Teenage female hockey player loses teeth after being hit by shot from male opponent

That poor girl, you can hear one of the onlookers shouting something about "classy sportsmanship" at about 30 secs into the video.

Almost all sports involve risks which players need to be aware of before taking part.

Including the players causing the risk. In any sort of mixed-sex scenario it should be being made absolutely clear to the male players how much risk they potentially pose to the female players, and what extra consideration and enforcement is applying to them as a result.

What we're seeing a lot of is male players who are being pandered to to the extent of people around them denying they cause any sort of risk, so they will likely be especially unrestrained compared to a male player in a proper mixed-sex scenario.

There's a place for mixed hockey. Well, quite a few places actually - players at either extreme of the age range and those taking part in Walking Hockey or Flyerz Hockey can really benefit from the existence of mixed teams particularly in smaller clubs. And lots of regular club players also enjoy the standard mixed game already described.
But in all those circumstances it's completely transparent, everyone understands that there will be players of the other sex on the pitch and the make up of teams and the rules are controlled to make things as fair and safe as possible.
None of that applies if a male bodied player is on a female team. It's unregulated mixed hockey by stealth, not consented to by the female players and without any of the safeguards that accompany proper mixed matches. Not fair, and not safe. Male bodied players can play on men's teams or mixed teams, there's no shortage of opportunities for them and it is about time the national and international regulatory bodies realised this and followed the example of the sports that have cottoned on already.

I think it will take a death. It is beyond awful that we are here. If only people could see sense and not be cowards

A proper risk assessment can only be carried out if one has access to all the necessary and complete information

if I think im playing a team of women I’ll risk assess on that basis. If one person on that team turns out to be a man then my risk assessment is meaningless as it was carried out on the basis of erroneous information

Grantanow the point is, a female hockey player goes on to the field anticipating one kind of risk, but finding a transwoman on the opposing team represents an entirely different level of risk. Are you saying that if that risk is greater than they are supposed to just walk off the pitch and give up playing?!

Almost all sports involve risks which players need to be aware of before taking part.

My son played on a mixed team. It was roughly 50/50 split of male to female but every single member of the team wore a moth guard.

I can't quite believe this. I used to play hockey in my school days, and some of the girls could be vicious, and with me being very short and petite it was dodgy me even playing against some of the bigger ones. The damage a boy could have caused doesn't even bear thinking about!

what is even more maddening is that there is a formally defined mixed sex hockey game

5 men
5 women
GK either sex

with clear rules about certain aspects of the game as men are so much more powerful

When taking a short corner a female player must strike the first shot.

A female player must take a penalty flick.

If at any point there are more than 5 outfield players of one sex the umpire can abandon the game and reward a 5-0 victory for the team not breaching the rules.

@Lavender14 luckily for me (though it is expensive) nowadays DD is clad head to toe in OBO protection. School/club stopped mixed hockey age 10/11.

I saw an edited clip of the match on Youtube. There were lots of short corners on the few minutes I saw and at no point did I spot any face guards being used. For those wondering what I am talking about, this is the sort of thing seniors as young as 11 throw on at DD's school (and when she played for club/county) if they are near the goal for a short corner https://www.total-hockey.com/collections/short-corner-protection?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA3aeqBhBzEiwAxFiOBvN38S9asptHMCJUDmtHDjrQUxN-7KXIdkooxkOalDcLq7miKBiw5RoCDjgQAvD_BwE

The quality of the clip wasn't good enough to spot whether the girls were all wearing mouthguards. One of DD's team mates was in the way when an opponent chipped the ball into her face age 12. It wasn't nice (doubly so because of braces), but the teeth were ultimately okay. Another horror story about a yr 12 lad who CBA to wear a mouthguard ended up differently.

The bloke was playing a different game to the girls. He was much faster, with a longer reach to the ball. What right does a teenage(?) boy have to terrify his opposition.

Mixed hockey is madness.

Eyeball I got my latest reply from them (have written again since) in mid-October - it just linked to their policies, so not even the level of confirmation your DH got.

@RockpoolPeriwinkle I’m so glad you’ve written to them. My DH has asked this question & been told that it does however he’s not confident that they’ve put the actual man playing on women’s team question to the insurers

Regular poster, name changed as outing

Eyeball, my teenager is heavily involved in hockey, coaching and refereeing as well as playing. At the moment I will not let them ref for girls/women or be the match day coach for older girls’ teams. This is because of the lack of clarity re insurance.

England Hockey provides insurance for players and officials so that they are not personally liable if someone is seriously injured (or, god forbid, killed) while playing. I have written to England Hockey several times to confirm that this insurance is still valid if a transwoman is playing, even if the players/officials consider it to be unsafe. I believe that, without specific confirmation, it would be possible for an insurance company to demonstrate that the activity was known to be more than usually unsafe in advance, and players/officials should not, therefore have continued. In this case, the players/officials involved could be personally liable for, perhaps, millions of pounds to care for the injured person/their dependents. Terrible for them, and for the injured player potentially left without the support they need.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have had no such confirmation from England Hockey. I appreciate the admin is boring, but it is there for everyone’s safety.

They have spoken out. They have made it clear they are unhappy. They could refuse to umpire female teams with TW on them but then the teams would just appoint someone from their own club who given that they are playing TW on their teams would be quite happy with it. It’s a mess! DH can speak up as he no longer umpires which makes it easier but the young umpires he looks after, they feel the pressure to beeee kind because that’s what the national hockey body is telling them to do.

In my experience schools and other organizations adopted these kinds of rules mainly under pressure from girls, and their parents, who wanted to play on boys teams, where there wasn't a girls team available.

Field hockey is a mainly female sport in North America. Ice hockey used to be mainly males, girls played ringette instead, which is a similar ice sport with a rubber ring instead of a puck, and the stick doesn't have a hook at the end. (Incidentally ringette is now almost dead.)

Some girls wanted hockey and agitated to be allowed on boys teams. Some coaches made the argument it wasn't safe, they were generally portrayed as sexists in the media.

Once you've accepted that it's safe to have a girl on the boys team, you can't really say that it's unsafe to have a boy on the girls team. But that wasn't where the pressure for these rules came from.

DH is involved with umpiring in hockey. Many of the The umpires aren’t happy about TW on women’s teams and unclear about what why should do.

Fucking wimps.

Time to speak out, I'd say.

Just acknowledge that men are stronger physically than women.
It's not rocket science!

At this point if they are on a womans team, knowing the controversy surrounding that, they are either looking to hang out in the changing rooms or, are competetive but useless, and so cheat.

Stop.

I played hockey all the way through school.

If you did then you know the power behind male teens/young adults is massive, and causes way more injury.

No matter what the variables between the women when the males come on it alters completely, and not in favour of the women.

This "loophole" for want of a better word was available in MA well before trans became the dominating issue it is today.

Yes, I can see that if it is accepted that this boy shouldn't be on the team because of disparate strength/danger to teammates etc. then someone later litigating the trans women/girls in sports could use the argument for their advantage. But if I were that girl's mother or the team's coach I'd be pushing for a repeal of the regulation without any reference to trans issues. That would be the last thing I would want to stir up in Massachusetts (although both high schools involved aren't in the most captured parts of the state). The boy on that team isn't the first or last to be on a girls team and there are probably examples the other way around too.

It’s both surely. You must see the connection and how it’s not as simple as saying boys can’t play in girls teams/ there can’t be mixed teams for these high impact sports to protect women and girls when that is now the same thing APPARENTLY according to the media and tras as saying trans people don’t exist and we want to wipe them out.

I would like to see lavender14s response to that chart. I’ve seen it before and I was shocked at the position of hockey in the scale of sex differences in sport.

This is not a trans issue. This is a high school sport regulation issue that is long overdue.

high school boys can play on girl's field hockey teams. Ditto I believe girls can play on boy's sports teams if the sport is not offered to girls. Boys field hockey teams are incredibly rare (if they exist) in the US. Most boys will play lacrosse instead. I don't think this is about male validation or anything other than a male student who wanted to play field hockey being allowed to under current regulations - with no care for the physical consequences for girls.

When my kids were in middle school there were one or two boys on the girls' field hockey teams (there was no boys field hockey team). They didn't impact because they were 12/13. I would not have been happy with a high school size boy on my daughter's high school field hockey team (although maybe they would have actually won a game ....)

I don't know if it's already been made clear, apologies if I'm repeating something, but the male who caused the injury isn't trans. I don't understand why but males can play on the girls teams if they want to. Bog standard lads, no ladybrains needed.

Are you confusing ice hockey and field hockey? Two completely different games.