I love that they show that girls can be girls – purple nail polish and all – and still like to put on their skates, shoulder pads and helmets and skate FAST. I love that it talks about making friends through hockey. I love that it shows little girls doing hockey drills side by side with older girls.

Well done NHL!! This commercial is a great way to show girls that hockey is a fun, challenging and rewarding sport that everyone can play.

Hockey Hall of Fame's First Female Inductees - Angela James and Cammi Granato

Tomorrow the hallowed halls of the Hockey Hall of Fame will be graced by two amazing women, USA’s Cammi Granato and Canada’s Angela James, along side the “Great One” Wayne Gretsky and other hockey legends. How cool is that?

Angela and Cammi will be the first women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and the event will be televised tonight, Monday, November 8, 2010 at 7:30 pm on NHL Network US from the event in Toronto, Canada.

Cammi Granato grew up in a hockey family of 4 boys and 2 girls and is best known for her role as the Captain of the 1998 Gold Medal US Olympic Women’s Hockey Team. She was the first woman inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008 and is International Hockey’s ALL TIME leading scorer for women with 54 goals and 96 points in 54 games. Now she lives in Vancouver with her husband and 2 children and also serves as a spokesperson for LetsMove.gov, a non-profit organization headed up by First Lady Michelle Obama and aimed at health, fitness and nutrition education for youth.

Angela James has been referred to as the “Wayne Gretsky of Women’s Hockey” for her extraordinary contributions to the sport. She has even played every position in hockey – to include goalie!

Congratulations Ladies! You are an inspiration to so many!

Image: Picapp

Tonight’s game was good, clean hockey! Exciting, intense, heart pounding and close. The final score of 2-1 just reinforced how well matched these two teams really were. Congratulations really go out to both teams – but since this is a Pittsburgh sports loving house, we are so proud of those Penguins!!!

PS – Its not too late to order a Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup Champions t-shirt for your favorite Hockey Fan Dad!

The girls are great! They show off their girlieness by lacing their skates with pink laces, sporting powder pink hockey gloves and letting their long ponytails flow out of their helmets. But as soon as the whistle blows and the puck is dropped its GAME ON!

Girls from 7-18 play in the various house league levels and from day one they are taught its okay to mix it up with the boys. My son has been checked into the boards by a girl and has returned the favor, too. With all the padding and the proper technique, its just not a big deal to the girls or the boys.

When you watch their team play, you can see that the girls on the team play just as important of a role as the boys do. The kids don’t really seem to make a distinction between the two genders – they are just kids playing a game as far as they are concerned. I credit the coaches for much of the success in creating a solid co-ed team. They have never treated the girls like anything other than hockey players.

I am grateful to the girls who strap on their pink laced skates each week and mix it up with the boys. They are teaching the boys and themselves some very important life lessons each week.

I’ll post the parenting one shortly – be sure to check back in.

I found a fun video of a girl ice hockey goalie having fun with the crowd between periods by dancing along to the Cha-Cha Slide.

This is what sports is all about – having fun, staying fit, and playing hard!