Womens Ice Hockey :: Sports Essays

Womens Ice HockeyThe fight for womens frost field hockey players to earn respect and acceptance has been hard fought over the past one one C years. Women have constantly been told that they can not play with men and that there sport is a second rate version of the mens game. The road of womens ice hockey has had many ups and downs but has perservered to the present day and is stronger than it has ever been. The future of womens ice hockey is bright thanks to diligence and hard work of those who unploughed it all going. Ironically women began playing the sport side by side with men over 100 years ago right at the sports inception. single of the oldest action pictures featuring ice hockey shows men playing with women. Part of the reason that women enjoyed early participation with men is because of the way that the public viewed the game. At the start, hockey was seen as a recreational activity. Women have been routinely barred from participating in serious and competitive sport, b ut if the game is viewed as merely recreational consequently women are more accepted. In the 1890s this is what happened to the sport of ice hockey. Suddenly the game was more than recreation and organization entered, rules were drawn and leagues were formed. With the new structure came segregation of the sexes. As the sport progressed for the men, the women were left behind. In spite of all this, the first all female organized game was played in Barrie, Ontario in 1892. Womens ice hockey slowly limped on up until the 1920s. In the 1920s womens ice hockey began to pick up again. Amateur, college and junior level teams were formed and the womens sport became much more organized. In 1924 the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association was formed and would for years be the benchmark of womens ice hockey. Bonnie Rosenfield, a tremendous Canadien athlete who won Olympic medals in itinerary and Field would be the sports first true superstar. Bonnie grew up in a hockey family and became a very ski lled player at a young age. She became irritated with the lack of opportunity for women and took up track were she excelled on an international level. She returned to hockey though with the formation of the LOHA. She became the leagues first star and became a mapping model for young women who also wanted to play the game.