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Five Top Canadian Women’s Hockey Players

• Hayley Wickenheiser

• Angela James

• Cassie Campbel

• Danielle Goyette

• Geraldine Heaney

Who were the first two women to play professional hockey in men’s leagues?

Arguably the most famous female hockey player in the world in the early 1990s, Manon Rhéaume, born in Lac Beauport, Quebec, was the first woman to suit up with a National Hockey League team when she played goal in a 1992 pre-season match for the Tampa Bay Lightning against the St. Louis Blues. The next year she played another exhibition game for the Lightning against the Boston Bruins. After that she tended goal for a number of men’s minor-league clubs. In 1992 Rhéaume made her first appearance with Canada’s national team, and she helped it win gold medals at the Women’s World Championship in 1992 and 1994. Prior to the 1997 World Championship, she was cut from Team Canada, but she made a comeback at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. She played well, but Canada lost the gold to the U.S. team and had to settle for silver. Rhéaume announced her retirement from hockey in the summer of 2000. The second woman to play for a men’s professional team was Glens Falls, New York–born Erin Whitten, who was also a goalie. In 1993– 94 she debuted with the Toledo Storm, a men’s club in the minor-league East Coast Hockey League. On October 30, 1993, Whitten became the first female netminder to achieve a victory in a men’s professional match. She played four seasons of women’s university hockey at the University of New Hampshire and was the top goaltender on the U.S. women’s national team. Whitten made appearances in 1992, 1994, 1997, and 1999 at the Women’s World Championship, but the U.S. team finished second to Canada every time.