When silver trophies sit quietly holding pens and tools in a family barn or office, they obscure an era when Western Canadian sport was forged through grit, wool skirts, and artificial ice. Long before modern professional leagues captured television windows, the landscape of women's hockey in British Columbia was defined by pioneering clubs that crossed provincial lines, braved bitter elements, and redefined athletic boundaries. At the absolute center of this movement stood Doris Parkes—an all-around athletic titan whose journey with the legendary Vancouver Amazons mirrors the structural evolution of the game itself.
The Artificial Ice Revolution and the Birth of the Amazons
In the earliest days of the Dominion, climate dictated opportunity. Natural ice on frozen ponds and shallow lakes like Trout Lake provided only brief, unpredictable windows for play. As historian Wayne Norton documented in Women on Ice: The Early Years of Women’s Hockey in Western Canada, organized hockey truly took root when the Patrick family financed the construction of Denman Arena in Vancouver's West End, opening in December 1911 with a pristine sheet of artificial ice.
With a reliable home surface secured, a group of audacious students from King George High School formed a club in January 1918. Emulating the fast-skating, aggressive style of Frank Patrick’s professional Vancouver Millionaires, these teenagers called themselves the Amazons. Their arrival rattled the established order. When the youthful upstarts challenged the older, more established Vancouver Ladies Hockey Team for the city title, the reaction was swift and haughty. As reported in the Vancouver Sun on February 3, 1918, the exclamation How dare they!
preceded an acceptance that led straight to physical, hard-fought competition.
By deploying speed, tactical body contact, and relentless backchecking, the Amazons captured local imagination. They wore distinctive uniforms—white sweaters featuring bright red letters VA
on the front, matching toques, black bloomers, and striped socks—and relied on core student-athletes such as Nan Griffith, Phebe and Norah Senkler, Kathleen Carson, goalie Amelia Voitkevic, and Greta Maddison.
Banff, the Alpine Cup, and Trans-Provincial Warfare
Seeking higher stakes, the Amazons pioneered long-distance travel, embarking on grueling 30-hour train journeys to the Banff Winter Carnival to compete for the Alpine Cup, which served as the female equivalent of the Stanley Cup. The tournament exposed players to unforgiving outdoor natural ice under the shadow of Mount Rundle.
The 1922 championship run remains a masterpiece of endurance. After navigating political disqualifications and shifting tournament brackets, the Amazons met the powerhouse Calgary Regents in the final. Played in thirty-below-zero weather on an open-air rink, the match swung on the stick of Kathleen Carson—described as possessing a shot like a man’s
—who scored late in regulation and netted the overtime winner to secure a 2-1 victory and crown the Amazons as the Lady Champions of Western Canada.
M. Ann Hall observed in The Girl and the Game: A History of Women’s Sport in Canada that British Columbia was coming along due to the efforts of hardworking Doris Parkes, who was a longtime member of the Vancouver Amazons and a regular competitor in Banff for nearly a decade.
Doris Parkes: Multi-Sport Dominance and Institutional Building
By the mid-1920s, Doris Parkes had integrated into the Amazons roster as a formidable defender. Parkes was already a provincial champion in swimming, cross-country skiing, diving, canoeing, lacrosse, ski jumping, and ski-joring. Above all, she was recognized as a speed skating wizard, securing B.C. titles in the 220-yard, 440-yard, half-mile, one-mile, and 3.5-mile events well into the 1930s.
Following a brief team hiatus, Parkes took charge of organizational revival. She successfully re-launched the Amazons for the 1931 season, starring on the ice—where the Vancouver Sun noted she was seen to do some nice backchecking
—while simultaneously stepping into administrative leadership. Parkes served as assistant to the secretary-treasurer in the inaugural Vancouver Women's Hockey Association in 1931, before ascending to the presidency of the association in 1932. Her on-ice brilliance matched her executive capacity; in January 1932, she scored both goals in a 2-0 victory over the Vancouver Beavers before 2,500 fans at the Pacific National Exhibition.
Historical Context and Structural Comparison
| Era / Milestone | Primary Venue | Key Personnel | Defining Competitive Benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1890s Origins | Rideau Hall / Kootenay Ponds | Lady Isobel Stanley, Rossland Ladies | Natural ice exhibition play; Rossland undefeated for 17 years |
| 1911–1920s Expansion | Denman Arena (Vancouver) | Frank Patrick, Nan Griffith, Phebe Senkler | Establishment of artificial ice; creation of inter-city leagues |
| 1921–1932 Apex | Banff Winter Carnival | Doris Parkes, Amelia Voitkevic, Kathleen Carson | Alpine Cup contention; regional speed skating and hockey relays |
The historical arc traveled by Parkes, the Senkler sisters, and the Amazons demonstrates that women's ice hockey in Western Canada was never a mere novelty. It was an organized, highly competitive, and fiercely defended sporting culture that laid deep structural foundations a century before contemporary professional revivals filled modern arenas.
Sources
These sources formed the evidence pack for this article. Links open the original publisher; inclusion does not imply endorsement.
- Daniel Wagner original
- The West End Journal original
- bcsportshall.com original
- vancouversun.com original
- Ian Kennedy Sun, August 11, 2024 at 4:29 PM UTC · 4 min read original
- thehockeynews.com original
