Early newspaper accounts referred to them as "lady hockeyists." Women
began playing hockey during the 1890s, and after the turn of the century,
women's teams across the country had been established. As
Herstory 1977 noted, if no other women's team was available, the
women would challenge local men's teams:
The women of the
Saskatchewan Cooperative team played regularly against a "married men's" team. Perhaps the banning of bodychecking and
its replacement by speed and skill explains why frequently, as in the civil service competition for the Parliamentary
Championship of Saskatchewan, the women "completely outclassed the alleged sterner sex."
