PWHL is nasty. I gotta mention this. But for a new league with no established rivalries and teams that were just invented last year there sure is a lot of bad blood in the sport and all the matches. its not hard to find articles like this or games like this. The first view one gets in PWHL is how dirty it is. how chippy it is, how aggressive the players are to one another. Hits are common and dirty. Seems like womens players would rather belt the opponent than take the puck. Perhaps its not whats expected but the game features a lot of malicious hits. It jumps out at you.
We had more controversy, some nasty battles, and some superstars came alive in the fourth week of PWHL action.
www.dailyfaceoff.com
Now sociologically the reason I'm writing this is the mythos that males are toxic and horseshit claims that aggression resides fairly exclusively with males. Its of course nonsense and it is interesting that when female exclusive team sport leagues are featured the first likelihood is that the players take it to the gutter and if anything being as aggressive, and if these females had the physical power of males to enact mayhem one wonders how vicious it would be.
I'm reminded of womens soccer and seeing players trampling over each other, intentionally kicking each other with cleats, pulling hair. Its kind of funny. But it also completely removes false illusion that aggression exists primarily within the male of a species. Ethnologically this was always nonsense. Now its being unmasked. These female athletes can play the actual sport or take it to the gutter. Its interesting how often the games are going to the gutter. Its interesting how immense the animosity is in these games after only a few matches. Its kind of poor form too that this kind of article is marketing this kind of bad will.
The other take I have is that PWHL is intentionally being overtly physical. Telling teams, players to make hits. Seems over the top in this regard, and as if they are tying to counter some such concept that it wouldn't be physical. The first thing you see in PWHL is the hitting. its kind of odd.
Easy to find articles like this from teams that wanted to build out the hitting physical style.
PWHL Boston wants to be fast, physical and competitive, just like the other (much older) hockey organization in town.
nesn.com
"We wanted to make sure we had players who want to compete, who are courageous, and who are willing to get into the dirty areas and play a physical style."
Even stated as per article that the PWHL wanted to put a trademark product out that the fans (of male hockey) would be familiar with. Well they've done that but I'm not sure its the best sell. To me when I watch a PWHL game I don't see sportsmanship of any kind, I don't see good modeling. I see mayhem and a version of hockey that contains all the ugly (attempts to injure) but while being much more clumsy and awkward than watching the male games. In the PWHL its easy to spot the skilled players from those just along for the ride. The game can't sell itself on skill and so it doesn't.
One wonders if it follows similar path to Womens Football. Where for a decade or two support was huge and then people just started focusing on the level of play being awful and that top womens teams, even Womens world cup winning teams can't beat even Boys teams in games. The latter is always the demise of womens team sports. When it gets unmasked for how bad the quality and level of play is.
