Archive for March 13, 2012
March 13, 2012 — A league of their own, finally done right
Today’s Game of the Day
Flagler Palm Coast (Fla.) at Palm Coast Matanzas (Fla.)
This could be the most important Palm Coast derby ever, because Matanzas is 4-0 on the season and Flagler-Palm Coast is 4-2. It’s been rare, in the short history of Florida scholastic lacrosse, to have two in-form teams from the same city at the same time. This should be something.
Later this month, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League finishes its season with the four-team Clarkson Cup playoffs.
The league, a spinoff of the old National Women’s Hockey League, has six teams concentrated in Ontario with an American team, the Boston Blades.
What this league has done differently from some of its predecessors is that the teams have not pursued their own visual identities; instead, the Boston Blades have the Bruins’ colors. The Montreal Stars wear the iconic red and blue Canadiens livery, and the Toronto Furies are a vision of blue and white, just like the Maple Leafs and Marlies.
Another thing that the league seems to have under control is team discipline. Unlike some of the penalty-fests that used to be part of the NWHL in the 2000s, the CWHL is playing under international rules, which means no body checking. Indeed, there was exactly one major issued in the league in 2011-12 — for an illegal body check.
Now, if the CWHL can make an agreement with the two holdout teams from the semi-disbanded Western Women’s Hockey League (Minnesota and Manitoba), I think the game of women’s hockey is going to be better off.
