FRENCH CHALLENGES IN WOMEN ICE HOCKEY. Coaching Symposium 2011

Transcription

1 FRENCH CHALLENGES IN WOMEN ICE HOCKEY Coaching Symposium 2011

2 INTRODUCTION France is a country where sport is a men s activity. Is this legacy of Baron Pierre de Coubertin? A female olympiad would be impractical, uninteresting, unesthetic and incorrect [...] The Olympic games must be reserved for men, the role of women should be by all means to crown the winners.» Speech in Olympic Games, Stockholm 1912 «The important is to participate.» 2

3 INTRODUCTION We can ask ourselves what is the role of sport in France: - The place of competition in France (success culture, especially in team sports?) - Sport at school is not in our culture - The Women in sport (3 women out of 4 are doing sport regulary, 4 men out of 5 in France INSEE 2003) What about the place of ice hockey in French sport? 3

4 INTRODUCTION We have to overcome a double challenge: playing ice hockey in France, and being a woman who plays ice hockey For this, we have to change the image of our sport: - Aknowlegment among ice hockey family: we have to show that women can play good hockey - Break the image of a violent sport, which is not acceptable in the mind of most French people: a women s sport is not violent 4

5 s CHALLENGE: ACCESS TO PRACTICE : The beggining of French Women Championship (>50 years to establish it) 1984: Court (A girl approached the court State Concil, to be allowed to practice hockey with kids of her age) Until 2000 s, despite this court decision, it is still difficult to practice hockey with boys, especially in the big clubs. The best and sometimes the only way is to have a women s team in the club. - IIHF (end of 1980 s): European and World Championships =>1989 : 1st Team France - 1st competition for the National Team 5

6 s CHALLENGE : INCREASE THE LEVEL Overcoming challenge: change the bylaws -Medical study: no morphological differences between boys and girls before 12 years old girls can play with boys until Underage : the gilrs U15 can play in boys U13 championship - Women s senior teams: 14 years old and older => All girls or women can play ice hockey (practices and games, with boys or in women s teams) : New Sport Ministry (MG Buffet) : new politic for women s sport in France - 6

7 s CHALLENGE : INCREASE THE LEVEL 1998: creation of women s Committee at the French Federation 1998: Women s Ice Hockey at Olympic Games (Nagano): => Women s Ice hockey becomes a High Performance Sport in France in 1995 Athletes (subsidies) Budgets (for women s National team and women s development programs) 7

8 s CHALLENGE: DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURING AMONG FRENCH FEDERATION 2001: full time job for women s hockey + Women s committee = conclusions + new projects 1/ after 14 years old, no possibility to play with boys anymore and there aren t women s teams in each club: => New changes in the bylaws Mix boys and girls (women and men) in all categories Underage : a girl can play at her level «licence bleue»: a girl can play for a club with boys, and for another one with women. 8

9 s CHALLENGE: DEVELOPMENT 2/Young girl alone in her club or/and with a minor role in her boy s team: hard to keep her in ice hockey after Development camps every season for girls U15- U13-U11 (2 weeks) Regional camps for U18 and U15 (3 week-ends with 1 pratice and 1 game against a boys team) 3/ Program for the future best players (high performance program) 2002 : Creation of National U18 Team IIHF : WWU (2006: qualifications) e 9

10 s CHALLENGE: DEVELOPMENT 4/ Reinforcement of means on high performance program: Budget (more training camps and international games for Senior and U18 teams) 2008: women National Center «Pôle France» (5 years of hard work) Reinforcement of staff around national teams and around the Women National Center. 10

11 : NEW PROJECTS NEW CHALLENGES 1/ The best challenge: increase the number of players To propose to all girls and women the practice they want (competition, recreative ) 2009: 978 players (1489 girls or women, players or coach or referee or manager ) march 2011: 1205 players (total: 1738) = increase of 23% in 2 years Before the new Girls Hockey Days program (3 GHD in ) 11

12 : NEW PROJECTS NEW CHALLENGES increase the number of women s teams in national championship Build regional U18 teams to establish a junior championship in a few years 2/ Keep our best players in the National Team: Work on employability of our athletes Private Companies encouraging sport, State divices that exist for athletes 3/ Specific coaches for all camps of the National Teams (Goalie coach, video coach ) 12

13 : NEW PROJECTS NEW CHALLENGES 2011: New Sport Politic in France (for all sports) - The Ministry of Sports set up a new device for the best young athletes, in the high performance system. The clubs can obtain subsidies if they follow the «technical specification» of their federation. FFHG has to require the clubs to take care of women s development (especially recruitment) in their new projects. The clubs will get more money if they work on women s hockey. 13

14 : NEW PROJECTS NEW CHALLENGES 4/ Change the image of ice hockey: Promote our sport (in general: on TV, organizing big events ) Promote Women National Team 5/ Need results: A lot of money and people on women s hockey (compared with the number of players) To sell women s hockey, and be more attractive 14

15 : LAST BUT NOT LEAST CHALLENGE 15

16 CONCLUSION - The evolution of French society, world competitions in Ice Hockey (worlds and Olympics), Politic for women s sport, and some individual actions made big changes for women s ice hockey in France in the last 30 years. - If these advances have been fast and sometimes incredible, our history is very short, and for us the biggest challenge is the next one 16

17 FRENCH CHALLENGES IN WOMEN ICE HOCKEY Coaching Symposium 2011