This topic comes up pretty frequently and I always find the points you list to be solid. If a girl (or boy) wants to play a sport all they need to do is play the sport as well as those currently competing at the highest level. There are quite a few small fellows playing in the NHL that are probably smaller than the largest of ladies playing in the Olympics. They do just fine, fighting and all.

The trouble with women's ice hockey, as I see it, falls to the fact that they are not playing the same sport. There is no checking allowed (although physical contact is allowed) which, as a hockey spectator, changes the game dramatically. Your thought process learning and playing the game is different because your options are different given your gender. And of course, fighting isn't even an option.

How would you recondition your mind for this? I imagine the NFL has trouble with this transitioning from safe practices to open tackle games, but at least in American rules Football you grew up hitting and being hit all the time. The rules for female NCAA hockey do not allow for this facet of the sport which I think would be a huge issue because they would lack the immediate instinct to know when to check and lack the countless years of practice in checking.

I have faith they all understand checking and how to use it, but it is not a conditioned response to the level that all NHLers are almost all actively aware of who is going to hit them next. The best part is that women tend to have lower centers of gravity than man so they should actually be better at taking and giving checks with their balance closer to their hips than most men. Yet female defenders don't first think, 'Well, let me just up end this forwarded and the puck is mine.' That thought process isn't in their game kit because an open ice hit is sure to draw a penatly.

I think the argument does not need to mention the time spent developing the sport because it slightly undermines your case. If you spent 10 hours a day Monday-Friday from the age of 4 to 18 I guarantee you could make money playing professional hockey somewhere in the world, probably the NHL. When you read up on all the hockey greats, they have 'talent' but they also invested HUGE amounts of time in their sport growing up.

Raw talent ( which I take to mean amazing genetics for muscle development and/or body size ) really only comes into play if you want to break human achievement records. You'll never be as fast as Usian Bolt because that contest is almost purely won when you leave the womb. Ice hockey, like most sports, requires skills outside of physical strength and size. Even if given an excellent tool (your body) you must learn to control it properly or it is wasted.