BagHead
Registered User
Can confirm, girls definitely get targeted and pushed out of boys leagues. I played in a summer league that allowed girls and boys together, and one of the girls who signed up was good enough that you'd know her name if I told you it. She was targeted non-stop on the ice, and there was enough toxicity in my locker room around her that I was entirely uncomfortable.Just from some personal experience as parent/coach of girls hockey. The girls that were good enough to play in boys "A team" hockey left because they didn't like the checking. It wasn't a bigger/stronger (it's the age range where the girls were bigger than the boys) issue it was more they felt targeted by the boys. A lot of it came down to fragile egos in the tween/teen (PeeWee/Bantam) boys couldn't take getting scored on by a girl. Even worse was if the boys hit the ice after a check by a girl. Team (co-ed) locker rooms were toxic a lot of times too.
Girls hockey isn't contact free. Hip checking is taught as opposed to boy checking in boys. It's less violent, but also creates lots of lower body injuries.
I like watching women and men hockey. It's the same but different, like baseball is to fast pitch softball, or NFL is to CFL football.
I also saw the better nature of people in that league, though. One summer we had a girl on our team who got laid out. The other 4 skaters on the ice for our team (all boys) descended on the boy who checked her like a pack of wolves. Probably they should have treated her like any other skater, but I'd rather they be protective than toxic.