Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 20, 2010
Should women’s hockey be in Games?
There is a growing faction that believes it may be time to put the sport of women’s ice hockey on ice. At least at the Olympic level.
Perhaps more than ever before, women’s hockey is proving to be strictly a two-team affair and there are suggestions that it’s high time to take drastic action to balance the field or dump the discipline from the Winter Olympics program.
In fact, the words “embarrassing” and “ridiculous” and frequently being bandied about in describing the balance in play at the UBC Thunderbird Arena.
The Canadian team is off to a 3-0 start, which is not surprising, but have outscored the opposition 41-2. One victory was 18-0 over Slovakia, supposedly an ice hockey nation, and against Sweden, the fourth-ranked nation in the world, Canada won 13-1. In the Slovakia game, the Canadian women outshot their opponents, 67-9.
There’s also growing concern that the Canadians are celebrating too much after breaking into double digits on the scoreboard against weaker teams.
The Americans are also breezing through the event and it’s almost certain, barring a red-hot goaltender, the two teams will meet for the gold once again.
Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, acknowledged that the women’s hockey tournament is one-sided but believes there is still a chance to improve it. (Toronto Sun)