"In The Women's Sportlight" Put Women's Hockey In The Spotlight

For 44 years, Myrtle Cook was a constant voice for women's hockey. Long before women's hockey found a regular place in news pages, Cook made sure, along with other athlete-journalists of the age including Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld and Alexandrine Gibb, that women's hockey and sport had a daily place in the headlines.

As M. Ann Hall wrote in Immodest & Sensational: 150 Years Of Canadian Women In Sport , “It was not unusual in those days for sports reporters to be actively engaged in the organizations they covered. Not only did these early women sportswriters chronicle the development of women’s sport in Canada between the wars, but they also helped to create it.”

Cook started her column "In The Women's Sportlight" in The Montreal Star in 1929 after moving from Toronto to the city. By that time, Cook was a national celebrity as a member of the "Matchless Six," a group of six women who were the part of Canada's first ever women's Olympic team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Entering as the 100m world record holder, Cook false started twice and was disqualified from the final, but helped Canada set a record and win gold in the 4x100m relay.

The Montreal Star announced Cook's hiring on April 16, 1929. "[I]t was as much for the sake of keeping her and her marvellous athletic talents in the country of her birth, as to stimulate a healthy and increased interest in moderate athletics for girls wherever The Montreal Star circulates, that she was offered her present position," the paper wrote.

Hockey was her first notable sport. "The "World's Fastest Girl" first gained distinction with the Beaches A.A. Hockey Club in the season of 1921-22 after graduating from high school where she won sprint championships time and time again. She was just as fast on the ice as on the track," The Star wrote.

Six days later on April 22 when her first column came out, she made her intentions clear with the first seven word sentence typed on the page that read, "Girls in sport, this is your column." The next followed with a call to action: "Use it to tell what you are doing and what you can do."

Cook's first mention of women's hockey came only days later as on April 26, 1929 she wrote that Thelma Currie, president of the Junior Ladies Hockey League of Verdun reported a successful season capped by a title from the Verdun Hawks.

Often referred to as the "First Lady of Sports in Canada," Cook's impact often jumped off the page as she not only played hockey, but she became the first president of the Dominion Women's Amateur Hockey Association in 1933 helping to organize national women's hockey competition in the form of the Lady Bessborough Cup. Through this competition, teams like the Preston Rivulettes, Edmonton Rustlers, Winnipeg Olympics, Summerside Crystal Sisters, and Montreal Maroons came to national fame.

Cook advocated for a true national competition through the formation of the Montreal and District Women's Hockey League in 1934, with teams like the Montreal Maroons and Les Canadiennes beginning to challenge for a national title. Prior to the 1934 season, Quebec had not sent a representative to compete.

“This is the first year there has been a truly representative Canadian final in women’s hockey, a strong indication that the game is on the upward trend among the Canadian girls,” wrote Cook in early 1934.

That same year, Cook became the first active advocate for women's hockey to become an Olympic sport. She recognized the sport was now being contested internationally between France and England, and teams existed in Canada, Russia, Germany, and USA.

"With England, France, Russia and Germany developing women’s hockey it will not be long before Canada and U.S.A. will be stepping into an international tournament to decide who’s who in women’s world hockey. If they ever get it on the Olympic games as a demonstration event, that will be the start," Cook wrote in 1937. She advocated for tours of women's hockey teams to Europe and through the United States to help grow the sport. Specifically, following the dominance of the Preston Rivulettes in the early 1930s, she thought the Rivulettes would be the ideal ambassadors for the game.

“A trip to England prior to the opening of the 1935-1936 season with Rivulettes representing the Canadian side, would do a lot towards persuading the moguls in the European territory that the time is not distant when they can vote for women’s hockey in the Olympic program and not suffer at the gates,” Cook wrote in 1935.

“Women’s speed skating was on the Lake Placid program in 1932 as a demonstration event…if Preston Rivulettes are still tops in 1940 - they can lead the parade against any potential U.S. entries - England, France, and Germany will all have fine teams - it could be made a big thing with the proper push behind the guns…The prospect of an Olympic debut would be the right nectar for women’s hockey - the Canadian champions and Bessborough Cup winners of that year would have a nice juicy dessert at the end of the trail. More teams would be in the hunt - a real boom on," Cook penned in 1938.

It was a common theme in her writing, including promoting a 1939 tour of the Montreal Royals, formerly the Maroons, against the Toronto Ladies through the Eastern USA. The teams wowed fans in Providence, and played in front of 6,000 fans in Philadelphia, as well as playing to crowds in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

As Cook wrote, “fans went overboard for the Canucks, cheering long and loud as the girls waged a 4-3 battle,” wrote Cook. “Dispatches quote the gladiators as having uncorked some fancy stickhandling, stiff body checking, not to mention a threatened free-for-all!”

“A highlight of the hockey year was the tour of American cities by Montreal Royals and Toronto Ladies teams… a tour which definitely put women’s hockey on the map across the line," she wrote following the completion of the tour.

While Cook feverishly promoted the sport, she also defended women in hockey against the misogyny of men which threatened access to the game at the time. In 1940 that included denouncing Boston Bruins owner, IIHF president, and now Hockey Hall of Fame member Walter Brown.

“Walter Brown…does not think much of girls hockey,” Cook wrote in her column. “We asked him if he thought of booking a couple of Canadian teams for his ice. He exploded, “Women’s hockey! I should say not. They wouldn’t draw.” Before a few more seasons roll around, the Bostonian may have to palate those hasty words. Women’s hockey is improving each year. Crowds turned out elsewhere in America to watch Canadian teams, and like them….Brown is like a lot of other male promoters - slow to appreciate women in the game. When he does, it may be too late….Some day (and we hope in ours) Canucks will be playing hockey with British teams - with French teams - with U.S. teams. The girls have caught up with the boys before in sport. Hockey should be no exception in the crowd drawing business.”

Following World War II and a silent period in women's hockey, Cook was integral in ensuring the women's hockey that had persisted through the war, and the pockets that were beginning to reform, found their place in her "Sportlight."

“It’s been ages since we had a women’s hockey final in Canada,” wrote Myrtle Cook on March 29, 1950. Cook had received a letter from Winnipeg stating that teams in Winnipeg and Moose Jaw were playing and would like to contest for the Lady Bessborough Cup even though few if any teams, aside from one in Port Arthur, which is today known as Thunder Bay, Ontario.

It was a start, but Cook treated each moment in the growth of the sport as major news, giving voice and a platform to women's athletes, who otherwise may have remained anonymous in the annals of the game.

When Cook passed away in 1985, her obituary in The Toronto Star described her “as the matriarch of Canadian athletics.” During her life, Cook was inducted to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1946, and the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame in 1974.

Women's hockey builders like Myrtle Cook however, have remained excluded from the Hockey Hall of Fame despite an impact far exceeding those of many men enshrined.

From her "Sportlight," Myrtle Cook kept women's hockey and women's sports in the spotlight. Through her work as a founder of sporting organizations and leagues, Cook personally pushed the development of women's hockey and sport forward.

Myrtle Cook served the game for decades, and belongs among most honoured laurels of hockey history.