In the 1930s, women’s hockey was being played across Canada, as well as in several European nations. In Canada, the top teams in the world were facing off annually for the Dominion title and Lady Bessborough Cup.
In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the list of women’s hockey teams to challenge for a national title, and to be among the best in the West was long including the Winnipeg Eatons, Winnipeg Royals, Winnipeg Rangers, and for five years, the Winnipeg Olympics. The Olympics were Winnipeg’s top team for years, and perhaps the most viable challenger to the perennial champion Preston Rivulettes, widely considered the best women’s hockey team throughout the 1930s, not only in Canada, but in the world.
“Winnipeg’s front line matched the champions’ in speed…” Mrytle Cook wrote in her column “In The Women’s Sportlight” in April 1937.
“Maureen Gault, for all around hockey was as good as any player on the ice,” wrote Cook, long time president of the Dominion Women’s Amateur Hockey Association.
“Margaret Topp…is the most beautiful girl we have seen in Canadian women’s hockey…The Winnipeg girl is a sterling player no matter where the coach happens to place her on the ice.”
After several years of growing media coverage and excitement, playoff women’s hockey often drew thousands of fans per game to see the match ups, and Preston and Winnipeg’s 1937 series was no different with officials in Galt reporting the games against Winnipeg were the best attended in a decade. The media coverage also allowed for more excitement surrounding the arriving players.
“Among those headed east with Winnipeg is Anne Shibicky, a left winger-sister of Alex Shibicky, now busy in New York and Detroit in final stages of winning the world’s professional hockey championship,” wrote Alexandrine Gibb for The Toronto Star in April 1937. “Mr. Alex Shibicky may play for the New York Rangers, but sister Anne is one of the stars playing for a Canadian hockey title…all at one and the same time, too! Some family!”
The 21-year-old Shibicky told reporters she was “sure Rangers will win the Stanley Cup,” a prediction that did not stand true. Her brother’s team had won the opening game of the Stanley Cup finals 5-1, but lost the second 4-2 to the Detroit Red Wings prior to the first game of the Lady Bessborough Cup final for Winnipeg. The Red Wings would ultimately win the Stanley Cup 3-2 over New York. Shibicky would get his Stanley Cup four years later as the New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 for the Cup.
“Anne is a modest little girl,” Myrtle Cook wrote following Winnipeg’s game one 3-1 loss to the Preston Rivulettes. “She will talk for hours about her brother’s hockey prowess but on being asked about her on game merely replied ‘I get by’.”
Maureen Gault scored the lone Winnipeg Olympics goal in the opening game in front of 2,500 fans at Galt Arena. As the Canadian Press described of the game, “The star of the game for Winnipeg was Margaret Hoban, goalie. Margaret Topp was the best defence player on the ice and also good offensively. Emily Pearce, her defence mate, handed out some stiff checks. Of the forwards, Beth Jamieson and Maureen Gault were the pick.”
After losing in the 1937 final, in 1938, the Winnipeg Olympics again awaited the winner of the Eastern final between Preston and the Charlottetown Islanders.
Facing Preston back in Ontario, the Olympics showed their improvement over their 1937 result tying Preston 1-1 in the opening game of the series. Maureen Gault scored the lone goal before “the westerners laid down an effective checking barrier and fought back grimly when the speedier Rivulettes unsuccessfully tried four and five-girl attacks” the Canadian Press wrote following game one. Game two was again a tighter affair than the 1937 final, but Preston prevailed defeating Winnipeg 2-0.
In 1939, the two teams faced off for a third consecutive season for the Dominion title and Lady Bessborough Cup. Winnipeg again made the series close. The series in 1939 took on a different format where the final involved three teams, Winnipeg from the west, Preston from Ontario, and Prince Edward Island’s Charlottetown Islanders. In the opening game between Preston and Winnipeg, as the Canadian Press noted, Preston “staved off a determined challenge by Winnipeg Olympics” with Preston winning game one 3-2. Mae Lumsden and Winnie Fullerton had the Winnipeg goals in the loss.
Needing to overcome the one goal deficit in the next game to finally unseat the Rivulettes from their throne, “The Olympics played inspired hockey, and were only held down by relentless back-checking of the Preston first-string forwards…” The tight checking game resulted in a 0-0 tie, giving Preston the series 3-2 on total goals.
It would be the last time the Dominion title was contested for more than a decade as World War II interrupted many aspects of life. In 1940, both Preston and Winnipeg defaulted meaning no Lady Bessborough Cup was awarded, and it marked the last time the trophy was part of national competition among champions from all corners of Canada until a brief revival in the 1950s.
While the Winnipeg Olympics never claimed a Lady Bessborough Cup for themselves, they remained Western Canada’s top team for five years in the 1930s.
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