Why wouldn't it be fair? You could make a case that full contact in a co-ed game isn't fair; but it's women hitting women. Why does a size differential matter anymore there than in men's hockey?

I mean, come on, if Roger can take the hits, the women can too.

To allow full contact in international women's competition, you would pretty much have to green light hitting in what are basically the women's equivalents of beer leagues. None of these players are professionals, none of them have ever played with hitting in their life, and no country besides Canada and possibly the US would have enough women to field both contact and non-contact amateur hockey leagues.

This would further widen the gap in Canada's favor, as we already have a significant size advantage over all other teams (no doubt due to the massive player pool). The sport definitely needs to grow much much more on the worldwide stage before this can happen, and hitting would have to be adopted in minor hockey first. This is completely different from the origins of men's hockey, where everybody used to have to play with hitting - house leaguers, minor hockey, you name it. It was only relatively recently removed for low level/D league players and with the emergence of the beer league.

Your whole argument is "no hitting because they're women". Totally lame. Physical play can be a great equalizer when dealing with skilled teams. There is no legitimate reason that checking shouldn't be allowed in womens hockey.

No, my argument is that the game is not popular enough on an international to field enough tiers of leagues for women to have opportunity to play both contact and non-contact in countries besides Canada and the US. Look at China - 197 women's hockey players in the country. And they field an olympic team in the same group as Canada, US, Finland. You could probably move to China and sign up to play on the same team as a chinese fringe olympian without even trying out.

I guess you could just have all these players come to play in North America, but oh wait, they are amateurs players it's not like they would be moving here to make a salary. These players pay to play hockey, not the other way around.

I've already stated earlier in the thread that I thought it was awesome to see physicality in this year's women's olympic games. What makes you think I don't want to see contact? I'm saying the women's game isn't ready for it.

I think there is a specific reason as to why there is no bodychecking allowed in womens hockey... Anatomy.

Most bodychecks end up landing in the middle chest area, usually dead on contact with the shoulder into it. If not, you end up going into either the boards or ice and land with the majority of your weight being placed onto your chest. I'm not a female but I've heard being hit there is extremely painful and can cause problems with breastfeeding and other things, but I am not 100% sure. However it's a good explanation as to why there is no full on body contact allowed for the simple protection of that area. I don't think the judgement to allow no full body contact is based off the assessment that the skill levels of each team is extremely handicapped.

I just don't think people give women's hockey enough credit. I'm not comparing them to the men, as sexist as it sounds, as they don't compare in terms of skill level. But to say they outright suck or should have no attention paid to them "because they're women" isn't really a good excuse for not liking them. And as I said, regardless of the level they play at, they're still playing for their country's olympic team, which one of us have the ability to do.

Which one?

Turns out it's YOU, Krok!

I didn't know I had it in me...until now. Thank you for showing me the true potential that all this time lay within me, sabop.

It lays within all of us, Krokodi , and you may now find that your responsibility takes the form of being a figurehead, a harbinger of the potential of all to unleash the latent ability to play for their country's olympic team! Don't take it lightly.

disregard

But I thought it was just one of us.