[Wamvan] 14-year-old girl's letter spurs changes to NHL game

[Natalie Hill]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/girl-wins-bid-to-play-virtual-self-in-ea-sports-nhl-12-video-game/article2161727/

 [image: Fouteen-year-old Lexi Peters penned a letter to EA Sports, who not
only agreed to create a female player, but made it in Lexi's likeness. -
Fouteen-year-old Lexi Peters penned a letter to EA Sports, who not only
agreed to create a female player, but made it in Lexi's likeness. | EA]
 Enlarge this image
 Sports and Gender Girl wins bid to play virtual self in EA Sports NHL 12
video game
 michelle simick  From Monday's Globe and Mail Published Sunday, Sep. 11,
2011 8:22PM EDT Last updated Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2011 10:38AM EDT

Starting this week, 14-year-old Lexi Peters will be stick handling past men
twice her size as she plays in the starting lineup for the Buffalo Sabres.
Or the Vancouver Canucks. Or any NHL team the 90-pound left-winger chooses.

Because when video game publisher Electronic Arts releases the latest
edition of its popular NHL series on Tuesday, Lexi will be the first female
in its virtual hockey roster.


<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/technology-video/video-lexi-peters-on-being-included-in-nhl-12/article2165554/?from=2161727>
Video  Lexi Peters on being included in NHL 12
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/technology-video/video-lexi-peters-on-being-included-in-nhl-12/article2165554/?from=2161727>

Hockey is attracting more female players, but when young skaters like Lexi
turned to the leading NHL video game, the custom player characters they
could build in the game came with many different looks – so long as they
were male.

“I asked my dad, ‘Why aren’t there girls in the NHL video game?’ And he
said, ‘I don’t know, write a letter.’ So, I did,” Lexi told the Globe and
Mail from her home in Buffalo, N.Y.

She sent a typewritten letter to the executives of one the largest video
game makers in the world, asking them to add women players.

She wrote: “It is unfair to women and girl hockey players around the world,
many of them who play and enjoy your game. I have created a character of
myself, except I have to be represented by a male and that’s not fun.”

For those who have never tried the game, players can choose everything from
their team and players to who controls the puck. They can also create
characters of their own, picking hair and eye colours and other details.
Those characters were all men.

“My younger brother got to create a character that looked just like him. I
had never been able to experience that,” says Lexi.

The 4 foot 11 teen has played hockey for four years. She and a teammate
spent hours creating a whole custom hockey team, modeling the players after
their own all-girls team, the Purple Eagles. The best they could do was give
the characters long “hockey” hair.

“We looked like men,” she says.

The first response she got back from Electronic Arts was disappointing. But
she figured at least she’d tried.

“I heard back a few weeks later and they told me it couldn’t happen because
it has to go through the NHL.”

What she didn’t know was that the president of EA Sports had forwarded her
letter to David Littman, the lead producer of the company’s NHL game. His
reaction was different.

“Lexi’s letter was a wake-up call,” Mr. Littman told the Globe and Mail.
“Here’s a growing audience playing our NHL game and we hadn’t done anything
to capture them.”

Mr. Littman then did some stick handling of his own: finding the budget to
build her into the game, as well as getting permission from the NHL and EA’s
legal department.

Then EA Sports gave Lexi the news. Not only were they adding a female
character option, but they wanted Lexi to play the part of the “default”
female player that gamers would then be able to customize.

“I was so excited,” says Lexi. “My dad called my grandpa immediately, who
called my Uncle Chris, like a chain reaction.”

Users can tailor the female character by changing hair, eye colour and the
name on the jersey if they want, just as with male players.

It is a sensible business move in a competitive video-game market that’s
worth an estimated $20-billion worldwide. But it also marks the progress of
female hockey players.

“It’s a big change and it’s exciting to see, because so many girls pay
hockey now,” said Manon Rhéaume, the only woman to ever play in the
real-world NHL.

Ms. Rhéaume was signed to the Tampa Bay Lightning as a goalie in 1992 and
played in two exhibition games. She now runs a foundation that offers
scholarships to young women in sports and promotes girls’ hockey.

“I think we’re at a place where women in hockey are more accepted. People
are putting more money into girls’ hockey and the growth we’re seeing in the
sport is mainly from girls, not boys.”

Hockey Canada, the national organization that oversees administration and
development of the sport, has numbers that back that up. In 1990, there were
about 5,000 women and girls playing the sport. Today, there are more than
100,000.

“The two gold medals in the past Olympics has been a huge factor,” says
Francis Dupont, communications officer with Hockey Canada. “There’s been a
lot more attention on women’s hockey media-wise in the past five to 10 years
and more coaches and programs to grow the sport.”

Of course, NHL purists can still play the video game as men. But Lexi is
hoping they give the women a chance. And that the boys at her school who
don’t take girls’ hockey seriously change their minds.

The big question now: how will she choose who to play as? Herself, or her
favourite NHL star, Alex Ovechkin?

“I’ll put us on the same team.”
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