Women’s hockey on rebound
By Rory Gilheany
Ottawa doesn’t have a team in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, but the return of the Clarkson Cup to the city earlier this month highlighted how far women’s hockey has come in recent years.
Montreal defeated Calgary in the championship game, earning the trophy — donated by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson — that’s emblematic of women’s professional hockey supremacy.
“Ottawa’s investment in the sport is definitely improving,” said Fred Barzyk, president of the Ottawa Girls Hockey Association.
“Having the Clarkson Cup in the city two years in a row is proof of that.”
Although the Ottawa Senators senior women’s team was dropped from the CWHL in 2010, the Clarkson Cup remains a reminder of the opportunities available to the city’s female hockey players, Barzyk said.
“These championships show girls in the OGHA that there’s a future in hockey beyond house league,” he said.
The OGHA, which was formed in 2000, offers dedicated girls’ hockey leagues across the city, with teams ranging from novice to intermediate.
According to Barzyk, the number of players in the OGHA has “increased by 40 per cent over the past six or seven years”.
“Community involvement has always been strong, but visibility for the sport is growing and our numbers really reflect this,” he said. “We just hope to build on this momentum and continue to prove what players in Ottawa are capable of achieving.”
The upcoming 2017-18 season will mark an important milestone for the OGHA: the Lady 67’s Intermediate AA team, established in 2015, will be playing in the Junior Women’s Hockey League for the first time. The JWHL is currently comprised of eight teams from across Canada and the U.S., and serves as one of the major gateways to the CWHL and the National Collegiate Athletic Association — NCAA — divisions.
“It’s a huge development for us because now we have a complete path from novice to the Clarkson Cup and beyond for girls in Ottawa who are passionate about playing women’s hockey,” said Barzyk.
However, the OGHA’s growth hasn’t been entirely smooth. Last year, the association calculated that girls’ hockey teams were allocated only 56 per cent of their requested ice time on city rinks, compared with 80 per cent given to boys’ teams. This forced the OGHA to pay more than $100,000 annually for private ice time at universities, the Richcraft Centre and the Bell Sensplex.
“There are definitely still growing pains, but for the most part the city seems to be in our corner,” Barzyk said.
Ottawa native Erica Howe, a goaltender for the CWHL’s Brampton Thunder, grew up playing boys’ hockey in Cumberland due to a lack of competitive girls’ teams in the city.
The 24-year-old said she is amazed by how much Ottawa’s girls’ and women’s hockey programs have improved in recent years.
“When I was growing up, the resources for girls’ hockey weren’t nearly as good as they are now,” Howe said. “It’s incredible to see how much it has grown whenever I come back.”
Howe said this growth, along with the presence of the Clarkson Cup, has renewed optimism that the CWHL will return to Ottawa in the future.
“I’m hopeful that Ottawa will get a CWHL team again one day,” she said. “The support is there and it would only make the league stronger.”
The city’s hunger for the Clarkson Cup has not gone unnoticed by the CWHL, said Sasky Stewart, director of communications and marketing for the league.
“We’ve had great success in Ottawa so far,” she said. “The city is definitely a target for the CWHL when it comes to thinking about expanding our reach beyond our current five teams.”
Whether or not the city gets a new women’s team in the future, Ottawa will continue to play an important role in the CWHL, Stewart said.
“These are the best women’s players in the world and a lot of that talent is coming up out of Ottawa.”