Navigation: Introduction
Click to navigate to an Inductee
| Therese Brisson | Karyn Bye | Shirley Cameron | Cassie Campbell | Nancy Drolet | Danielle Goyette |
| Catherine “Cammi” Granato | Geraldine Heaney | Abby Hoffman | Marianne Ihalainen | Angela James | Katie King |
| Sari Krooks | Dave McMaster | Shannon Miller | Tuula Puputti | Hilda Ranscombe | Manon Rheaume | Tiia Reima |
| Fran Rider | Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld | Ben Smith | France St. Louis | Lady Isobel Constance Mary Stanley |
| Vicky Sunohara | Krissy Wendell |
Inductees
b. Montreal, Quebec, October 5, 1966
A veteran of eight Olympics/World Women's Championships, Brisson won gold at every tournament except the 1988 Olympics when Canada won silver. A graduate of Concordia University in kinesiology, she later taught at the University of New Brunswick before she began her national team career. She first represented Canada at an IIHF event in 1994, at the WWC, winning gold. The defenceman later captained the team for three tournaments, starting with the 1999 WWC and continuing through 2001.
b. River Falls, Wisconsin, May 18, 1971
By the time she retired in 2002 after her second Olympics, Bye was surely considered one of the most talented women players to have appeared in a national team sweater for Team USA. She was part of the historic team that won gold at the inaugural Olympics in Nagano in 1998 and won a silver medal in 2002 as well as six silver in WWC events. Bye was a goal scorer, averaging nearly a goal a game over her ten-year career (35 goals in 41 games). She led all players with eight goals at the 2000 WWC and finished with 65 career points, testament both to her skill around the net as well as passing ability. In 1994 she was named to the all-star team as a forward and in 2001 she was named Best Defenceman by the IIHF Directorate.
b. Bonnyville, Alberta, December 8, 1952
One of the cornerstone's of women's hockey for more than 20 years, Cameron began her career thanks only to a radio ad. As a farm girl, she played hockey as a child with her brothers and their friends on a nearby pond, and when she moved to Edmonton later in life she heard an ad on the radio requesting girls for a hockey team. She answered the petition and the Edmonton Chimos were born. Cameron played for and captained the Chimos from 1974 to 1992 during which time the team won the provincial senior women's championships for 13 years and won a medal at all 19 national championships, including three gold medals. Cameron was voted the league's most valuable player four times and in 1987 and 1990 she played for Team Canada at the World Championships, winning gold both times. That 1990 tournament might well have been the pinnacle of her career. She was 37 at the time, and for the first time ever women's hockey was playing an IIHF-sanctioned world championship. It was Cameron's last great moment, and Canada's first great one on the international stage. When she retired as a player the team retired her sweater as well. She stayed with the team for the next three years as its head coach and later returned to coach early in the 21 st century. In 1999, the Cameron Cup Women's Hockey Super Series was established. It featured ten exhibition games between the Chimos and the Calgary Oval X-Treme played over five weekends in smaller centres across Alberta. The intent was to spread the women's game while also providing the two top women's teams in the province the chance to play each other frequently. Calgary won the first three Cameron Cup events with players such as Hayley Wickenheiser, Danielle Goyette, and Cassie Campbell leading the way.
Cassie Campbell
PLAYER
b. Richmond Hill, Ontario, November 22, 1973
Cassie Campbell was not only one of the finest players in Team Canada history, she was also the face of the sport in its early years when promoting the sport off ice was as important as scoring goals and winning games on it. Attractive and personable, she was almost always the first request for reporters after games, at banquets, press conferences, and other events, trying to move women's hockey into the mainstream of sports in Canada. Campbell began with the National Team in 1994 as a defenceman, although she later moved up to forward where she was able to play effectively through the 2006 Olympics. She was named to the all-star team in 1997 as a blueliner. Campbell was named captain prior to the 2002 Olympics and led Canada to two straight Olympics gold medals before retiring. She also won six gold medals and one silver medal at the World Women's Championship and also has an Olympic silver medal from 1988. She soon moved into a journalist's role with Hockey Night in Canada and continues to work hard to promote women's hockey. In 2007, Campbell became the first female hockey player inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
b. Drummondville, Quebec, August 2, 1973
One of the top scorers of her era, Nancy Drolet played for Team Canada for ten years (1992-2001). In six World Women's Championships and one Olympics (1988), she recorded 44 points in 36 games and has the distinction of being the only player in World Championship history—male or female—to score two overtime goals to win gold. Drolet's first heroics came at the 1997 WWC when her OT winner defeated the United States, and three years later she repeated the feat.
b. Ste. Nazaire, Quebec, January 30, 1966
A late bloomer, Goyette didn't make her debut with the National Team until 1992 when she was 26 years old. Incredibly, she played her last game in 2007 at age 41. The ageless wonder was consistently one of the top goal scorers at every major tournament in which she played, reaching double digits four times in 12 tournaments. She led all scorers with eight goals at the 1988 Olympics, and over the course of her career she won two gold and one silver at the Olympics as well as eight gold and a silver at the WWC. Goyette was named to the all-star team as a forward in 1994. A leader and inspiration to her teammates, the ageless wonder played with a tenacity around the net that was second to none.
Catherine “Cammi” Granato
PLAYER
b. Downers Grove, Illinois, March 25, 1971
During her prime, Cammi Granato was considered the best American player in history and arguably the best player in the world, a distinction rivaled only by Canada's Hayley Wickenheiser. From 1990 to 2005, Granato represented USA at eleven World Championships and Olympics, winning silver every year except a gold at the 1998 Olympics and a second gold at the 2005 World Championships. She was a shocking cut from the 2006 Olympic team by coach Ben Smith, and USA went on to win only a bronze medal, its worst result in women's competition. Granato retired as the all-time leader in goals (54 in 54 games) and points (96), true testament to her qualities as an offensive threat of the highest order.
b. County Armagh, Northern Ireland, October 1, 1967
A representative for Team Canada at the first nine IIHF events (1990-2002), Heaney was one of three women inducted by the IIHF at its 2008 hall of fame ceremonies in Quebec City (along with teammate Angela James and American forward Cammi Granato). Heaney started playing serious hockey at age 12, with the Toronto Aeros, and continued to play until the IIHF made women's hockey an official event, in 1990, in Ottawa. She had played at the unofficial world championship in 1987, in Toronto. Heaney twice was named Best Defenceman by the IIHF Directorate, in 1992 and '94, and she also won gold for Canada at the 1992 World Roller Hockey Championship.
b. February 11, 1947
The alpha and omega of Hoffman's hockey career came in 1955 when she was just a slight, eight-year-old girl. That year, she shortened her feminine name Abigail to the masculine Ab—and shortened her hair from girl-length tresses to boy-length crew cut--and enrolled in the Toronto Hockey League, a boys' league. She proved to be one of the stars on her team and in the league, but she kept secret her gender until she played for the league's all-star team and players had to submit birth certificates for participation. The news of this girl playing in the league made headlines across the country, but at the end of the year she was forced to play for a girls' team. Hoffman quit hockey and devoted herself to track and field, becoming an Olympian for Canada. In 1982, the inaugural national women's championship was played, the winner receiving the Abby Hoffman Trophy.
b. Tampere, Finland, February 22, 1967
Ihalainen is considered the first women hockey player in the history of Finnish hockey. She played for the Ilves women's team from 1982 until her retirement in 2001 during which time she scored 320 goals in 323 regular-season games. During her 19 seasons, Ilves won eight women's championships. In international hockey, Ihalainen had no compare in Finland. She captained the team to an historic bronze medal at the 1998 Olympics, the first time women's hockey was competed for under the IOC, and she also led her team to five bronze medals at the World Women's Championships during the years when Canada won every gold and USA every silver. In all, she played 116 games for the national team. Her number 16 was retired by the Ilves club team in a special ceremony prior to the Canada-Finland game at the 2001 Three Nations Cup tournament in Tampere on November 4.
b. Toronto, Ontario, December 22, 1964
Angela James grew up in Toronto, playing hockey with boys aged eight to ten. Her desire to mix with boys, however, was unpopular by opponents and parents alike, so James joined Annunciation, a girls' team that eventually became the North York Aeros.
James played for a number of teams after this: two years with the Toronto Islanders, followed by teams in Burlington, Agincourt, Brampton, and Mississauga before landing with the Toronto Aeros for three years. She both played and officiated during her two years at Seneca College (1983-85), having been an accredited referee since 1980. James made her mark playing in the Central Ontario Women's Hockey League (COWHL), a league which sent some eight players on to the national team. She was the league MVP six times in seven years (1989-96). It was during these years that women's hockey became an international concern as well, and James played for Team Canada at the first four world championships—1990, 1992, 1994, and 1997. Canada won gold each time, and James led all players with eleven goals in 1990. In 1994, she was named Best Forward in the tournament. Hers was a unique style among women. She was, as could best be described, a power forward. She was a good skater and puckhandler, but she used her physical skills far better than other women even on her own team. Controversy erupted in Team Canada's camp in the final stages of preparation for the 1998 Olympics, the inaugural appearance by the women at the Olympics. James was cut from the team in mid-December 1997 by coach Shannon Miller, a decision that left the player furious. She appealed the move, but Canada went to Nagano without her and lost the gold-medal game to USA. James continued to play until January 2001 when she retired from playing competitively.
b. Salem, New Hampshire, May 24, 1975
In ten years and nine IIHF events, King managed to help lead Team USA to gold at both the Olympics (1998) and World Women's Championship (2005). An offensive threat whenever she had the puck, she won silver in all other years she played except 2006 when the team won bronze at Turin. King retired after these Olympics, her third. She had started with Team USA in 1997.
b. Vaasa, Finland, February 2, 1968
The most dominant offensive force in Finnish hockey, Krooks was also a ground-breaker for European women. She played for the national team between 1990 and 1999, winning a bronze medal each year. But, as significant, she moved to Canada to play in the NWHL to try to improve her game, one of the pioneers from Europe in this regard. Krooks averaged better than a point a game during her career (32 points in 30 games), including a career best three goals and seven assists at the 1994 WWC. In 2009, she became only the third woman inducted into Finland's hockey hall of fame. The others are Marianne Ihalainen and Riikka Nieminen (Valila).
b. 1940
d. Toronto, Ontario, February 2, 2003
As a coach, McMaster was a pioneer and leader for women's hockey, one of the first men to realize the quality of play, the skill of players, and the importance of the game to Canadian culture. He coached the University of Toronto women's team for two years, 1967-69, and later for another 18 years, 1975-1993, during which time the Lady Blues won 14 provincial championships. He also coached the national team at the first unofficial world women's championship in Toronto in 1987 and again in Ottawa in 1990 at the first official IIHF tournament. Canada won gold both times. Beyond his success on ice, McMaster spent countless hours, days, and years promoting the game across the country and allowing young girls to believe they could take the game to a serious level. Without his efforts to give the game visibility and credibility, women's hockey might never have become an Olympic sport, as it did for 1998.
b. Melfort, Saskatchewan, 1963
As a girl, Miller played football with the boys on a school team coached by her father. As a teen, she was a runner for the track team. At 17, she left home to attend the University of Saskatchewan to begin training for life and for hockey. She both coached and played for the university's women's hockey team and later played for the Saskies. In 1988, she almost single-handedly put together Calgary's only girls' peewee hockey team, a labour of love that took nearly two years of her time. She had become a police officer with the city's force, but spent her every free moment going to hockey schools, immersing herself in the game, and doing everything she could to enhance her knowledge of the game. In 1990, the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association sent her to the 1990 World Women's Championships to understand the tournament, and it was at this time she experienced an epiphany of sorts, knowing she wanted to coach Team Canada one day. A year later, Miller was assistant coach for Alberta, the team that won gold at the Canada Winter Games, and a year later she was again assistant with Team Canada's women for the 1992 World Women's Championship. She retained that position two years later, and in 1995 she became the first woman to be named head coach of Canada's national women's team. Miller remained head coach through the 1998 Olympics, winning the 1997 World Championship and then placing second to USA in Nagano in 1998. After leaving her position in Hockey Canada's hierarchy, Miller was hired by the University of Minnesota-Duluth to coach starting in the fall of 1999. She guided the university to three successive NCAA championships (2000-03).
b. Kuopio, Finland, November 5, 1977
The outstanding Finnish goalie who propelled the team to four straight bronze medals (1997-2000), Puputti established herself as one of the world's best goalies at the 1998 Olympics. She had a 3-0-1 record and 1.55 goals-against average, and was one of the stars in the bronze-medal medal showdown against Sweden. Puputti also played in four World Women's Championships, recording three shutouts in 24 Olympics/WWC games.
Hilda Ranscombe
PIONEER PLAYER
b. September 11, 1913
d. Cambridge, Ontario, August 25, 1998
Some would say she was the Wayne Gretzky of women's hockey. Others would say she could have played pro if she were not a woman. Today, we can see her as the Howie Morenz of the women's game. There is no footage of her playing, but to all reports she dazzled with her stickhandling and was in a class of her own as a skater. Everyone said she was the class of the game. Hilda Ranscombe was a star of the Preston Rivulettes, the most dominant team in the world in the 1930s. Hilda could skate and score; she was a team leader; and, yes, she could also take and dish out a hit when need be. Ranscombe helped give the Rivulettes credibility and ability when the team was formed in 1930. It had been a baseball team in the summer, but the players yearned for something to do in the winter and so decided to form a hockey team. Hilda's sister, Nellie, a catcher in the summer, became the hockey goalie, but it was Hilda who attracted the crowds to games in every major city in the country. The team practiced and played its home games in Galt, one of three towns that formed a small triangle of urban life in southern Ontario in the 1940s (with Preston and Hespeler). Almost up until the day she died Ranscombe could be seen at the Preston Arena, in her playing days with the Rivs and later as a fan of the game. It was in large part because of her skills that the 1936 Dominion (national) championship was played at the Montreal Forum, the most prestigious match in women's hockey to date. The Rivulettes won all ten Ontario championships in which they competed and won every Dominion Women's Hockey Championship with the exception of 1933 when they were beaten by the Edmonton Rustlers in Alberta after a grueling train ride left them short-handed and sickly. The two games they lost against the Rustlers were the team's only losses in ten years of play. In 1997, the Rivulettes were inducted into the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame, and in an extraordinary gesture that hall also inducted Ranscombe as an individual player, such was her reputation. In 1999, Ranscombe was named the female athlete of the 20 th century by the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame.
b. Lac Beauport, Quebec, February 25, 1974
Manon Rheaume was hockey's first all-world superstar and the first woman to compile professional statistics from men's league play. In fact, for most of her career outside Team Canada, she played with the boys. On November 26, 1991, Rheaume made history when she became the first women to play in a major junior hockey game, in Quebec with the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. She played 17:04 between the second and third periods, taking over from 16-year-old Jocelyn Thibault. She faced allowed three goals on nine shots and was forced out of the game after getting hit on the head and requiring three stitches to close the cut. Her biggest accomplishment came during training camp in September 1992 when Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Phil Esposito signed the 20-year-old Rheaume to play in an exhibition game. Earlier in the year she had backstopped the Canadian women's team to another gold medal at the World Women's Championship, and over the summer the Ottawa Senators indicated an interest in signing her. On the night of September 23, 1992, she became the first and only woman to play in the NHL (albeit exhibition). Wearing number 33, she allowed two goals on nine first-period shots against St. Louis. The two scorers for the Blues were Jeff Brown and Brendan Shanahan. After that debut, Esposito signed her to a three-year, $105,000, minor-league contract to play for the Lightning's farm team, the Atlanta Knights of the IHL. On December 13, 1992, she played in her first regular season pro game, another first for women. She played 5:49 and allowed one goal. On April 10, 1993, she broke through the final frontier when she started the team's game against Cincinnati. In 1994, back with the women, she again led Canada to gold at the World Championship and four years later she was part of Canada's historic Olympic team that won a silver medal. Rheaume also played briefly for Knoxville, Nashville, and Tallahassee in the ECHL and Reno in the WCHL. In fact, although she played only a few pro games over the years she was the only women to treat men's pro leagues as her first priority. She also played several games with men's roller hockey teams in an effort to improve her quickness. She took a year off in 1998 when she and her husband, in-line hockey player Gerry St. Cyr, decided to start a family. She never returned to serious hockey after that, but by that time she had left her mark and made her point.
b. Tampere, Finland, February 1, 1973
The top offensive star for Finland over a 15-year period, Reima played in eight IIHF events for her country, winning six bronze medals in a row (1990-99). She recorded 40 points in 39 career games, including seven goals at the 1994 WWC. Reima retired twice during her career, missing the 2000 and '01 WC and the 2004 WWC as well. Nevertheless, her skills with the puck make her the best forward Suomi's women have yet produced.
b. Toronto, Ontario
Rider didn't start playing organized hockey until she was 16 but without any hockey infrastructure to the women's game she could hardly dream of playing for Olympic gold one day. In 1977, she became the Toronto representative for the Ontario Women's Hockey Association, a group that had started only two years earlier. The following year she began her tenure as organizer of the Dominion Ladies Hockey Tournament in Brampton, an event she ran for the next decade and at the time the most important women's tournament in the country. Rider became an even more influential person in 1982 when she was named OWHA president. Over the next eleven years, it was her persistence and determination that contributed greatly to women's hockey developing so quickly at the national level and, in turn, starting an international world championship. Rider organized the unofficial world championship in 1987 which in many ways was the single most important moment in growing women's hockey at the international level. It was out of the success of this tournament that the IIHF sanctioned an official world championship in 1990, and that continued success led to women's hockey becoming a full Olympic event in 1998. In 1992, Rider was given the Golden Stick, an award given by the OHA. She was the first woman in 45 years to be so honoured. Two years later, she received the Order of Merit from the CHA for her continued efforts in women's hockey. Today, the runner-up at the Senior Women's National Championships receives the Fran Rider Cup. Rider was also inducted into the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame in 2001.
Fanny “Bobbie” Rosenfeld
PIONEER PLAYER
b. Dneipropetrovsk, Russia, December 28, 1904
d. Toronto, Ontario, November 14, 1969
It was widely regarded that Rosenfeld was not only the best hockey player but the best all-‘round female athlete in the 1920s. She was a star in basketball, softball, and a variety of track and field events and as such was regarded as the greatest woman athlete in the world. Rosenfeld teamed with Ethel Smith, Myrtle Cook, and Jane Bell to win a gold medal in the 4 x 100m relay at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. She also took a silver medal in the 100m race and placed fifth in the 800m, earning more points for Canada at these Olympics than any other athlete. Of course, she played hockey with the Pats Athletic Club and was the best player in the league. The only thing to slow Rosenfeld down was arthritis. In 1929, she was so incapacitated by the trouble that she remained virtually inactive for eight months and was forced to rely on crutches to get around for another year after that. Nonetheless, she made an amazing recovery, and in 1932 she was named the top hockey player in Ontario once again for her play with her beloved Toronto Pats, named after the Patterson Chocolate Factory, her longtime employer. A year later, the arthritis returned and Rosenfeld retired from competitive sports altogether. In 1937, she accepted a job as a sports journalist for the Toronto Globe and for the next 20 years she continued to contribute to women's sports through her “Sports Reel” columns, covering women's hockey, notably the achievements of the Preston Rivulettes and other events with the same fervour she brought to competition as an athlete. She also became the president of the Ladies Ontario Hockey association. In 1949, Rosenfeld was named Canada's female athlete of the first half of the 20 th century by the country's sportswriters.
b. Gloucester, Massachusetts,
As Scotty Bowman was to the NHL, so Ben Smith was to women's hockey. He was head coach for the United States from 1997 to 2006, and although his career ended after a bitterly disappointing bronze medal at Turin, he left the game with gold at both the Olympics (in 1998) and World Women's Championship (2005). His combined 46 games coached at IIHF events remains a record, and his stabilizing influence and patience were trademarks that allowed players to mature to their full potential under his tutelage. Only once in his nine years did his team lose to a team other than Canada, that to Sweden in the semi-finals in Turin.
b. Laval, Quebec, October 17, 1958
St. Louis came to hockey late in her athletic life, becoming an exceptional player only after giving up lacrosse, a sport for which she was famous. Before she became serious about hockey, though, she was a teacher for some 12 years at high school and below. St. Louis was named Quebec's top athlete of the decade for the 1980s for her skill as a lacrosse player, but then she focused on hockey. In all, she represented Canada six times in premier international competition, winning five gold medals at the World Championships (1990, '92, '94, '97, '99) and one silver at the 1998 Olympics. She retired at the age of 40 having captained Team Canada twice (1992, '94).
Lady Isobel Constance Mary Stanley
PIONEER BUILDER
b. September 2, 1875
d. December 30, 1963
One of Lord Stanley's ten children, Lady Isobel had a profound effect on women's hockey through her support of the game in the same way her father did. Isobel, of course, lived at Rideau Hall, where her father presided as Canada's governor-general from 1888 to 1893. She embraced the outdoor game and picked up stick and laced on skates to join in the hockey fun with a government house team as early as 1889. In 1891, the Rideau ladies played in the first documented hockey game, the participation of which was aided by the publication of a photograph of Lady Isobel taking part in the hockey fun.
b. Scarborough (Toronto), Ontario, May 18, 1970
A member of eleven Olympics/World Women's Championships over a 17-year period (1990-2007), Sunohara was an ever-present scoring threat and offensive power for Team Canada. She won gold in all events save the '98 Olympics and 2005 WWC, starting in 1990 at the inaugural IIHF tournament. Sunohara was not on the team in '92 and '94, but she resumed her career with the National Team starting in 1997. She attended Northeastern University (in Boston) and later the University of Toronto. Additionally, she has had a tremendous and lengthy career in the NWHL, most notably with the Brampton Thunder.
b. Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, September 12, 1981
Wendell bust into the United States lineup in 1999 as a 17-year-old and quickly became one of the team's best offensive players, recording six points in five games and leading the team to a silver medal at the WWC. She led all scorers with 13 and 12 points, respectively, at the next two WWC in 2000 and '01, and by the time she retired in 2007 she had 69 points in 39 IIHF games. She was a member of the historic team of 2005 that beat Canada in a shootout to win its first ever gold at the WWC, and she won five silver medals at this tournament as well. Wendell was named to the all-star team as a forward in 2005 and '07.
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