Edmonton's Women Were First

I know the Hockey Hall of Fame isn't very welcoming to women when it comes to the number of women who have been inducted. You can make the same case for European players who seemingly are kept out unless they've had a long and prosperous NHL career. The team above, though, should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame for what they did to establish women's hockey in this country, and there likely should be a number of the players who made up the team above getting their own plaque in the hallowed institution as well.

Recency bias will say that players like Florence Schelling, Fran Rider, Julie Chu, and Meghan Duggan all should get considerable discussion for all they've done to not only excel in the game, but for growing and continuing to contribute to the game. That being said, I've mentioned the Preston Rivulettes and the Ranscombe sisters on this blog a number of times, and they're not in the Hall of Fame yet either. Allow me to present another team and set of players who should be honoured sooner than later for what they did on the ice.

The women pictured above are the Jasper Place Rustlers hockey team of Edmonton, Alberta. The Rustlers captured the first Bessborough Cup in Canadian history, awarded to the Dominion Women's hockey champions, with their victory over the Preston Rivulettes in 1933!

The Rustlers were the one team to defeat the Rivulettes in the three years they had been playing together, and they did it twice by a combined 4-2 score. By doing so, they etched their name into Canadian hockey history as the first national women's champions in the history of the country. That should have the Rustlers on the ballot to be voted into the Hall of Fame, but, as we know, they're not.

Pictured in the back row, from left to right, are Marion Walker, Hazel Jamison, Rosemary Tufford, head coach C.R. Tufford, Patty Myatt, Olive Reid, and Olive Porter. Seated in the front row, from left to right, are goaltender Murial Ramsay, the noted Eleanor Tufford, Mildred Little, Isabelle Nairn, and Marion Goldsworthy. These eleven women deserve to be honoured for doing something only they can claim, but I'm not even sure the name "Rustlers" is known by the Hall's voting committee. That needs to change very quickly.

I know that no one from the voting committee reads this blog, and that's ok. I'm just here to fire up some discussion, and my hope is that I can bring the Jasper Place Rustlers name to the spotlight so that there might be a chance that these women get the proper honour they earned as pioneers of women's hockey in Canada. Like the Ranscombe sisters, the Tufford sisters were two of the best hockey players - male or female - during their days in the 1930s, and it's long overdue for the sisters from both the Jasper Place Rustlers and the Preston Rivulettes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame for what they did for women's hockey when it was barely even recognized.

Let's finally honour these two sets of sisters for all of their accomplishments on the ice. They were truly ahead by a century.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!