The hockey team in blue put on quite a show last night, and if you weren't watching, you missed out. It was a thrilling, come-from-behind, shootout victory for Americans who sought redemption after squandering gold four years ago. And for more than 80 minutes, it was exactly the type of hockey game you hope to see with such high stakes: back and forth on open ice, nail-biting breakaways, clutch saves.
I was watching in a local bar in Manhattan, with a crowd that cheered for every shot attempt and save as if they were watching the Rangers take on the Bruins or Flyers. It was incredibly refreshing not to be the only person viewing this game at face value, to see other hockey fans -- male hockey fans -- enjoying the action on the ice rather than sizing up the players based on attractiveness or comparisons to their male counterparts. For at least one game, these fans saw past gender to view these women as the athletes they are.
Those of us who love sports, whether they're played by men or women, have long tried to get other fans to see past the ponytail and simply enjoy the women's game, to keep the conversation from quickly shifting from sports acumen and skill to objectification and attractiveness. Despite featuring high-level fundamentals, women's basketball is still unfairly compared to the men's game. The U.S. women's national team has long outkicked the men in soccer, yet they're still fighting for equal pay. No matter how many Grand Slams she wins, Serena Williams (and Andy Murray) have to constantly remind the tennis world that she's not just one of the greatest women athletes of all time -- she's one of the greatest athletes ever, full stop.
Being a woman and being an athlete shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in the minds of many sports fans, the sheer presence of a female body or voice in sports changes the perspective. The hope is that women's sports can eventually occupy a space in sports fandom in which the players' gender is no longer a qualifier, and I'm particularly optimistic that women's hockey can help usher in this shift. The NHL has long grappled with the aesthetic barrier of marketing men's players who should be stars but whose faces are hidden behind masks. Aside from a handful of household names, a casual sports fan wouldn't be able to pick three hockey players out of a lineup.
Yet this could very well work in the women's favor. Just a few nights ago, I heard a hockey fan lament that because of the gear and masks, you couldn't tell just how attractive many of the women's hockey players are. And sure, these are world-class athletes in prime physical condition, many of whom are, without a doubt, beautiful to look at.
Perhaps having female faces hidden behind masks can go a long way to getting fans to look past physical beauty toward the physicality that's happening on the ice. That for three periods of a hockey game, fans can appreciate the skating, the passes, the shots, the saves -- focusing on the action itself without getting tripped up over the fact that it's being performed by women.
I'm in no way advocating for women athletes to deny their gender in order to be taken seriously. But it's an unfortunate reality that many fans, oftentimes men, don't give them the respect they deserve simply because of the way they look. Getting over the "woman thing" is an enormous mental hurdle when you've been conditioned to view sports as a sphere exclusively for men. Yet once that hurdle is cleared, even the most shallow fan can appreciate women's sports.
Team USA's victory over Canada provides an opening to bring more hockey fans into the women's game. In women's hockey, the aesthetic barrier of gear and masks helps fans to simply focus on the hockey. Hopefully we'll get to a point where fans can equally appreciate athletes of all genders, where women players land on more top-ten MVP lists than top-10 "hottest athletes" lists. Where what a woman achieves on the ice or the court or the field or the pitch is all that matters.
I saw this first-hand among the men who were watching USA vs. Canada last night, one of whom actually asked me where he could view more women's hockey. Encouraged by the question, I pointed him toward the NWHL and CWHL, where you can see Olympians like Hilary Knight and Amanda Kessel much more often than once every four years.