Images of bruised and bloodied men flashing toothless grins have become synonymous with hockey. For years, the sport was once deemed to be too violent for the opposite sex.
But a generation of women is proving that hockey is not just a sport for men, and with rising participation levels in all age groups, women’s ice hockey is now in a league of its own.
Next week’s Olympic Games in Vancouver will mark the fourth time women’s hockey has been featured as an event, and the sport has grown in worldwide popularity in the past two decades.
“I started coaching [women’s hockey] in 1995, and the growth has just been absolutely astronomical ever since,” Minnesota women’s assistant coach Tom Osiecki said.
In 1995-96, there were just 235 Division I female student-athletes playing ice hockey, according to a participation report by the NCAA. That number had more than tripled 10 years later. In 2007-08, there were 837 Division I women’s hockey players.
By comparison, the number of women’s basketball players increased by less than 13 percent during that same span.
Osiecki began coaching boys’ high school hockey in 1964 and was a scout for the Minnesota North Stars in the early 1990s.
After a brief stint as a scout for the Minnesota North Stars from 1990 to 1995, Osiecki was invited to coach the girls’ hockey team at Burnsville High School, where he had coached boys’ hockey for 24 years.
Like a handful of other girls’ hockey programs that started in that time period, Burnsville had to start with open tryouts, thin schedules and no postseason tournaments, Osiecki said.
Minnesota became the first state to sanction women’s hockey as a varsity high school sport in 1994, as 24 teams took the ice that year.
Four years later, the sport became an Olympic event for the first time at the 1998 Nagano games, and the United States took home the gold over Canada.
Since then, according to USA Hockey, the number of female players registered with the national governing body for hockey has more than doubled.
Osiecki said the success of the 1998 Olympic team perked the interest of many young girls who may not have otherwise tied up skates.
Some of those once-young girls are now playing college hockey with eyes toward performing on the highest stage.
“Everyone kind of wants to set [the Olympics] as their goal,” said Gophers sophomore Anne Schleper, who, along with Gophers teammates Sarah Erickson and Alyssa Grogan , was a member of the U.S. team that won gold in the inaugural International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s Under-18 Championship in 2008.
“It kind of sets something out there for kids to reach.”
Schleper, a St. Cloud native, is proof of the progress the game has made. She grew up learning the game from her older brother and playing pick-up games with him and his friends.
Many of her female peers did the same.
“There are a lot of sisters whose brothers had been playing hockey forever, who went out and skated with them for years,” Osiecki said. “[With girls and women’s teams] they finally had the chance to go out and play the game for themselves.”
Playing with all girls was a big change for Schleper, who said she played on boys teams until the Pee Wee (ages 11 and 12) level of youth hockey and had wanted to continue playing on Bantam (ages 13 and 14) boys’ teams.
Gophers senior captain Brittany Francis said she didn’t enjoy hockey as much when she made the transition from boys’ teams to all-girls teams because the talent level wasn’t competitive enough for her.
Former Gophers player and current U.S. National Team captain Natalie Darwitz , is trying to develop young talent among both boys and girls. Four years ago, she started Darwitz Hockey Development, a summer camp for boys and girls ages 6 to 14 . She said the participation numbers are split down the middle between the two sexes.
“That’s one of the reasons I did boys and girls, because that’s the way I grew up playing,” Darwitz said. “I think each gender can learn something from each other.”
As the popularity and participation levels increase among girls and women, Darwitz said the depth and talent has also grown, making the game much more competitive.
Darwitz said she saw teams with one or two good lines in the past, but now teams have three to four solid lines.
“I don’t think you’re seeing players these days that can skate up and down the ice [against overmatched opponents] … and score a goal,” Darwitz said. “With the depth that the women’s game has brought, you can’t do that anymore.”
Although women’s hockey has come a long way and continues to gain momentum, it still has further to go.
The Minnesota women’s hockey team generated more than $150,000 in revenue in 2009, but the men’s team brought in nearly $6 million, according to data compiled by the Office of Postsecondary Education Equity in Athletics disclosure database.
Tickets make up a large portion of those revenues. The men averaged more than 10,000 fans per game last year at Mariucci Arena, while the women averaged 1,435 per game just next door at Ridder Arena.
But even with a smaller audience and less revenue, the sport continues to grow, thanks to the tireless promotion by players and coaches.
For example, the U.S. National Team came to Ridder Arena for a recent exhibition matchup with the Gophers as part of the Qwest Tour.
Team USA head coach Mark Johnson said the tour and camps put on by the U.S. National Team are good exposure for the sport.
“Generally, the people that are watching it enjoy the product they are seeing,” Johnson said. “In the big picture, you have to certainly go out and try to help to promote our sport and try to get more people involved in women’s hockey.”
Johnson, a former National Hockey League player who was the leading scorer on the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. Men’s National Team , will try to lead Team USA to its first gold medal since the 1998 Olympics.
Former Gophers star and Team USA member Gigi Marvin will try to do the same in her first Olympics.
“I’m just excited to finally get to the Olympics,” Marvin said. “It was something I think all of us who have made the team have been working for quite a while.”
Their male counterparts will arrive in Vancouver from various NHL teams, but the women have no multi-million-dollar contracts in their foreseeable futures, only the thought of playing the sport they love.
“They’re in it for the reason why sports ever existed to begin with. They’re in it because it’s a fun activity and a competitive thing to do,” Osiecki said. “They’re doing it for that reason and that reason only.”