Chronicling Portland's First Season Of Women's Hockey

Women’s hockey across the United States can be traced by the opening of ice rinks. Often referred to as Hippodromes, Ice Gardens, or Winter Gardens, these indoor skating facilities sparked interest in hockey for men and women in the early 1900s. In Portland, it was the opening of the 2,000 seat Ice Hippodrome in 1914 that launched not only the professional Portland Rosebuds, who would eventually become the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, but also the start of interest in women’s hockey in the Rose City.

According to records, women played hockey in 1914 in Portland, Oregon, but no formal organization was made. The following season however, that changed.

“The fascination of ice hockey has not only gripped society maids as spectators, but they are taking a fling at the game themselves,” The Oregon Daily Journal wrote on March 21, 1915.

“Since the completion of the hippodrome last fall, every morning the maids and younger matrons of society have applied themselves studiously to becoming really good skaters,” which culminated in The Oregon Daily Journal stating many had acquired “the real free poetry of motion.”

As the story goes, in March 1915, members of the Portland Rosebuds, a professional team that would face the Montreal Canadiens, unsuccessfully, in the 1916 Stanley Cup final, left their hockey sticks lying around, and soon the women picked them up.

“Immediately a group of girls caught them up and started to shoot the “puck” about the rink.”

Popularity became so great, that within those first few weeks, three teams were formed in Portland.

By early 1916, a game of women’s hockey was recorded, but the teams were listed only as “winners” and “losers” in The Oregonian. Played at Portland’s Hippodrome, the team captained by Helen Farrell won the game 4-1. Mrs. Guy Davis, which was the only way the starring player was referred to, scored a hat trick in the win. Married women in the era were often erased through the sexist practice of referring to them only by their husband’s name, which also has caused anonymity in tracking many historic women in sport. Catherine Hart scored the fourth goal for the winners, while Helen Coon had the lone goal for the losing side.

More than 100 years later, Portland had another moment of history in women’s hockey. At the 2023 Western Hockey League draft, the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks selected Morgan Stickney in the 10th round, 215th overall. The pick made Stickney the first ever American woman selected in a Canadian Hockey League draft.

As it is today, access was always a key determinant of when and where women’s hockey would be played. In Portland, that history spans to 1914, when the Hippodrome was opened in the city.