Canada recently hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup (WWC) international soccer tournament (or in most countries of the world outside of North America – football. )

I had the luck to be able to attend Canada versus China and Japan versus England.  My wife saw Japan versus England with me and went to the Japan versus the Netherlands games with a group of friends.   The game she went to on her own was with a group of avid fans with drums, flags, uniform shirts, etc and I was a little wary of joining them.  I saw that game in the comfort of my media room at home.   All these games were fabulous entertainment.

Women’s sport’s both professional and amateur have grown to encompass much more than just tennis and golf and they have   come a long way from the 1970’s both in quality of the play and size of the audience.

Schools and community groups recognize the importance of offering a wide variety of athletic options for both sexes and the value of co-ed sports continues to be better understood and embraced as a valuable experience.

All our children were active in soccer from an young age and one of our daughters continues to play organized soccer as part of the Edmonton  district soccer associations (EDSA) women’s league both indoor and outdoor.  She is certainly is a more skilled player than I ever was (probably because of the coach).

I feel really lucky society was embracing and encouraging women to be as competitive as men, from the time our children were born.   This of course was not always the case and in the 1940s and 50s the focus for women was on the sports like tennis and figure skating and competitive professional sports for women was not broadly embraced ( and the audiences and remuneration for professionals was appreciably smaller).  Embracing sports of all type, competitive and amateur for all sexes has been a worldwide cultural change.

What’s good about it?

We were fortunate to be able to enroll our children in co-ed teams which helped to teach them (through experience) that both sexes bring strengths and weaknesses.   This is a life lesson in the value of cooperation and healthy competition and I am pretty sure our kid’s benefited from it, I know I did.

The bottom line!

My posts are usually triggered by something and that is also true in this case.

Our second oldest daughter regularly invites us to watch her EDSA women’s league matches and we go as often as we can – although the late matches are past my bedtime, so I need to take a pass on those.

Yesterday our daughter scored a goal off a penalty kick from center field.  Those of you who have played the game will recognize this is quite a feat (whatever sex).  I can’t even kick the ball from center to the goal let alone have it high enough in the air when it reaches the goal to go over the goalie’s outstretched hands.   Where is the video camera when you need it?