Please Coach Us Like Men!

Hockey teaches women some priceless life classes

Women Hockey: Please Coach Us Like Males!

Up to date: October 15, 2025

By Jordan Elkins

On a latest Sunday morning at UBS Area, house of the New York Islanders, the group hosted Women Hockey Weekend. Its intention was to foster the event of ladies taking part in the game of hockey. Included had been two Women Attempt Hockey for Free periods. This program is for ladies 5 to 10 years of age. It offers them with the chance to strive the game in a enjoyable and welcoming surroundings. Greater than 100 women participated within the occasion.

Women hockey—in Texas, and all around the US for that matter—nonetheless flies beneath the radar of most individuals. The expansion in recognition of the game has been exponential. Many react to the idea of ladies hockey with one thing like, “Actually? Women play hockey?” or, “I didn’t know there was faculty hockey for ladies too.”

Women Hockey: Deal with Us Like Ladies, However Coach Us Like Males

For us concerned with women hockey this sounds foolish, to say the least. However I’d be prepared to wager all of us have had an encounter like this. And it undoubtedly received’t be the final.

In most if not all the articles I write on the topic, I discover a approach to relate hockey to life. That’s as a result of hockey offers for everybody an opportunity to study priceless classes at a younger age, which may also help later in life. But for ladies, I imagine some classes dig somewhat deeper.

Permit me to elucidate: Mia Hamm, the good athlete and chief of USA’s Olympic soccer group, as soon as stated, “Coach us like males and deal with us like girls.” Women and girls are continually in search of a stability between being seen as a lady, however not having that held in opposition to them. Most of us wish to be seen for the potential we’ve got, and never simply our gender. Although we’re proud we’re girls, we really wish to be considered people who possess energy, potential, and are able to making an affect. Hockey provides women firsthand expertise at coping with this ever-changing stability.

A Little Bit More durable, A Little Extra

Many women rising up in small cities—or areas the place women hockey isn’t so frequent—usually must buckle their helmets and step onto the ice with the boys, and with much more to show. All of us wish to imagine that the taking part in discipline is equal. That it actually doesn’t matter to younger gamers, their mother and father, and coaches if there’s a woman on the ice with the boys. However I believe we all know the reality. Some women might must work somewhat bit more durable and provides somewhat bit extra so as to be seen because the hockey participant they wish to be. This lesson can both be extremely useful, or extremely hurtful. Nonetheless, it’s a lesson nonetheless, and one which I’m dedicated to serving to my younger gamers see.

Right here in Texas, we don’t have some other all-girl groups to play so we compete in opposition to boys’ groups. At first, some groups are reluctant to schedule video games in opposition to our U14 group. However after they do, earlier than we step on the ice, I remind the ladies to have a look at the larger image. To show to themselves and everybody else within the rink that they are going to be aggressive irrespective of who they’re taking part in in opposition to. To point out that it isn’t a “woman’s group” versus a “boy’s group,” however two hockey groups competing in opposition to one another.

You could assume asking 13- and 14-year-olds to see the larger image is a misplaced trigger however it actually isn’t, not for ladies. These women have chosen hockey for a motive: as a result of it began as one thing unknown. As a result of it’s about arduous work; as a result of it’s about their group; as a result of it provides them a problem and intrigues them. And extra importantly, as a result of being outlined as a hockey participant is one thing that makes them so proud.

The Best Factor to Be a Half Of

Women don’t simply wish to be instructed what to do in a drill; they continually wish to know why they’re doing the precise drill. And for a coach who as soon as was that younger woman asking tons of questions, it’s the best factor to be part of.

That is the right age to assist women hockey gamers foster confidence in themselves, any method doable. They want to have the ability to rely on one another as a group. And likewise to study to belief themselves and imagine in what they personally can accomplish. As a result of if they’ll first study these classes inside the partitions of the rink, they are going to be extra prepared to have faith in themselves and their potential after they take their gear off and head out into the world.

Women actually do must be coached like males, however handled like girls. They wish to have enjoyable, they wish to be social, however they’re additionally thirsting for arduous work. There’ll at all times be assumptions, there’ll at all times be stereotypes, and lots of won’t ever take women’ sports activities as significantly as they do males’s sports activities. So it’s as much as the ladies hockey gamers and their coaches to continually show their worth and value.

Conclusion

Coaches of ladies’s groups ought to anticipate extra. They have to push extra, and discover a stability between the small print and having enjoyable. They have to additionally intention to point out them that working arduous as a group is what’s going to in the end make the season as enjoyable and rewarding as doable.

As we’ve all heard earlier than, hockey isn’t all about profitable. However for the ladies who select to put on their bows within the type of hockey laces, there’s an unbelievable quantity up for the taking.

Jordan Elkins is the previous coach of the Dallas Stars Elite hockey membership. From an article showing on WomensHockeyLife.com—Grownup Leisure Hockey. Revealed with permission.