[For those who missed it, read the article from Yahoo! Sports.]
Typically, my interest in hockey lies in REAL hockey–the kind played by athletes on real ice, with real sticks, real pucks, and real stakes. But this particular article caught my eye and I’ll tell you why.
You see, I have an 11 year old daughter who loves hockey and wants to play hockey. She wants to be a goalie. Unfortunately, we live in southern Arizona, where even mentioning hockey as a sport causes people to look down their noses at you. We simply don’t “do” ice here. If I could, I would move to Phoenix so she could play ice hockey. If I could, I would make it really cold here–so cold that our backyard would stay iced over–and I would build her an outdoor rink just like Gretzy’s dad did. But I can’t. So my daughter does what she can to live some part of her dream–she dons her inline skates and practices her moves on my back patio. Sometimes it makes me smile, because I think of Sidney Crosby and his dryer stories. After all, if concrete was good enough for Sid, then maybe it’s good enough for my little girl. But most of the time, it just makes me sad.
How does this little story about my daughter relate to the story of a videogame? It’s simple, really. Young girls (and women) can’t always live out their dreams in real life. Sometimes, they have to make do with what the world offers them. This 14 year old girl named Lexi plays hockey, both real and in a videogame. But while her brother was able to create a character that looked just like him when he played NHL, Lexi could not. So she wrote a letter to EA Sports and asked to be given the ability to enjoy the game as a girl.
EA Sports responded to Lexi’s request and the new edition, NHL 12, now offers the option of creating female characters. I say “hooray!” However, I noticed a lot of negative commentary, particularly from men, but surprisingly from a number of women. So now I’m wondering, why is it so wrong for our daughters to want validation of the importance of their gender?? Does the fact that women are not afforded opportunities to play in the NHL also mean that we don’t deserve to be represented in anything related to hockey?
Opinions anyone?
