Girls practise at McNabb Arena for an upcoming game.
Centretown’s McNabb Arena is a key hub for girls’ hockey in Ottawa and will see plenty of action in February during the third annual Capital Classic tournament.
In the wake of Olympic gold for the women’s national team earlier this year and this month’s induction of the first two female hockey players into the Hockey Hall of Fame, the girls’ minor house league hockey tournament is a symbol of the sport’s surging popularity among Canadian female players.
From Feb. 10 to 13, more than 60 teams and over 1,000 players from Ontario and Quebec will compete in what is expected to be the biggest Capital Classic yet.
McNabb Arena will remain one of the central venues for the tournament. It is located right across from the site where the Ottawa hockey club – a predecessor of the Ottawa Senators – won its first Stanley Cup in 1903.
Tournament co-chair Anne Turner says interest in girls’ minor hockey in Ottawa is growing.
Next year, the Ottawa Girls Hockey Association is considering adding a second tournament to accommodate competitive leagues.
Since 1998, the number of registered female hockey players has more than doubled, according to statistics provided by Hockey Canada.
With the induction of Cammi Granato and Angela James into the Hall of Fame, Hockey Canada projects even more growth.
“Women’s hockey has now moved into the same category as male sports,” says Dee Jenkins, director of the Women’s Hockey Club in Kanata.
Turner says the demand for minor hockey in Ottawa since last year’s tournament has increased significantly.
“It’s almost completely sold out – we’ve only got seven spots left (for teams). We were originally shooting for 60 but I think it’s going to be 62, maybe even 68 at this rate because it’s only November now,” she says.
“I think the Olympics last February also had an impact, for sure.”
But for women’s hockey, the Olympic flame may be cooling.
According to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, North American dominance could lead to the downfall of women’s hockey.
Leading up to their gold medal matchup, Canada and the United States outscored their opponents 86-4 during the 2010 Olympics.
Rogge says that if there isn’t improvement in the parity of the sport, it will be cut from the Olympics in the future.
For Jenkins, losing the Olympics could be most devastating for girls’ minor hockey.
“Removing women’s hockey from the Olympics doesn’t send a positive message, and if anything ,it’s going to bring us back about 25 years,” she says.
For now, the focus remains on being successful at the grassroots level of women’s hockey, and on young female hockey players such as 13-year-old Caitlin Leu, who competed in the 2010 Capital Classic last February.
Leu, a goaltender, recalls her favourite memory from the tournament.
“We ended up going to the finals and winning the championship, and that was really fun,” she says.
“I thought it was cool because there were so many people there just watching and playing in the tournament.”
Women's hockey is hardly new. It dates back to the 1890s when Lady Isobel Stanley, the daughter of Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston, could be seen playing shinny on the Rideau Hall rink in an ankle-length white dress.
This February, the girls playing in the Capital Classic women's hockey tournament will have a chance to write their own piece of women’s hockey history.