From Amateur to High-Performance

Team Newfoundland and Labrador on the bench, 1991.

High-performance sport is defined as a “sport system that supports athletes that have stepped onto the Podium Pathway (or equivalent). It includes the resources and support personnel in place to support them that culminates in performance at the Olympic/Paralympic Games and/or single sport Senior World Championships.”³ Prior to the 1990s, there were no opportunities for high-performance women’s hockey. The first Women’s World Hockey Championship (WWHC) was not held until March 1990.⁴ After the success of the tournament, the decision to include women’s hockey at the Olympics was made in 1992, and it was only in 1998 that women’s hockey made its inaugural appearance at the Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.⁵ It was not until 2008 that the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) sanctioned a Women’s Under-18 World Championship.⁶

Team Saskatchewan goaltender during a game against Team Ontario, 1991.

In 1991, women’s hockey made its first Canada Games appearance in Charlottetown, PEI, thus providing a high-performance opportunity to girls under 17. Today, the Winter Games are a step in Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence (POE).⁷ Originally created in 1982 with a focus on the Men’s World Under-20 Hockey Championships, the POE is a program created to sponsor success at the junior hockey level to prepare players to represent Canada at the senior level⁸ with the goal of maintaining Canada in the forefront of international hockey success.⁹ The inclusion of women in the POE began in 1990 with an open tryout for the first WWHC. The women’s POE only ran in years that featured a WWHC (1990, 1992, 1994, 1997). In 1998, however, when women’s hockey was included in the Olympic Games and the WWHC were held annually, the POE became a fulltime program, and an under-22 Women’s National Development Team was also created.¹⁰