The Media and Women’s Hockey

It’s no secret that everyone watched the women’s Olympic gold medal game. This was one of the biggest games (if not the biggest game) of the entire Olympics. So why was the priority focus still on the men’s teams?

Before you come at this and claim that I’m knocking down the men’s team, this is a disclaimer that I’m not. What I am saying is that it’s 2018 and the men’s team still received more coverage while the women’s team was stacked with national talent. Hilary Knight, Amanda Kessel, Amanda Pelkey? The women’s team had some amazing players and they deserved more coverage over their male counterparts.

To start, on my own Twitter front, I still saw commentary about how NHL players weren’t allowed to play in the Olympic games from both the fans and hockey outlets. I get that fans, myself included, were upset about not watching their favorite players represent their countries. Butit comes to a point of annoyance.

Get over it.

It was announced months beforehand that the NHL wouldn’t be participating in the 2018 Olympics, and yeteveryone couldn’t and wouldn’t stop talking about how the men’s team would be terrible without NHL players.

During the Olympics, it felt like there wasno real, deserving coverage of the women’s games. Yes, there was coverage. Yes, they were televised. Butyou have to admit that they weren’t being pushed like their counterpart. It seemed as if they didn’t really care about promoting the women’s game – besides the gold medal game… which aired at 11pm EST… on a Wednesday. Every time I watched highlights, most of them were of the men’s teams and players.

It’s 2018 and women’s hockey is still looked at as the little sister of hockey. People will pat them on the back and say good job, but won’t take the time to wholeheartedly cover their games to the extent they do men, even on an international level. It’s time to stop pretending like the women’s teams get the same amount of coverage as the men’s teams. Not only that, stop pretending like it’s okay that this happens. There are more than enough women’s teams out there that you can cover.