Friday, September 23, 2011

Preston Rivulettes

A few years ago research on the women's game had taken me to Preston(Cambridge) Ontario. Here is what I learned.

 VISITING PRESTON

Searching for the history of women’s hockey, my car slows as I pass the ubiquitous fast food restaurants and convenience stores - hallmarks of today’s automobile culture - on the outskirts of Cambridge (population 118,000 ). The old town of Preston is here - somewhere - its character and history not easily found by an outsider. Situated on the banks of the Grand River, Preston, once a thriving industrial town was, in fact, the home base for Canada’s least known successful hockey team - the Rivulettes.

The Preston Rivulettes won Ontario Women’s Championships every year from 1933 to
1939. They lost only two games in the decade.

While Howie Morenz, the best men’s player of the era, starred with the Montreal Canadiens as they won two Stanley Cups in this decade, Rivulette standout Hilda Ranscombe led her squad to four national championships.
 
READERS REMEMBER
 
A story I had written earlier on had caught the attention of readers of the seniors monthly Forever Young. Thornhill’s Mike Martin, still playing hockey in his seventieth year, told us our story “brought tears to my eyes.”
 
Mike's Mom (passed away in 1993. Alice Norbert, born in 1904 and raised in the Quebec town of St. Maurice, was a lifelong Montreal Canadiens’ fan. But only after her death did Mike and his three siblings learn that she had actually played the game. Mike wishes he had been more interested in his mom’s early life. But one wonders if discussion of participation in hockey was a taboo subject for women?
 
Another reader, Betty Barnes, knew little of the hockey heroics of three aunts (Ranscombe, sister Nellie, and Gladys Pitcher) until late in their lives. Betty saved a green garbage bag full of Rivulette memorabilia and hopes the team will be remembered “for their sportsmanship as well as their talent.” Women’s sport was taken seriously in those days. Reports documented:
 
● The “biggest celebration since the signing of the Armistice” when 1,500 turned out to greet the Rivulettes after two defeats (their only losses) to the Edmonton Rustlers in 1933.
 
● The 1934 Montreal arrival of the "red sweatered fast skating” Rivulettes for the Eastern Canadian championships.

● A ten to nothing “kalsomining” over Toronto Pats in 1935.
 
● A 4 - 1 win over the Maroons in Montreal witnessed by 3,000 fans - “the finest exhibition of girls hockey ever seen in the Metropolis.”

Most Rivulette players spent their days working in factories but, according to Hilda found those after work activities generally considered acceptable for women “too ladylike.”

We wanted to be ourselves,” and ice hockey afforded this opportunity, teammate Pitcher told the CBC in a 1998 interview.
 
SOME RECOGNITION
 
With war and the ascendancy of professional men’s hockey (i.e., the NHL) the women’s game virtually disappeared. Today the marginalization of women’s hockey and women’s sport in general appears to be reversing, albeit slowly.
 
The Rivulettes entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1963. While they certainly haven’t received the credit they are due, the stories of their opponents from small Ontario towns like Port Dover, Chalk River, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst still wait to be heard.