Blah blah blah NBC blah blah blah hockey coverage blah blah blah curling….WHIIIIIIIINE.

Okay. Now we’ve got that out of the way and the whaaambulence has left.

Take a gander at the unevenness of the scores that appeared in this first round of women’s Olympic hockey games:
Canada v. Slovakia: 18-0
USA v. China: 12-1
Canada v. Switzerland: 10-1
USA v. Russia: 13-1
Canada v. Sweden: 13-1

And this is only a partial list, leaving out the scores that were still five-point-shutouts. These are ONLY the bloodbaths.

The question that’s been circulating lately is this: Should there be a “Mercy Rule” in women’s hockey?

My answer to this? Yes. There should absolutely be a mercy rule, but there should be a mercy rule across the board for the men AND the women. However, I don’t think it should be a game-ending mercy rule, but some sort of re-organization of play that either gives the weaker team an advantage or cripples the stronger team.

The thinking is this:
Although in the Olympics countries are sending their best athletes, especially in women’s hockey there is bound to be a disparity between (for examples) China’s best, and the USA’s best.

The history of women’s hockey in the USA and Canada closely mirrors the ups and downs of feminist progress. It was huge in the 1920s and 1930s, but declined through World War Two and through the 1960s, being “little more than a curiosity.” 1n the 1960s, women and girls attempting to join boys teams were generally rejected, and it wasn’t until Title Nine in 1980 that women’s hockey began at colleges, and it wasn’t until 1993 that it was accepted by the NCAA as a sport. Nevertheless, these schools are where most female players really started to hone their game and women’s hockey started to rise to prominence.

The first international women’s hockey tournament was held only about 20 years ago in 1990, with eight countries playing in the Women’s World Ice Hockey Championship: Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, West Germany and Japan. It wasn’t until 8 years later in 1998 that women’s hockey was added to the Olympics, in Nagano Japan.

In essence, women’s hockey is still INCREDIBLY young, and women’s Olympic hockey is even younger. Because of that, the dominant teams right now are going to be from the countries that can feed the most money into their Olympic programs and assist their teams in training and traveling to play year-round… like Canada and the USA. There’s enough public awareness of hockey in these country that these women don’t generally have jobs, and can live off of sponsorship money while training to stay at the top of the game.

When these women compete against other teams who don’t have as much funding, or against players who can’t devote their entire lives to training because they have to hold down a job in their native country to keep food on the table, obviously, there’s going to be a disparity in level of play. Add to that the fact that in some countries women in sports are still looked at as oddities or have other stigmas attached, and there may be a smaller pool of talent to even draw from.

A girl who played hockey at an early age for a pastime in a non-hockey-country may have been encouraged by her parents and/or culture to give it up for marriage, school, a job, or any other number of things. If, for example, a British female hockey player has to find time to train AND hold down a job because she doesn’t get monetary support from the country, AND there aren’t companies beating down her door to give her multi-million-dollar sponsorships, this woman is not only forced to stay in her job to fund equipment, ice time, gym time and the like, she’s also forced to FIND that time somewhere around her job, school, or other commitments. In the US and Canada, between sponsorships and the backing of the country, most players don’t HAVE a “real job” and commit all of their time to training and becoming better at their sport.

Does each country send their best athletes? Yes. But are all women’s international hockey programs created equal? Positively NOT. And it doesn’t seem fair to put some of the smaller or lesser funded programs up against the juggernauts of the USA and Canada and force them to suffer through 12-0 blowouts.

As an athlete who’s been involved in both sides of blowout scores, when you’re down that much, you’re not learning anymore, you’re just frustrated and ready to start taking cheap penalties. When you’re up that much, you’re also not learning much-it’s like being the predestined Harlem Globetrotters, and it feels a little silly.

However, after reading a 10 point spread, to institute a mercy rule that takes away a player from the winning team and make them play down a body would keep the game moving, keep it interesting, and perhaps, create learning opportunities for everyone.

Also, organizing the original brackets in each tournament so that the lower-ranked teams got a chance to play each other would give teams like Slovakia and China a chance to play a real game, instead of facing a 13-0 shutout against the USA or Canada.

And someday, when I start working for the IIHF or the IOC, that’s exactly what I’ll suggest.

(history information from: here)