Given the impressive growth of women’s ice hockey, some people might have the false impression that the sport was a male preserve until quite recently. The women in this photo from our archives, dated March 9, 1940, prove otherwise.
Their attire is a far cry from what is worn today. The lack of helmets and pads is striking, never mind the skirts.
It’s not clear whether the face-off shown was part of a game; it may have merely been taken at a practice. The women represented Royal Victoria College of McGill University. Wearing No. 8 and acting as referee is Jean Buchanan, who was also the team’s coach. Facing off are Freda Wales and Margie Copping. The woman in the background is not named. While the history of women’s hockey at McGill dates to the 1890s, in 1940 the university was not part of any women’s inter-university competitive league. However the page of the 1940 Old McGill yearbook devoted to the team refers to anticipated games against Bishop’s and Queen’s as well as to one against a McGill intramural men’s team, of engineering students. (A report in the McGill Daily had said the plan for that game was to trade goalies.)
Now, of course, McGill and most if not all Canadian universities have women’s hockey teams that play in organized leagues. Women’s hockey has been an Olympic sport since 1998. Montreal has a professional women’s hockey team, Les Canadiennes. And girls beginning their hockey careers need not play on boys’ teams; girls’ leagues are now common.
For the 2017-18 season, there were 83,711 female amateur hockey players in Canada registered with teams affiliated with Hockey Canada. That was up from 69,557 in 2005-06 — and 11,341 in 1991-92.
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