Sunday Evening 🥅T

In honour of the start of a new shinny season, here's a couple of  trailblazers in women's hockey. 

Back in 1956, little Abigail "Ab" Hoffman convinced her parents to let her go to tryouts for a hockey league, since the notice didn't specifically say it was for boys- it was assumed. No one noticed Ab was a girl until she was chosen for the all-star team and had to show her birth certificate to join. Needless to say she wasn't allowed to register for the next season. 

 

She switched to track, eventually competing in 800 m, the longest race open to women at the time. She won gold representing Canada in the PanAm games, and carried the flag at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. 

In the 1980s, Justine Blainey won a controversial case at the Supreme Court and Ontario Human Rights Commission that banned sex discrimination in sport. 

Headlines from the 80s. All kinds of things happening on this front page.

From an article in 2017.

Cassie Campbell-Pascall (Canadian Olympic gold medalist in women's hockey & sports broadcaster) just made a podcast about Justine's story for the BBC World Service series Amazing Sport Stories. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0grwr85 

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to play hockey, but except for some street hockey with a couple of my (boy) friends there was nowhere for me to play. This weekend, the city's outdoor rinks opened and women and girls can play hockey together (or with the guys) on every single one of them. Yay! 

Tl; dr 🏒 🥅 🙂

What did you get up to this weekend, BT?