Heart of a Spartan

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

Playing sports at the professional level is very impressive. For most people it’s hard to get to that top tier of athleticism, especially if you’re a woman. Before you can call yourself a professional hockey player, you have to climb the ladder of playing at the youth, high school, and collegiate level first.

My sister, Zoe Solomons, is a varsity forward on the Lady Spartan’s hockey team at St. Mary’s High School in Lynn, MA. Playing in her third season, she has grown accustomed to the pressure of being a girl playing a “male-dominated” sport.

I spoke to her along with one of her teammates, Marina DiBiasio, to get a better perspective on being a high school athlete and the surrounding stereotypes of female hockey players.

Zoe Solomons (white) in the attacking zone

Do you Find it Necessary to Work Harder To Overshadow the Boys And To Prove Your Ability As A Girl?

Solomons: “Personally, when playing, I try to perform better than the boys so I can show that girls can actually play a sport like hockey. A lot of the boys think the girls suck, so when they come to the games, I want them to be shocked at how well we can play.”

When Someone Says Women Aren’t As Strong As Men, What Is It About These Types Of Comments That Registers With You?

Dibiasio: “I’m a very competitive person. When someone says you do ‘_______ like a girl,’ it becomes a motivating factor to show that I can do something as well, if not better than them.”

Marina DiBiasio on a breakaway vs. Peabody.
Credit: ItemLive

What Does a Normal Game Day Consist Of? Do Students Gravitate Towards The Boys Team Over The Girls?

Solomons: “Most students definitely gravitate towards the boys team. More people like watching [them] because they think the girls are boring to watch since we can’t hit each other. They have a huge fan section, while we’re over here playing without one.”

With That Said, How Do You Feel About The Rules Against Being Able To Hit?

Solomons: I personally don’t mind it. I think if we could hit each other, it would definitely cause more injuries. It makes it easier to play without worrying about who’s coming up behind you, or when you have to stand up for a teammate who’s been cheapshotted.”

DiBiasio: “I feel like the physicality should be higher. I mean, we still lean on the boards a little bit, but we don’t get away with the physical style of play that the boys do. If a girl plays in a boy’s league, with players stronger than her, it’s definitely a safety concern. But if you have all girls in the same league, then there’s a level playing field. So why not us?”

  • Zoe focusing on the puck
  • Blindsided by a defenseman
  • Not a comfy spot

From an inside perspective, it’s very interesting to understand that as players mature, the awareness of gender inequality becomes more apparent. Just like any other team, these girls work extremely hard to consistently put a product on the ice that’s more valuable than the boys. The girls finished the season with a 16-2-2 record. But for some reason, it just isn’t good enough…

It’s easy to critique a sport that you don’t play or don’t really care to watch, especially if it’s women’s. I personally don’t like basketball, but I’d let my kids play. However, when your daughter asks if she can play a masculine sport like ice hockey, do you support her? Or do you say “girls don’t play hockey, you can do figure skating instead?” Think about that.

If You Can’t Play Fair, You Can’t Play At All

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

There are many things athletes can do to give themselves a competitive edge over their opponents. Training camps, personal trainers, off-season practices and, oh yeah, PEDs.

Russia was involved in another scandal (shocker) with athletes using PEDs dating back to 2014 in the Sochi Olympics. Many athletes were removed from the 2016 Rio Olympics as their punishment was officially introduced in 2015.

Olympic Rings at the 2018 games in PyeongChang, South Korea

This post is effective because it briefly discusses what caused Russia to get banned from participating in all competitions, namely the 2016 and 2018 Olympics. My posts pertain particularly to hockey, however this topic sort of overlaps as the Russian hockey team, both men and women, were unable to represent their country.

It’s only right, in my opinion, that the author alludes to the fact that Russia should pay for the doping cover-ups an investigation. Personally, $15 million is a little light but banning their athletes supplements this I suppose.

For the record, it was an interesting article to read because I didn’t realize there was an option to lift the ban for the World Championships for the track and field team. If the analysis of the Moscow labs can conclude before the championships, great. If not, sucks for them.

Dishonor Before Discipline

Imagine playing hockey, running track, swimming, all your life hoping to represent your country and the Russian Sports Ministry tampers with your urine samples? Sure, a limited number of athletes can compete but performing as neutral competitors would leave me feeling embarrassed for a very long time. That asterisk will haunt these athletes forever.

Official logo for the neutral competitors from Russia

One thing I think people are wondering, if people can keep up with all the Russia investigations in today’s society, is what happens if the ban is lifted? Who wins? Does the IOC look weak by caving in to their punishment? Only time will tell as we approach close to the Track and Field World Championships this fall.

Color Doesn’t Matter Unless It’s Gold or Silver

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

Being born into a hockey family, I was conditioned to root for Team USA during the Olympics. Team Canada was the enemy by default but I didn’t really stop to think about why?

Aside from the Olympics, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship is a pretty big deal. It’s basically like the minor league Olympics. When I first read this article, I honestly thought that Sarah Nurse was about to play with the guys and I was surprised.

Disappointing Numbers

When you look around the ice hockey scene, more often than not the players, both men and women, are white. For example, there are only 27 active players in the NHL who identify as African-American/Canadian or bi-racial.

To put that small number into perspective, there are 620 active players in the NHL. So you can see where the skin complexion overshadows with white. I think the post could touch upon the number of players of color in women’s hockey. This could help the readers research different stats and players beyond Nurse.

  • Wayne Simmonds
  • P.K. Subban

Destined for Greatness

Sarah Nurse who is a woman and a woman of color, is pretty much turning heads as she is on her way to represent Team Canada in the IIHF World Championship. I think it’s cool that she comes from a very athletic family. Her brother plays for the Oilers, her sister plays in the WNBA. Her uncle is also Donovan McNabb which is pretty cool, too.

Circling back to playing favorites with Team USA, I was happy to see that we defeated Team Canada for Olympic gold, whom Nurse plays for. She’s playing with 15 of her teammates from the Olympics. Maybe this time around she can bring home the gold…

Role Model Status

Some people aren’t familiar with the CWHL. Women and young girls who aspire to play professional hockey surely do. I really liked how you introduce Sarah Nurse and her athletic accomplishments as a forward for the Toronto Furies. She’s one of the few women of color in this sport, which is definitely an interesting angle to write on.

Nurse played 26 games for the Furies in the 2018-19 season. She recorded 14 goals and 12 assists.

I like how this post brings attention to the fact that Sarah Nurse is representing her country and that she’s a role model for women and young girls of color. I think that if this were a post about bringing awareness to that fact, it could expand beyond Nurse and profile more African American/Canadian or bi-racial players in women’s hockey.

Gold Big or Go Home

/ Jake Solomons / Leave a comment

In the Olympics, the best athletes around the world represent their respective countries in a multitude of sports. For those who are unfamiliar with the event, the Olympics are held every 4 years. Alternating between the summer and winter season sports. Realistically they’re held every 2 years.

The most dominant sports in the Winter Games are snowboarding, skiing, and ice hockey. Believe it or not, I’m gonna focus on the sport of ice hockey.

Ice hockey in the Olympics, throughout history, has been dominated primarily by 2-3 countries in both men’s and women’s events. The United States, Canada, and Russia fka the Soviet Union.

The men’s ice hockey team, as many people may know, sort of peaked in the 1980 Olympic games where they beat the Soviet Union. Team USA, a bunch of college kids from Boston and Minnesota. The game has been rightfully named the “Miracle on Ice.” This historical event was later adapted into a movie by Disney.

Miracle (2004) Theatrical Trailer

The men’s team without a doubt has cemented their legacy, but what about the women’s team? Women’s ice hockey has not been around nearly as long but quickly left a mark in the 1998 Winter Olympics.

In 1998, the Winter Olympics was held in Nagano, Japan. This was the first year women were allowed to participate in the ice hockey event.

The event was received as an interesting yet confusing concept. I can’t describe my reaction to it because I wasn’t even born yet. Considering that it’s showcased for the world to see for the first time, I bet it got some mixed reviews.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not a huge fan of the preliminary round games, I’m much more interested in the medal games. The United States and Canada have had one of the fiercest rivalries in sports. I’d say it’s right up there with the Red Sox and Yankees, Bruins and Canadiens.

The American team celebrates the historic, first women’s Olympic gold in Nagano in 1998. Photo: IOC Archives.

Team USA defeated Team Canada 3-1 to win the first ever Gold Medal in women’s Olympic Ice Hockey. I think it’s crazy to think that women’s ice hockey has only been played at the Olympics for 21 years. The United States’ success rate at the Olympics certainly hasn’t faded. They won the Gold in Pyeongchang last year and Silver in Sochi in 2014.

Putting this in perspective, Team Canada and Team USA have a combined medal count of 12 within 21 years. Makes me wonder, with all these world-class athletes showcasing their talents and flashing all this hardware…why are they still considered inferior to men?

The Name On The Back Is More Important

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

Off the top of your head, can you tell me the number of professional women’s hockey teams there are? I’m sure you didn’t think of all 14. Not many people, including my sister who plays hockey, could think of three. Well first off, there’s two leagues. One’s based in Canada and the other is in the United States.

The CWHL and NWHL are home to some of the world’s most elite women skaters, many of which compete in the Olympics. Hilary Knight is probably the most well-known player, as I’m sure you’ve at least heard the name. She’s won both gold and silver in the Olympics since 2010.

Why is she so popular? Knight has been the “face” of women’s hockey because she branded herself as an advocate for women’s rights and gender equality. A very important movement to support.

The CWHL has used this example to create the CWHLPA. An organization to help players create a personal brand and enterprise themselves. This is the first players association in women’s ice hockey. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is.

Sponsors will gravitate to these players more with this association’s help.

Hilary Knight during a Red Bull photoshoot 2017
Photo Credit: Brian Lowe

I use Hilary Knight as because she has about 9 major brands sponsoring her. Chobani, GoPro, and Red Bull are just a few. This surprises many people. How many hockey players do you know that are sponsored by a yogurt company?

The CWHL has created the players association to expose more women skaters to these sponsors and brands. The main ideology for this is due to their salary. These players make at most $20,000 per year. College kids on a budget can’t even make ends meet with that.

The initiative includes things like helping players create personal logos and websites, etc. For a developing professional sport, it’s a good strategy for publicity.

It also acts as a post-hockey retirement plan. If you can retire and still represent Nike or Petco, for example, that’s easy money.

The CWHL definitely figured out a plan to get their players on the map. While doing that, it helps the league attract viewers. While some players have already kicked down the door of opportunity, I’m very interested to see who will carry their name to new heights. Beyond the back of their jersey.

NHL Extends The Invite, But Not The Paycheck

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

NHL All-Star weekend showcases the many different skills a player possesses and puts them to the test in head-to-head competition. Every year, the skills challenge is a big event as we see many different challenges such as passing precision, hardest slap shot, fastest skaters, and shooting accuracy. One interesting aspect of this year’s event was that two women were added to the competition: Brianna Decker and Kendall Coyne-Schofield.

I’m sure it comes to no surprise to anyone that seeing women in a men’s league skills competition, that their presence turned a few heads in confusion and curiosity. I for one, was very happy to see some diversity in the skills competition because who’s to say women can’t skate as fast or shoot as well as the guys?

Kendall Coyne participated in the fastest skater event and Decker competed in the Premier Passer competition. In the skating event, Coyne proved her worth as she recorded a time of 14.346 seconds, taking one lap around the rink. Unfortunately, she placed 7th out of 8 competitors, but what I find to be the most important takeaway is that people will remember the name Kendall Coyne.

Now, what would this article be about if there was no substance of controversy? There were eight players who were competing in the passing skills challenge, Brianna Decker performed the demo for the challenge before it began. Many people in the audience were confused because they, along with myself, thought she was competing as well. Evidently she was just giving us a walk through of how it was set up.

The controversial side of this was that whoever finished the challenge the fastest, was awarded $25,000. Brianna Decker had completed the “tutorial” in 1 minute and 6 seconds. The official winner, Leon Draistaitl, had finished the challenge in 1 minute and 9 seconds. I thought it was interesting because the officials only acknowledged an “official” competitor as the winner, which created backlash from fellow players and female athletes alike.

I, along with many other people, found that this was absurd because she should be recognized more than she is for putting up the fastest time. This injustice was not taken lightly as the hockey brand CCM found it only fitting that a few days later they would personally award her the $25,000 she missed out on.

Brianna Decker

CCM served as the social justice warrior in this situation by picking up the pieces of a broken system and making things right with both Decker and the women’s hockey community.

One can hope that next year, the NHL gets it right and extends the invitation to more women players so they can dominate the competition.

Are you Hitting Me?!

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

When you turn on a hockey game, what’s the first thing you notice? You might say that the puck is too small to see or that everyone’s skating very fast. But the one thing that goes on without even realizing it, is how often the players hit each other. Men’s ice hockey is very physical as it is mainly a test of strength as well as skill. Many players have a role of the “enforcer” which basically means they are paid to hit people and fight. If you watch a women’s ice hockey game, there’s no such thing as an enforcer. Believe it or not, there’s an actual rule against hitting all together. You may find it odd to think that in a game that requires such strength and agility, that women are discouraged to hit one another for their own safety. So why then, are men and women allowed to play the same sport but men are allowed to make contact?

Putting on pads serves only as a formality as injuries can occur for both men and women. You could tell me that women are too weak to protect themselves over a hip check into the boards, and I can give you at least five examples of guys who got laid out in plain sight, no thanks to their helmets or pads. The physicality makes watching the men’s games exciting and the women’s brand suffers due to a lack of contact. Professional women’s leagues are suffering from low ratings because people want to see violence and contact, not this game of respecting personal space.

Denna Laing, a former NWHL forward for the Boston Pride, suffered a career ending injury in 2016 where she crashed hard into the boards chasing the puck. Many people look at this incident and say “this is why women shouldn’t be able to play contact sports!” First of all, she fell into the boards after being tripped up and quite frankly she couldn’t really protect herself that close to the wall. Laing was paralyzed from the neck down following this incident which is cause for concern in the women’s ice hockey community.

Do women lack some gene that makes them incapable to play at a level where physicality isn’t a problem? I would really like to know because from what I can see, aside from incidents on both sides, there seems to be no difference in the pace of play and the level of talent that’s on the ice. Nathan Horton, Denna Laing, Marc Savard are just a few names of players whose careers have ended due to injuries from being hit. It just confuses me because with the lack of contact in women’s hockey there has been one real injury. With men’s hockey, there have been countless open-ice hits, pucks to the face, and other injuries that outweigh the women’s.

Women want to hit and because of the feminine nature surrounding them, they’re told no. In a “male-dominated sport” such as ice hockey, if you aren’t gonna let women compete at the same level and with the same rules, why waste everyone’s time? Elite female hockey players like Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan compete in the Olympics and train their bodies to absorb hits and use their strength to out muscle their opponents just the same as men. So it makes you wonder, why are these women being held back?

Opening Face-off

/ Jake Solomons / 1 Comment

Women’s ice hockey is sport that has gained momentum in terms of popularity among young girls and adults alike. The problem however, lies within the fact that the media doesn’t do enough to promote the sport and creates a stereotype that women don’t deserve enough air time because women are not as masculine or athletic as men. Within the landscape of ice hockey as a whole, women are primarily recognized during the Olympics. Within the 4-year gap between events, how are they represented in the media? I plan to explore this dilemma further in understanding why women aren’t given their fair share of publicity.

I think it’s important for my readers to get a sense of how the world of sports is evolving and how women are using their voice to stand up and say: “we deserve a chance.” Throughout my publication(s), I want the audience to see through different perspectives, how the media is portraying women’s ice hockey both positively and negatively. I would like to discuss how different men’s ice hockey is from women’s and how the limitations for the women suggest physical inferiority. By using these negative or oppressive stereotypical examples, I believe they will help readers understand how we can turn these issues into solutions.

Throughout this publication, I’m not trying to argue who is better at playing hockey. I think it’s hard to differentiate and compare talent when some people don’t even know that professional women’s hockey exists. Within the realm of gender inequality in ice hockey, I want to limit the focus of weaknesses that women have because my main goal is to build on the fact that these athletes play an elite level and deserve to be seen as equal.

Exploring different aspects and headlines that display gender inequality in women’s ice hockey. For example, I would like to discuss the comparison of salaries between professional female players and NHL players. A lot of the imbalance in who gets paid more is due to airtime and actual visual presence on TV. NHL games are televised on a daily basis which cultivates sponsors and generates revenue, whereas the NWHL gets little to no recognition resulting in far less capital. I want to talk about how the lack of media recognition, outside of the Olympics, hurts women and their sport because they’re seen as less interesting than men.

Outside of the sport of ice hockey, I’ve become a firm believer in the idea that women deserve the same rights and opportunities that men have. I’ve been inspired to explore this issue within the world of ice hockey because my sister is a female hockey player. She feeds off of people’s criticism that girls are too frail or unathletic to play hockey. When my sister was little, she wanted to learn how to skate and be like the boys. She had to join the boys youth teams because there were no girls teams around. This is inspiring to me because I want to help uncover this “hidden” sport and use my source of inspiration as a role model for other little girls to defy gender norms.

As I continue with this publication, I would ideally want my audience to target young women who feel like there isn’t a chance for them to play a sport that they are interested in. I think this topic can bring to light the issues that derogate this the athletes who play this sport and the women who are ambassadors for this sport whom I will talk about as well, can act as a beacon of hope for aspiring female hockey players. I think my audience could also extend to parents and adults who believe women hockey players deserve the same opportunities as men or “athletic feminists”.

Women’s ice hockey is a growing sport in the world but just how much of it do we know? A lot of the unfamiliarity comes from the idea that media does not cover enough of women’s sports in general and specifically ice hockey, due to it’s masculine and physical nature. I believe it’s crucial for sports fans to understand this injustice that women are being overlooked because they aren’t as talented and can’t generate revenue or ratings outside of the Olympics. By addressing the problem that women are not treated or seen as equal to the men in this sport both physically and journalistically, we can inspire change and spread awareness to the fact that women are just as talented as male hockey players and deserve the same amount of attention and respect.