I wonder if the European women's teams have improved, but the two North American teams have improved more thereby raising the bar yet again. In the Ladies games so far, I've seen Canadian and American players using that old Bure trick of passing the puck forward between their skates to their sticks to avoid an opposing check. I don't remember seeing this in Women's hockey before.
I'm beginning to believe that the european and other teams
are just getting a free ride into the olympics on the
coat tails of the north american teams, they do nothing
to improve, do nothing to promote youth girls hockey, and
don't get the funding, and the bottom line is that, they
haven't done much of anything for 30 years or more.
None of them are new to hockey, we had players who
travelled to norway and sweden back in the 70's to
stay there and play, for a short time to promote women's/girls hockey.
All of my girls played hightly talented competative hockey
as kids, then as women, played against the guys many
times, and sometimes played right on the boys teams,
as well as the girls team. We had a great girls and
womens league on the lower mainland back then, with
extremely good players, and of course they are all even
better now, one of my daughters had a chance to try out
for the national team, but she was a little older by then,
and decided to turn it down, she was married by then,
and playing noon hour hockey with the guys, and didn't
have the deep desire to play and train at that level any
longer.
Any of our teams we had on the lower mainland, with exception of the little kids, could have defeated the
other teams in this olympics.
I hate to see women's hockey thrown out of the olympics,
but if this trend continues I'm afraid that is what will
happen, it is a drag on olympic image to see that every
four years.