Women’s Hockey Team, 1919

Women’s Hockey Team, 1919. Courtesy of Antigonish Heritage Museum. Restoration: Betty Cameron.

Excerpted from Stanley-Blackwell & MacLean (2004, p. 239):

There was a female team as early as 1900. By 1920 … two women’s teams were organized: the Ice Sickles and the Fleetfoot. … Antigonishers packed the rink to witness the Ice Sickles’s first game against a women’s team from new Glasgow. There was nothing effete about their playing which the Casket characterized as “fast and rough, with both teams working hard.” Zina Cameron, Theresa Sears, and Mary Hanrahan proved themselves worthy adversaries on the ice. The newspaper noted with ill-disguised partiality that Cameron was “a neat stick handler and a wicked shot,” while Cassie Cullen, a player on the opposing team was “somewhat weak as a shot and given to loafing offside.”