How the Caps can reach out to women

 Some of my high school girls' hockey team during a practice. I'm 7th from right.

As we all know, I'm on Twitter quite often. Earlier this evening, I saw a tweet from the Anaheim Ducks advertising a girls' hockey clinic in partnership with USA Hockey.

After I had a little rant Wednesday night about the still-controversial Scarlet Caps, the wheels started turning.

Why don't the Scarlet Caps take a page from the Ducks and host a hockey clinic?

I know that some women enjoy the Hockey 'N Heels event, and that's just fine, but personally, it's not for me. As someone who played hockey for my high school girls' team, I don't need to pay money to stand on a carpet in the middle of Kettler's ice having a current Capital teaching me how to shoot a puck. I already know how to shoot a puck. I did it several times a week in high school.

What Scarlet Caps needs to do is reach out to the women who already know how to play hockey, or even participate in local women's leagues. This is an area of the market that Scarlet Caps has missed out on while focusing on women who are just beginning to learn about hockey and want to learn the basics.

So why not host clinics for women and girls? I, for one, would enjoy that type of event. Sweeten the deal by having clinics led by Capitals/Bears coaches (players would be great but not necessary), and I'd be willing to shill out money to be learning from some of the best coaches in the world while actually playing the game on my skates and learning how to become a better player.

After I retweeted the link from Anaheim and brought up the idea of having women's and girls' clinics sponsored by the Capitals and Scarlet Caps, I got a lot of responses from women who thought it was a great idea. A selection of the responses appear below:

"That would be so much fun."

"Completely agree. A clinic for the girls, a clinic for the ladies who DO play, and one for the wannabes. There's some perspective."

"Get a bunch of people and email Ted about it."

Well, the last response is sort of what I'm doing by bringing attention to it. I think it would be a great outreach for the Capitals, and a smart way to market to women. The idea of a clinic treats women as equals, as opposed to the sort of mentality that says, "Here, put on some heels, and stand on this carpet in the middle of the ice while a man teaches you to shoot a puck into a net, because you wouldn't know how to do it otherwise." 

A women's hockey clinic would truly bring women into the action instead of sitting on the sidelines. It's an approach with which I hope the Capitals would agree.