Women's Hockey comes to Denver

Welcome to the PWHL - Professional Women's Hockey League.  The PWHL decided to do a takeover tour. They sent the Minnesota Frost (the inaugural season's Walter Cup winner) and the Montreal Victorie to stop in several cities in Canada and the US to help expand the league. BTW, my shirt is from Mahogany Mommies (they have lots of cool activism shirts) and reads, 'Women are no longer meant to sit still & look pretty.  They are meant to lead empires.' I got several compliments from a variety of individuals. I also liked the shirts that read, 'everyone watches women's sports' along with the league team shirts.

I've been a hockey fan for a long time.  I enjoyed the AHL, IHL, NHL and now the PWHL. Denver is a hockey town and we are proud to call Colorado Avalanche the home team. (Funny story, I'm a Pittsburgh Penguins fan but also root for the Avs, but that's a story for another day.) We have hockey as well as basketball games in Ball Arena.  This was previously called the Pepsi Center or 'The Can'; most of us still call it that. We still call the NFL stadium Mile High, even tho it was torn down and another was built and it's been through several name changes.  I don't think I'll be changing calling the Gulf of Mexico something else anytime soon.  Anywhore, here's a great picture of what 14,081 fans - mostly women, a lot of children and some men - looks like in our arena.

We had great seats

Obligatory 'ussie'

Skate Around (pregrame)

The new scoreboard shows the team logos in all their technicolor glory. 

SOG stands for Shots on Goal.

<insert announcer voice> 

The starting lineups for your Minnesota Frost and

Montreal Victoire

The lineup with the addition of the 'kid captains'. The youth hockey

players stand with the 'professional' players

for the national anthem.  Well, anthems in this case as

we got to hear Oh Canada as well as

the Star Spangled Banner.

At the start of each period - there are 3 in hockey, each 20 min

the lights are turned off and the arena is illuminated with

cell phone flashlights.  It's really beautiful.

This is my favorite thing about hockey - NHL and PWHL as well as peewee

and every other league.

After the game, there's a handshake line.

The game is everything you want it to be.  Fun, fast paced and full of action. If you think the women aren't playing as hard as the men and don't get into fights, you'd be wrong. The puck flies down the ice and the women are lightening fast.  Checks - one player uses their body weight against another player, usually while moving and the other has the puck - to push them out of the way, steal the puck or take them out of the current play WITHOUT pushing them into the boards - a 2 min penalty or 4 min if there's blood. When the announcer gave the total number of attendees, it was accompanied by thunderous applause and when it was announced that it was the largest crowd for a PWHL game in the US, chants of "we want a team!" were deafening.

I LOVED IT.  I do want a women's team in Denver and lots of other places as well.  Women's sports rock and I want in on the action.