**** THE WOMEN'S DIVISION ****
                           by Gary Cohen
 
January 29 1999
 
Last Thursday night, I got to do something that I had wanted to do all year. 
Did I finally win at Thursday night senior’s Bingo? No. Did I watch a canadiens 
hockey game without falling asleep on the couch? Nyet. How about this. I went 
to Villa Maria and watched the Black team battle against the Buddies in the 
CASC Women’s division. Well, yes…yes I did.
 
Now, if you’re a guy, and you have yet to come out to check out one of these 
games, then you are missing something quite special. I finally got the chance 
to check out the women last Thursday and I was certainly not disappointed with 
what I saw. I was expecting the pace to be slower than your grandma driving in 
a snowstorm but truth be told, the pace was just one slapshot of a notch below 
that of the men’s league. To be fair to the women, most of them have not played 
organized hockey at any level let alone in a gym and the progress that I have 
seen since the inaugural season last year has been both exponential and 
exceptional.
 
The game that I watched ended up in a 1-1 tie and if you didn’t see the game 
and only caught the game in the paper the next day, then you would assume that 
with Paul and Régent in nets, that there was hardly a decent scoring chance. 
But that is not true at all. There were several scoring opportunities on both 
sides with some terrific goaltending by le gardien and the I-Filer for their
respective teams. 
 
I came into the gym expecting a number of things to happen, none of which did. 
On the upside, the women’s division sports tenacious play, determination and a 
surprising amount of talent. To be fair, I will not compare the men’s and 
women’s league too much because they are incomparable. I will say this though. 
The main difference between the leagues is NOT the physical play and it is NOT 
the quick passing. It is the fact that the men’s game relies a lot on shots 
whereas you will very rarely see a woman shoot the ball at the net from more 
than the high slot. That is, to me, the main difference and in my humble opinion, 
not such a bad thing. Who wants to watch a game where all ya do is shoot from 
your own zone. The women’s game actually takes place in the offensive zone. I 
suppose that the men’s game has no offensive zone considering some players 
shoot from behind their own red lines at times. Hey, I said I wouldn’t make 
comparisons. Alright I lied. From this point forward, all comparisons will be 
in favor of the women’s divison. All in favour…(if you said ‘I’, your not too 
bright, this is a computer, I cant hear you through it.)
 
The goals in the game that I saw came on excellent goal mouth scrambles where 
Régent had to make saves out of his $#^?%^& before succumbing to the women. I 
swear to you that at some points during the game, Régent looked like a flounder
out of water, trying to keep up with the speed of the girls attack. Picture 
Régent making a snow angel and that is what I saw! On many occasions, both Paul
and Régent had the girls shaking their heads. 
 
I admit that I thought that going to a woman’s floor hockey game would be about
as much fun as watching the 4 Aces in cheerleaders outfit (except Jimmy of 
course) but I had a great time at the game. But I do have a few suggestions 
that might make the league better and since I am not a floor-hockey guru please
take these suggestions with a grain of salt as I am but a simple wannabe j
ournalist trying to get cheap laughs…So here are my suggestions…
 
Black team…GET A NAME! I enjoyed watching the team play very much and thought 
that they had even more raw talent than the Inverness Pub Renegades but for 
gods sake, its already January and you are still known as the black team? 
According to an anonymous source, it is a superstition thing. Well JINX JINX 
JINX GET A NAME!!!
 
Line Changes…Though for some reason, these ladies can easily stay out there 
about four times as long as I can even manage to be on the floor without 
collapsing, I still think it would make it a lot more fun if they made line 
changes a little bit more often. I found that at some points of the game, 
players would be sitting on the bench for long periods of time. Three of the 
BLACK TEAM girls were deep into a game of canasta when a fellow teammate came 
off. 
 
The Scoring Leaders…It seems as though there are only a few scorers in the 
league. Most teams have one or two players who account for most of their goals.
I guess that there is not that much that can be done about this except to wait 
for the less experienced players to figure out how to score but the 
statistically-obsessed side of me does not like skewed stats. What? Oh I
guess 69 points in 13 games is not so normal. (Though my stats are!)
 
Stop Apologizing!!…Ok OK, I must admit I admire that the women players put 
their own safety before anything else but there is just something about 
stopping to help the person who you just knocked head first into the doorknob 
behind the net. Do what the guys do and wait until nobody is looking and then 
apologizet. For Example,here’s how to do it in less than 9 words.
 
Gary: Hey man, about before…
Victim: its cool…
Gary: beer?
Victim: Beer!!
 
MORE GOALS!!… There is nothing like statistics to keep you coming back each 
week. I suggest that the CASC women’s division figure out a way to get more 
goals into each game. The 1-1 tie was exciting but its like the NHL and if the 
CASC isnt careful, I will write a TO THEO FROM GARY letter to get things on 
the roll. Didn’t you notice that the NHL scoring is picking up? You think its 
coincidence that I wrote that letter and then all of a sudden…think again 
kimosabi… Maybe finding nets that are just a little bit larger could be an idea
or even calling more penalties (like for apologizing) could create more 
scoring opportunities.
 
Other than that, and I say these suggestions tongue-in-cheek, the ladies game 
is absolutely perfect. I think that every single one of you should go out and 
watch a game as soon as you are humanly capable. And if you are not humanly 
capable, then you must be a member of the men’s CASC division in which case you
should STILL go out and see the women play. 
 
Keep up the great work ladies and I look forward to the inaugural Men vs 
Women’s all-star game in the next couple of years where the women will surely 

kick our bye folks.