Let Girls be Girls: Why Body Checking Needs to be Allowed in Women’s Hockey

Let me start off by saying that I use the phrase, “Let girls be girls” facetiously in the headline. It’s meant to be a dig at it’s more common counterpart, “Let boys be boys”, a phrase that perpetuates sexism, sexual assualt and a whole host of other bad things that I’m not going to get into right now. I don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl, trans or gender non-conforming, just let people be themselves.

Now that that’s clarified, I have a question for you.

Did you know that body checking is prohibited in women’s hockey? Not just youth leagues, but grown women, even women playing in the NWHL. That’s right, there are two different standards for men and women in the same sport. Weird, I know. It’s time to do away with this archaic, patriarchal rule.

First, let’s define body checking in ice hockey. If you want, there is an entire a manual that will teach you the proper way to do it, but I like sportingcharts.com’s definition:

“Using one’s body to make contact with or to hit an opponent. The goal of applying a body check is to separate an opponent from the puck, thus retrieving puck possession. Legal body checks target the body of the opponent; any hit targeting the head or the legs is illegal. Players’ feet should not leave the ice when attempting a body check, or else they can be subject to penalties, fines and/or suspensions.

A body check is simply called a hit.”

I play a lot of women’s ice hockey and I certainly get hit all the time. So whats the difference? Well according to USA hockey rules there are two different categories of play. Women play Body Contact hockey (where the aforementioned hit is prohibited) and men play Body Checking hockey (where that particular hit is allowed). Body contact is defined as

“Contact that occurs between opponents during the normal process of playing the puck, provided there has been no overt hip, shoulder or arm contact to physically force the opponent off of the puck.”

I can see that there is a difference between the two, but it is subtle. You’re allowed to make contact to try and get the puck, but women can’t look like their trying too hard to get the puck. This very confusion leads me to my number one reason why women should be allowed to hit each other.

If women could hit, they’d get hurt less.

That sounds completely backwards, but it’s true. The way the rules are now, women’s hockey focuses more on speed, finesse and team play because they don’t have to worry about getting slammed. These traits actually make the game more complex and fun to watch, because the game is about more than how hard you can smash into your opponent. Brains over brawn in a sense. That being said, hits happen anyway, and if you play with your head down and without awareness of players around you, then you are going to get hurt. In fact, more concussions happen in women’s hockey than any other sport at the N.C.A.A. level.

And yet, women’s hockey is supposed to be the safer version! After all, we’re all dainty little girls who don’t want to break a nail, right? But think about it, players that technically don’t have to worry about getting hit play with their heads down. They don’t focus on keeping their frame strong or their center of gravity low. They don’t focus on keeping their feet moving as they skate into the boards. So when they do get hit, they are far more likely to get injured and more likely in a serious way. If women are taught how hit properly, then they will also learn how to take a hit properly. This will prevent injuries.

Well then we just need to crack down on checking penalties, you say.

First of all, there is no way to prevent illegal checking. Anger, adrenaline and yes, testosterone run very high in competitive women’s hockey and it’s going to be taken out on someone.

Second, the very definition of body contact is so ambiguous that it leaves too much room for variability in referee’s decisions. What counts as a body check varies from game to game, and especially from region to region. It is especially dangerous when a team from a less physical region plays a team from a region where there is more leeway in what is legal body contact because they are less prepared for hits. The parameters of an official body check are more concrete than body contact, which will lead to more consistent refereeing, which will lead to safer hockey.

If women could hit, fewer girls would go out for hockey, you say.

First of all, why does it always seem that men think they know what women want better than we do? Men wrote the rules for women’s hockey, and the continued existence of this rule is one more way the dominance of the male gaze permeates our culture.

Second, I believe that allowing checking and adding more physicality to the sport would actually boost the number of girls interested hockey, albeit in a roundabout way. I agree that at first (and only at first) there might be a decline in interest. Girls are conditioned not to think of themselves as tough, and they’re taught not to want to play the same games a boys. So yes, some girls will initially be deterred.

However, allowing checking will grow the culture of women’s sport as a whole. Most people prefer to watch men’s hockey over women’s because they like to see the big hits. Most people think men’s hockey is more serious than women’s because they can hit. I’m not saying that the NWHL needs to start looking like the NHL. I don’t want to lose the finesse, complexity and team play that is special to women’s hockey. But I want people watch it, to take it seriously, and to want to take part in the culture. (For example, my high school team quite enjoyed watching our boys team play, but they only came to our games because their coach made them.)

When the sport and culture of women’s hockey are truly respected, girls will want to play.

There’s such a size variability between the girls. It won’t be fair, you say.

That argument does give me pause, I’ll admit. It reminds me of what is at risk if we implement checking: initial decreased interest, more injuries due to the learning curve of body checking and yes, the gaps it will create between the big girls and the little ones.

But there is size variability in every contact sport, men’s hockey included. In fact, the adaptation that is required is what pushes some players to their best. What if there is a girl that doesn’t push herself to become more agile because she doesn’t need to? She’s small, but she won’t get hit, so she can loaf around. That’s wasted talent. No player is created equal and the point of competitive sports is to become the best player you can with what you’ve been given.

In summary:

Let women check. Not doing so is sexist.

Let women check. It will keep them safer.

Let women check. It will add to the game, encouraging a wider skill set.

Let women check. It will grow the sport.

“Let’s play hockey!” the announcer booms before the puck drop. Yes. Let us. Let all of us play hockey.