women’s and men’s hockey is today or yesteryear. In the 1960′ and 1970’s women’s hockey was almost non-existent. The best team that you would get together would probably only have a couple of women that could shoot or carry the puck very well. My home town had a very good women’s team in the mid 1970’s with several girls who could carry the puck and skate as well as boys. However, the majority of the team struggled to shoot and carry the puck well.
Today, the best women’s teams have an entire team that can skate, shoot and puck handle at a fairly high level. However, the best teams are only about the level of an elite midget boy’s team – and this includes no checking. With checking, the midgets would still be better. No existing women team or women’s all star team could even defeat a mediocre elite Junior A team let alone the best Junior A team – even with no checking. Women’s hockey will continue to advance faster than the development of men’s hockey for a little longer at least. However, soon the improvements will be incremental like men’s hockey has become. I suspect that women’ s hockey will attain a level approximately equal to their mental discipline (better pound for pound than boys), physical size and abilities to men (boys). Given the difference in physiology and make-up, the elite women’s teams may attain a level comparable to today’s second tier Junior A (assuming no drastic alterations like genetic or size alterations to make women comparable is size, strength, mental-physical acuity, and agility with men) – but excluding checking. Without massive technological intervention in the physical make-up of women, I don’t expect women to ever attain the level to play competitively against today’s elite junior A teams that allows for checking.
One other comment, Manon Rhéaume is one of the greatest female goalies ever. Quebec seems to have a penchant for producing great goalies. However, her short stint in the NHL was a publicity stunt. No serious person can believe she was even marginally capable of being a backup goalie under normal NHL conditions. The speed, complexity and intensity of the game for Junior A players is far faster and complex than anything she regularly had to deal with as a woman and the majority of the goalies at that level of men’s play never make it into the NHL and 99% aren’t starters until they have gained significant experience. It is strictly a numbers game. Only one in a million males make it to the NHL. If one in a thousand women might make it into an elite level boy’s and men’s leagues (very doubtful as even women are overcome at the midget level if we include body checking but lets just say its theoretically possible), then one would expect that women might have one in a billion chance of making it into the NHL (and as I said before, this is being very charitable). This is not a knock on women as even very gifted males never make it into the NHL – because they lack the combination of basic skills, discipline, quickness, size, psychology, ferocious competitiveness etc. However, with the significant differences in physiology, different psychology, agility, mental-physical acuity and size, for these reasons we will never see women in the NHL in the future (except possibly for political reasons). However, as my male science teacher pointed out many years ago (from research on the differences between men and women), pound for pound – women punch way above their size and would be expected to go much further in traditionally male dominated sports like hockey than their similarly sized and physically endowed male counterparts. It might be possible that an exceptional woman might be big enough, fast enough, strong enough and quick enough to play in Junior A (even someone as good as Hayley Wickenheiser is still not good enough to do that).
BC
June 10, 2015
One other thing. One must be careful about drawing conclusions about the past between women and men’s performance. Whereas women’s performances in sport have greatly improved in recent years and caught up to men’s, it is unwise to assume this will continue at the same pace as the past. Many of these improvements have come as a result of better diets, training methods, knowledge of physiology and other improvements related to science and technology (including cheating – using performance enhancing drugs and other substances). Most of these gains will not significantly continue unless actual genetic manipulation of the unborn takes place.
Also, some performances are enhanced by cheating. In the case of Florence Joyner, her 10.49 is a result of steroid use – although she was not caught many people concur on this and she died in her 30’s of symptoms characteristic of a steroid user. Even with steroids, Joyner’s performance was only at the level of a 1921 male sprinter – about level of the Canadian Percy Williams. No women since 1988 has been able to better this record and may not be able to without steroid use. The rapid acceleration, power and quickness characteristic of male athletes (characteristic of the differences in basic makeup between men and women) will doubtful go much below this result. I am very doubtful that any women, without the aid of scientific and technological manipulation, will ever break the 10 second 100m barrier. It is questionable whether most men who have done so have done it without cheating.
For sports requiring endurance, such as marathon running, I suspect women will continue to improve their records to be close to men. They may even be able to better most men. Women routinely as well or better than men at activities such as long distance swimming. Like most things, these accomplishments don’t prove men and women are equal (foolish idea as nothing in nature is equal but within a distribution of skill, ability, knowledge, strength, power, agility, etc.). Some distributions allow men and women to compete together. Some greatly favor one or the other – which says nothing about the inherent value or worth of men or women.