Today, women’s ice hockey legends such as Hayley Wickenheiser, Cassie Campbell and Cammi Granato are well known even to casual hockey fans. But there was a time when the stars of women’s hockey toiled in virtual obscurity.
A century ago, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, the sport of women’s ice hockey was far different from today.
Today, women’s ice hockey games are often broadcast on national television networks. But, a century ago many women’s hockey matches were played behind locked arena doors.
Although there is evidence that some games were open to the public in other circles this was not the case. Hockey fans were often barred from the games, with only the husbands and fathers of the hockey players allowed to witness the action on the ice.
Teams had to travel under the supervision of chaperones. If news of women traveling un-chaperoned to a hockey game became public knowledge, it was viewed as nothing less than scandalous.
In the early days of women’s ice hockey, the sport did not receive a lot of positive support in the sports pages of the newspapers. One reporter in the Toronto News, penned the following poem about women playing hockey:
When girls play hockey they can take
Some very fearsome blows
With unconcern they will receive
A “smash” on the nose.
But if, while washing dishes, one
Should cut her dainty hand
She screams and faints. The cause of it.
We cannot understand.
The date of this poem is unknown, but it was reprinted in a 1907 edition of the Chesley Enterprise.
Despite the skepticism of sports reporters and the public in general, women ice hockey slowly continued to quietly exist until the latter quarter of the twentieth century, when it began to take a more prominent role on the sports pages and television broadcasts.
Although women’s hockey skated below the radar of public perception for many decades, there were brief break-a-ways from the stifling clock of anonymity that surrounded women in ice hockey. One of these moments occurred in 1951.
Every spring for decades the Lake Huron port community of Goderich hosts the Young Canada Pee Wee Hockey Tournament. This event featured young boys from across Canada and United States battling for the prestigious title of Champion of the Goderich Young Canada Pee Wee Hockey Tournament. That is until 1951.
That spring the tournament welcomed its first female competitor. Twelve-year old Betty Lou McIntosh was the goalie for a boys Pee Wee team from Teeswater, Ontario.
From all accounts, the young goalie played very well. Although her team did not win the championship, McIntosh provided some dramatic moments in a game against a team from Zurich, Ontario.
At the end of regulation time, the score was knotted at three goals apiece. For twenty-four minutes and thirty-six seconds she stopped everything that the Zurich snipers fired in her direction. Then, her teammates ended the drama with a goal giving the Teeswater fans a lot to cheer about.
The sport of women’s ice hockey has experienced a lot of bumps in the road to acceptance. But thanks to superstars like Hayley Wickenheiser, Cassie Campbell and Cammi Granato and the women who played decades before, the game now shares a prominent position in the world of sports.
