It’s amazing what heights the Catherwood family reached in women’s sports during the 1920s. Ethel Catherwood may be the name most remember from the family, a member of the Matchless Six, a group of six fames Canadian women who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics. The women won three gold medals, four silvers, and seven bronze, including the high jump gold medal captured by world record holder Ethel Catherwood, who was inducted to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1955.
In hockey however, it was Genevra ‘Ginger’ Cartwood who was the family star. She ‘chaperoned’ her sister to the Olympics in Amsterdam.
The University of Saskatchewan was a notable team in the 1920s, winning the 1923 intercollegiate championship defeating the University of Manitoba, University of Alberta, and University of British Columbia along the way.
In a 2020 article recounting her hockey career, Saskatoon’s Bill Waiser, who wrote a column titled “History Matters” for the Star-Phoenix wrote that Ginger Catherwood “was the best female hockey player in Canada.”
Entering the University of Saskatchewan in 1919, Catherwood soon showed the Western provinces that few could play and score at her rate. In 1920-1921, Catherwood scored eight goals in a 9-1 win over Manitoba, followed by a six goal performance in a 7-1 win over Alberta.
As The Sheaf described of Catherwood’s play during that February 1921 game against the University of Manitoba, “The visiting centre was the best skater and player on the ice, and was quite out of the ordinary class of girl hockey player…”
“Being able to skater faster and shoot better, she was able to get away from the Manitoba defence and score time after time.”
By the following season, Catherwood became the target of opposing teams who looked to eliminate her from play. In a February 16, 1922 report The Sheaf described Catherwood’s efforts to avoid the attacks writing “”Ginger” Catherwood managed to break through the barrage of slashed sticks aimed at her and counted the first goal for Saskatchewan, but shortly afterward she was tripped and fell heavily to the ice, and injured her head to such an extent to prevent her from participating further in the game.” The headline following the game stated called the “Contest Marred By Disgraceful Slashing.”
The University of Alberta was suspended from play following the game, but Saskatchewan continued their season, coming up next against the University of Manitoba, who sent a letter to the school offering further collaboration and friendship between the teams and institutions. When they met the following week, Ginger Catherwood was back on the Saskatchewan blueline alongside fellow standout Olive Leitch.
“For Saskatchewan, Genevra Catherwood and Olive Leitch on the defence were the backbone of the team, and besides their excellent defence work, they were the outstanding figures of the attack,” The Sheaf wrote following the game, which resulted in a 2-2 tie that could not be settled through two overtime periods.
After three years at the school, Catherwood graduated with an arts degree in 1922 and later became a teacher. She’d move alongside her sister Ethel to Toronto in 1928 to train for the forthcoming Summer Olympics before traveling to Amsterdam that summer. While in Toronto Ginerva also took secretarial courses. When Ethel left Canada shortly after amidst media ‘scandal’ at the time, Ginger was known to be in Toronto in the early 1930s where she married a man named Charles Mitchell.
Sadly, Genevra Catherwood did not play out her hockey career, her greatness on the ice spanning only a brief period in the early 1920s. Her sister Ethel remained the only woman in Canadian history to win an individual Olympic gold medal in track & field until 2024 when Camryn Rogers won gold at the Paris Olympics in hammer throw.
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