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.

Reform the Olympics

The Olympics in Beijing are less than two hundred days away.

That means we are getting closer to that rhapsodic time when every four years our sports media take 3 weeks off from worrying about the Maple Leafs, Blue Jays and Raptors to enlighten us on what we used to call amateur sport.

This usually takes the form of telling us which Canadian is going win which event; various predictions of how may medals “we” will win and; excuses or outrage when one of ours test positive for marijuana before jumping on a snowboard and careening down a mountain.

When the predictions are invariably wrong, the half-baked analysis follows. Let’s face it we don’t really have a chance until we reform the Olympics. Let’s deal with the summer ones.


REAL CANADIAN SPORTS

First, let’s add Canadian type sports. This is a no brainer really.

Street Hockey is the obvious one.

But how about Mall Parking Lot Curling - lots of practice facilities on those 360 days of the year when the lots are empty.

Freshwater Sports Fishing could work. We’ve got the “mostest” and the freshest water in the world - for now anyway.

Table Hockey - the old one with the pegs that you use a marble for a puck would be best. I bet we’re the only ones with this model left.

Canadian Football - a game played nowhere else in the world featuring unique teams made up of 19 (non-imports who are usually but not always Canadians) and 14 Americans


A NEW PENTATHLON.

We could also replace quaint old events with equally quaint new events with Canadian content.

The Modern Pentathlon would change to the More Modern Northen Pentathlon.

Fencing would be replaced by Stick Swinging Hockey Fights.

Running by Glow-in-the-Dark Bowling ( 5 pin).

Shooting with Mosquito Extermination.

Equestrian with Log Rolling.

and Swimming by Personal Watercraft Racing.


REPLACE STUPID SPORTS

And let’s get rid of those truly stupid Olympic Sports and replace them with our own inventions.

What a waste of a beach is beach volleyball. Sand Castle Construction will be better.

Synchronised swimming which “we” used to be good at has to go. I’d replace it with Standing Broad Jump and Standing High Jump. (Canadians won medals in these discontiued events a hundred or so years ago. Some kind of conspiracy here, I think.) To save facility costs they could do their jumping on the beach with the sand castle competitions.

And finally the cycling event called Individual Pursuit. That’s the one where they go a couple of laps at walking pace looking backwards and then race like hell for one lap. Replace individual pursuit with Trivial Pursuit.


Now we'll have a chance.

That’s all folks.