Women’s intramural hockey is dangerously close to dying at the University of Toronto. With four teams left in the league, the league is one drop-out away from game over.
As per U of T intramural sport guidelines, a league needs four teams to run. If one of the four teams currently playing drops out next semester, there will be no league.
The University has had a league on and off since 1908. For over 102 years, women have been playing the nation’s most popular sport on campus, representing different colleges and faculties.
In its hay day, during the 1970s and 1980s, there would be more than 20 teams spread out over several divisions, all jockeying for the Division 1 Hartson Cup or the Division 2 Addison Cup.
According to Intramural Manager John Robb, the sport wasn’t any more popular at the time than it is now.
“It was just a fun thing to do,” said Robb. “Of course, back then, girls hockey was unknown.”
Today, that is not the case. There are women playing in the men’s intramural hockey league, and in an effort to revive the women’s league U of T is going to allow men to play in the women’s.
Alexis Goldenberg, a third-year concurrent education student, who has been playing in the Lower Lakes Female Hockey League for five years — first with the Vaughn Flames, and for the past three seasons, with the Scarborough Sharks — explained that one of the reasons she chose to play boy’s hockey is that there was less stigma around it.
“I played boys contact hockey up until I was 16,” she said. “It’s more aggressive and there’s more puck control.”
Women’s intramural hockey gets evening hours at Varsity Centre when Varsity Blues hockey doesn’t impede, although the league is not guaranteed the same night each week due to Varsity Blues athletics and rentals by other groups.
Like many U of T students, Goldenberg — a commuter — likes to have her evenings to herself.
“I like to go out at night and play hockey mid-day,” she said. “I don’t want to play hockey on a Saturday night at 10 o’clock,” she said.
“And it’s not really accessible. You’re not going to take your bag on the subway.
Many women who are interested in playing recreational hockey are, like Goldenberg, already playing in leagues outside the university.
“I’ve been playing with my team for so long and I’m still eligible to play with them. Why not keep moving along?” said Goldenberg.
The women’s intramural hockey league at U of T is seemingly in need of a pick-me-up, and a few strong leaders to guide it in the right direction.
“Good leaders make the team,” said Robb. “We need builders in hockey.
“It’s a great opportunity right here on campus, and it’s Canada’s national sport. Why not take advantage of it?”
