Why isn't checking allowed in women's hockey?

[Albatros]

Like I said, if someone finds violence entertaining then that's their thing. I certainly don't need it. And knowing what permanent damage it causes it's even a bit repulsive.

 

[sr edler]

I say men and women should be competing for the same spots on the team and have all teams be mixed-gender.

There wouldn't be any mixed-gender teams because no woman would make the team under this scenario. So what you're really saying here is that you don't want any women playing hockey in the Olympics.

 

[kabidjan18]

Like I said, if someone finds violence entertaining then that's their thing. I certainly don't need it. And knowing what permanent damage it causes it's even a bit repulsive.

Someone argued that checking is integral to the game. You said it wasn't. I challenged the logic behind your assertion that it wasn't. You promptly dropped that argument and switched the topic to your opinions on how checking affects player safety. You can't drop, thereby conceding, an argument and then try to tie it in at the end by reasserting your initial opinion, unless you accept that it is merely your own opinion and that it has been refuted. I'm not saying it's wrong to have unqualified opinions, they are just that.

 

[Albatros]

You're making up things as you write, that's rather dishonest. I never said or quoted anything about any sort of integrity (except your personal now).

 

[Mooy04]

They should poll the current female Olympic players to see what their opinion on allowing checking would be. I think it would be interesting to see how many would like it in the game.

 

[kabidjan18]

You're making up things as you write, that's rather dishonest. I never said or quoted anything about any sort of integrity (except your personal now).

Your inability to comprehend the meaning of terms isn't dishonesty on my part. Integrity can mean honesty, but here it's quite obviously being used to refer to being sound in construction. The initial assertion was that without checking the sport would lose a key element to the structure of the sport that would make it significantly less entertaining. Ever since (or perhaps even including) your first reply to his post, you haven't bothered to follow up on why checking isn't integral to the structure that makes hockey entertaining generally, other than to speak generally about player safety (a separate topic), tell your own experience, and now try to argue semantics. If you only mean to say in your initial claim that your initial claim is only true for you then that is fine. If you mean to be speaking generally, however, you'd need to actually address why the current system would be more entertaining with the proposed amendment.

 

[Sheppy]

Don't worry, we're a few years away from no physical contact in mens leagues, too.

 

[Albatros]

Your inability to comprehend the meaning of terms isn't dishonesty on my part. Integrity can mean honesty, but here it's quite obviously being used to refer to being sound in construction.

In your opinion women's hockey or junior hockey aren't "sound in construction"?

You're free to find violence entertaining, and violent hockey will inevitably attract people that find it entertaining while pushing away those that do not, but that has nothing to do with the "soundness" of hockey's "construction".

 

[kabidjan18]

In your opinion women's hockey or junior hockey aren't "sound in construction"?

You're free to find violence entertaining, and violent hockey will inevitably attract people that find it entertaining while pushing away those that do not, but that has nothing to do with the "soundness" of hockey's "construction".

My goodness you are good at omitting words.

Here's the initial post from Laineux

The thing that makes hockey so entertaining is the players performing incredible feats under the constant threat of getting hit. Remove that, and players doing skillsy flashy stuff isn't suddenly so entertaining anymore. See all-star games.

Here are my following quotes

This is a comparison that borderlines absurdity. Do you really watch international games? If you do, you'd notice that they break the "no-checking" rule every 1.9 seconds. Are they a little less physical than the NHL? Yes, the rules are slightly tighter and the rink is slightly wider. But to use that are your example of a "no-checking" game is completely dishonest. A game where there legitimately is no checking is basketball. If you watch basketball, it's a lot of getting the ball to a big, strong and mobile athlete and then iso the rest of the way. Drive and then swing around the point. That gets pretty boring, even for NBA fans. Or women's hockey. But if people truly valued no-contact hockey, there wouldn't be two women's leagues who both struggle to stay competitive financially.

As nice as this statement is as a platitude, it (and the previous statement) doesn't really support or explain the initial assertion that physicality isn't an integral part of the integrity of the sport from an entertainment perspective. I will assume that discussion has concluded.

Your inability to comprehend the meaning of terms isn't dishonesty on my part. Integrity can mean honesty, but here it's quite obviously being used to refer to being sound in construction. The initial assertion was that without checking the sport would lose a key element to the structure of the sport that would make it significantly less entertaining. Ever since (or perhaps even including) your first reply to his post, you haven't bothered to follow up on why checking isn't integral to the structure that makes hockey entertaining generally, other than to speak generally about player safety (a separate topic), tell your own experience, and now try to argue semantics. If you only mean to say in your initial claim that your initial claim is only true for you then that is fine. If you mean to be speaking generally, however, you'd need to actually address why the current system would be more entertaining with the proposed amendment.

Note how there's a theme word that's used or referred to in all these posts. Women's hockey and little children's hockey (because junior hockey does have checking) are indeed not sound in their construction from an entertainment perspective. How do we know this? How many people watch children's hockey? How many people watch women's hockey? Are there other factors? Yes, but there's no empirical evidence to suggest that there is equal entertainment value between a system that has checking and a system that doesn't. A sport may be built to be enjoyable to play, but completely unsound if the goal is to attract fans.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Entertaining? Sure. It's also a fundamental part of the game.

I would like to see this explained in mored, because there are a ton of leagues in the world that do not have checking in them and the game is still called hockey. It is a major part of competitive leagues and has been so since I would assume its inception, and that alone is enough to keep it in the game (unless the wave of understanding brain injuries demonstrates it is too dangerous to keep, which I doubt will ever happen). But as a "fundamental" part of it, I do not necessarily buy that.

Note how there's a theme word that's used or referred to in all these posts. Women's hockey and little children's hockey (because junior hockey does have checking) are indeed not sound in their construction from an entertainment perspective. How do we know this? How many people watch children's hockey? How many people watch women's hockey? Are there other factors? Yes, but there's no empirical evidence to suggest that there is equal entertainment value between a system that has checking and a system that doesn't. A sport may be built to be enjoyable to play, but completely unsound if the goal is to attract fans.

You are making a weird logical leap, here.

You know why people don't go to watch children's hockey? Because they are children. Even if you put in checking in those games the size of the audience wouldn't change.
You know why people don't go to watch women's hockey? Because there is a number of men's leagues that are more established with better talent and a deeper talent pool in general.

There is really no evidence either way to determine what is more "entertaining" between a checking and non-checking league because we don't have equal footing between the two to make a reasonable comparison.

 

[kabidjan18]

You are making a weird logical leap, here.

You know why people don't go to watch children's hockey? Because they are children. Even if you put in checking in those games the size of the audience wouldn't change.
You know why people don't go to watch women's hockey? Because there is a number of men's leagues that are more established with better talent and a deeper talent pool in general.

There is really no evidence either way to determine what is more "entertaining" between a checking and non-checking league because we don't have equal footing between the two to make a reasonable comparison.

I worded it to put the burden of proof on him.

But thank you, I did want to address this as well. I have been waiting for him to make a similar claim but he prefers semantic discussion.

I think it's hardly logical to claim that there is no rationale or precedent set by a continuous status quo. There are a couple dozen senior men's hockey leagues and tournament circuits in the world, many of which have tested new innovations with the game to improve entertainment value of the past few decades. None have tried the innovation of removing checking. That doesn't mean it's impossible that there is value in that, however, the fact that none have attempted it would indicate at least to some strength that it isn't as wonderful an idea as it might seem. One could say "there's a first for everything", but the reality is that no car companies attempt to use squares instead of wheels because wheels work, and one can at least rationalize in the a priori why squares would be less efficient. The status quo is effective, and one can rationalize why a different mode might be less effective. Therefore, I think there is reasonable to suggest that a system with checking is the only system with proven entertainment value until proven otherwise.

 

[Albatros]

My goodness you are good at omitting words.

Omitting? First you started talking about "integrity" and then swapped it to "sound construction", now it's "entertainment" (which at least is finally related to what we are talking about, but those are no synonyms).

But good, now we agree that checking has nothing to do with "integrity" or "soundness of construction", and is just about entertaining a specific audience that finds violence entertaining. That is by no means universal.

 

[kabidjan18]

Omitting? First you started talking about "integrity" and then swapped it to "sound construction", now it's "entertainment" (which at least is finally related to what we are talking about, but those are no synonyms).

But good, now we agree that checking has nothing to do with "integrity" or "soundness of construction", and is just about entertaining a specific audience that finds violence entertaining. That is by no means universal.

It hasn't changed. Your inability to comprehend really any english is not poor use of the english language on my part. They're not synonyms, they're words and descriptors that make up a phrase, which is not at all a difficult thing to understand. Consider the words "hockey club". Is me saying "hockey" and "club" are not synonyms, therefore you must be wrong to use the term "hockey club", a valid argument? No, it's an illiterate man's failed attempt at semantical debate. "Soundness of construction" is one of the definitions of "integrity", and the only reason I referenced it was because I figured someone with as poor english as yours would google "integrity" to see what definitions were standard. The current system of entertainment hockey as a construct (do I need to define this as well?) depends on having a physical element to maintain its entertainment value. Without that it loses its integrity, ergo becomes unsound in its construction. You try to pretend I've been switching my arguments throughout the discussion because that's the argument I just used, not because any correlation actually exists between me having to repeat myself and yourself jumping topics. Anyone who has decent comprehension can understand from the very beginning what I'm saying, the fact that I have to define terms or rephrase my arguments to accommodate your linguistic level is not an indication of poor linguistic skills on my part. Think of how poor your entire argument is. Your argument is (insert theory on physicality) because "you used a word I haven't seen before." That's not a coherent argument. At the very least ArGarBar makes a solid argument about hockey. You're tempting a debate on philosophy of language when it's obvious to everyone that I'm referring to the system Laineux described which is also the system I've been describing. To call that petty is an understatement. Oh, did you not use the word "petty" before? Well I'm using it now.

We agree on nothing because you've proved nothing. You've brought up no meaningful points. At best you've intentionally misinterpreted both my argument and Laineux's argument in order to make a strawman that is incredibly blatant.

 

[sandysan]

I would like to see this explained in mored, because there are a ton of leagues in the world that do not have checking in them and the game is still called hockey. It is a major part of competitive leagues and has been so since I would assume its inception, and that alone is enough to keep it in the game (unless the wave of understanding brain injuries demonstrates it is too dangerous to keep, which I doubt will ever happen). But as a "fundamental" part of it, I do not necessarily buy that..

so the fact that competitive hockey has had checking, uninterrupted, since its inception isn't enough evidence ? That leagues that list specific transgressions as infractions doesnt include checking ? Still not enough?

Based on your defintion, anything with a commonly sought object ( be it puck or ball) by teams with L shaoed sticks, constitutes " hockey". this includes road hockey, field hockey, mini sticks, super chexx. As to brain injuries, adults get to make their own decisions and in the list of things that pose significant dangers to its participants, hockey is WAY down the list.

If you are REALLY REALLY interested in making it as safe as possible, the answer is easy. hang up the skates and make it illegal like dog or cock fights. I'm sorry that the potenetial that someone MIGHT get hurt causes you such concern. Guess what ? The players know and accept the risks.

The game of hockey is inherentaly physical AND violent. you are confining people moving at speed with club in their hands and knives on their feet. Trying to parse out the parts you like from the parts you don't while thinking that you are not fundamentally changing the game is a fools errand.

I'll leave you to it.

 

[Jussi]

The average height of Team Canada's 2018 Olympic women's hockey team is 5'9'', and their average weight is 152 lbs.

In 2003-04, Hayley Wickenheiser played 10 games in the Mestis, the second-tier Finnish professional league. She recorded 0 points in 10 games.

In the Olympics, she has 18 goals, 51 points in 26 games against her peers.

To be fair, the coach (IIRC, the late Matti Hagman) refused to give her much playing time in Mestis. She had 5 points in 9 promotion games the previous season.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

I worded it to put the burden of proof on him.

But thank you, I did want to address this as well. I have been waiting for him to make a similar claim but he prefers semantic discussion.

I think it's hardly logical to claim that there is no rationale or precedent set by a continuous status quo. There are a couple dozen senior men's hockey leagues and tournament circuits in the world, many of which have tested new innovations with the game to improve entertainment value of the past few decades. None have tried the innovation of removing checking. That doesn't mean it's impossible that there is value in that, however, the fact that none have attempted it would indicate at least to some strength that it isn't as wonderful an idea as it might seem. One could say "there's a first for everything", but the reality is that no car companies attempt to use squares instead of wheels because wheels work, and one can at least rationalize in the a priori why squares would be less efficient. The status quo is effective, and one can rationalize why a different mode might be less effective. Therefore, I think there is reasonable to suggest that a system with checking is the only system with proven entertainment value until proven otherwise.

Removing checking would be arguably the most impactful change in competitive hockey to where you would need a ridiculous burden of proof to demonstrate that it is a necessary change. That doesn't mean you can assert that a game with checking is inherently more entertaining than one without, though. Neither side really can meet their burden of proof because of the reasons I listed. Though I do believe that without a proper challenge it is more likely than not that checking is more entertaining. Not necessarily by a lot, though.

I think I mainly agree with you on the issue, but I do not think comparing men's professional or semi-professional leagues with women's professional or semi-professional leagues and pre-Pewee leagues is a reasonable enough comparison to where you can assert checking is the major difference in entertainment value.

so the fact that competitive hockey has had checking, uninterrupted, since its inception isn't enough evidence ? That leagues that list specific transgressions as infractions doesnt include checking ? Still not enough?

Based on your defintion, anything with a commonly sought object ( be it puck or ball) by teams with L shaoed sticks, constitutes " hockey". this includes road hockey, field hockey, mini sticks, super chexx. As to brain injuries, adults get to make their own decisions and in the list of things that pose significant dangers to its participants, hockey is WAY down the list.

If you are REALLY REALLY interested in making it as safe as possible, the answer is easy. hang up the skates and make it illegal like dog or cock fights. I'm sorry that the potenetial that someone MIGHT get hurt causes you such concern. Guess what ? The players know and accept the risks.

I did not assert that checking needed to be banned or that I was concerned in any way. I only indicated for that to ever happen science would need to make a major discovery which would indicate that the risks of long-term harm are too great for the players, which I find to be virtually impossible in my lifetime.

The game of hockey is inherentaly physical AND violent. you are confining people moving at speed with club in their hands and knives on their feet. Trying to parse out the parts you like from the parts you don't while thinking that you are not fundamentally changing the game is a fools errand.

I'll leave you to it.

Considering your antagonistic tone I would rather not get too involved in this discussion with you, but I will clarify I never implied I didn't enjoy hitting (hitting was my favorite part of the game growing up and I didn't hesitate to do so as long as I was legally allowed) and I was only discussing the concept of hitting being a fundamental part of the game.

 

[HockeyThoughts]

Reason #19289239 why women's hockey sucks.

 

[kabidjan18]

I think I mainly agree with you on the issue, but I do not think comparing men's professional or semi-professional leagues with women's professional or semi-professional leagues and pre-Pewee leagues is a reasonable enough comparison to where you can assert checking is the major difference in entertainment value.

I brought this up because it had been a feature of my discussion with the other commenter, where he had asserted the two examples for a discussion, and I asserted that those were not counterexamples of entertaining entitities.

Removing checking would be arguably the most impactful change in competitive hockey to where you would need a ridiculous burden of proof to demonstrate that it is a necessary change. That doesn't mean you can assert that a game with checking is inherently more entertaining than one without, though. Neither side really can meet their burden of proof because of the reasons I listed. Though I do believe that without a proper challenge it is more likely than not that checking is more entertaining. Not necessarily by a lot, though.

In principle I agree with your framework but I disagree with the idea that we need empirical evidence for something like this. Of course this brings in the idea, does a priori knowledge exist or only empirical knowledge? I believe a priori knowledge (perhaps we'll say, theoretical knowledge) is possible. Here there are dozens of competing frameworks (leagues) who all have incentive for augmenting the game in a way that would improve entertainment value or maintain entertainment value while reducing safety concerns. Yet, none have done so. For decades. Could sulfur be used instead of lithium in batteries? No company, to my knowledge, has debuted that product. Is it possible? Perhaps, we can also think of theoretical reasons why it might not be a better idea. Same thing with car companies using squares instead of wheels. No one would suggest that we don't have knowledge of which option would be better simply because companies only produce cars with wheels or batteries with other compounds (forgive the rudimentary nature of my scientific knowledge, the specific example is only an illustration). In this instance there is no league, despite incentive to develop modes that would increase entertainment value, which have adopted this practice. As Laineux and I have been elaborating, there is also reason to believe in theory it would be relatively less entertaining. So in this situation I would argue that we can have some concept even without experimentation. That doesn't mean it's necessarily true, even a posteriori knowledge can be debated. But it's not unreasonable to suggest that if something has never seemed profitable to any relevant parties and can be reasoned to be a sub-optimal product we may assume it is until proven otherwise.

 

[Paxon]

No, that's not it. All-star games aren't so entertaining because there's nothing at stake and no one cares about the result. Someone might find pleasure in violence, but I've had no problem enjoying all the international games with next to no physical play. Or indeed women's hockey.

International games have next to no physical play? Seems like youre talking about men's hockey, but that would be very off the mark.

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Like I said, if someone finds violence entertaining then that's their thing. I certainly don't need it. And knowing what permanent damage it causes it's even a bit repulsive.

When there's no risk involved in something that something becomes completely dull.

 

[EdJovanovski]

There is women's MMA, Football, military, police, etc. There are women who do far more physical & dangerous things than playing contact ice hockey, so I think women's hockey should be allowed checking.

The idea of professional contact hockey with both genders together is ridiculous though, first men are on average far bigger, faster, and stronger; if it's based on merit no women would make the team. Even aside from biological factors, men are socialized not to be physical with women, the second a man lays a clean check on one you'd have a white knight trying to fight them.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

there's value in having no check leagues at certain ages for both boys and girls. most house and beer leagues ( the young and the old) are no check or gentlemen's agreement.

but what is the argument for having the very best players in the world not be able to check ? Do we insist on no lifters for women's hockey as well ?

If they dont want it, then that's on them. but there is a serious concern that women's hockey might disappear as an olympic sport
altogether because of the lack of global parity. so now in addition to telling young women that there is no viable professional leage for them, we also tell them there no longer any venue for you to represent your country. You do that and women's hockey dies. I think that introducing checking could very well decrease this disparity short term and actually give these other nations the time to develop the other skills. I think the writing is on the wall for the status quo and its not looking good.

True.

More violence and seeing women hockey players seriously hurt will give the sport more airtime. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Most women who play hockey at a high level have other jobs to do they not?

They don't have fat NHL contracts to digest if they get f***ed up from a hit. Im sure that plays a factor.

Not many beer leaguers out there want to risk getting hurt and play full contact hockey either

 

[ThePhoenixx]

The same reason they wear full cages. Sexism. We can't stand to see a woman cut or hurt. When guys get a cut it is a badge of honor, but if a woman was to get a big cut across her face people would pass out and call for a ban on the sport.

It is not the women. You can tell they want to smack each other around. It is the cigar chomping men in control of those decisions that keep it out.

If only the bolded was 100% true. Say what you want but the world would be a much, much better place if this was 100% true.

 

[sandysan]

Removing checking would be arguably the most impactful change in competitive hockey to where you would need a ridiculous burden of proof to demonstrate that it is a necessary change. That doesn't mean you can assert that a game with checking is inherently more entertaining than one without, though. Neither side really can meet their burden of proof because of the reasons I listed. Though I do believe that without a proper challenge it is more likely than not that checking is more entertaining. Not necessarily by a lot, though.

I think I mainly agree with you on the issue, but I do not think comparing men's professional or semi-professional leagues with women's professional or semi-professional leagues and pre-Pewee leagues is a reasonable enough comparison to where you can assert checking is the major difference in entertainment value.



Considering your antagonistic tone I would rather not get too involved in this discussion with you, but I will clarify I never implied I didn't enjoy hitting (hitting was my favorite part of the game growing up and I didn't hesitate to do so as long as I was legally allowed) and I was only discussing the concept of hitting being a fundamental part of the game.

no you asked why hitting was an intergral part of the game and didnt like it when I answered it.

I don't give two craps about what you like, but hitting in hockey isnt some artifice, its been there, uniterrupted, since the jump. The fact that there are some leagues that do not allow hitting doesnt change this fact. There is hockey without a puck, there is hockey without ice but that isnt to say that they are all equivalent. non alcoholic beer might be labelled beer, but beer it is not.

and this issue was NEVER about pre-peewee hockey. its why is it that the most competitive women hockey players play a game that does not allow checking.