The Nine-Year-Old Rebel Who Blazed The Way For Women's Hockey
Plus a bizarre love story, a free tour of our Toronto sports history exhibit, and more...
Ab Hoffman's big secret was discovered on a late winter's day in 1956. Spring was approaching and the season was soon coming to an end, so the Little Toronto Hockey League was picking its all-star team. The best players from each squad — all kids about ten years old — would represent the Little THL at a big tournament that month, facing off against the best players from other leagues. But as one team's manager confirmed his picks, double-checking his players' ages on their birth certificates, he suddenly noticed something shocking.
One of the boys they'd picked for the all-star team wasn't a boy at all.
Abigail Hoffman grew up in the Junction, loving sports from an early age. She started playing with hockey sticks as soon as she was big enough to stand, and was eager to keep up with her two older brothers. Every winter, the three Hoffman kids would play shinny together on the rink across the street outside Humberside Collegiate. And since both of the boys played organized hockey, Abigail wanted to do the same.
Women had been playing the sport ever since it was invented. The first documented women's game was played on the Rideau Canal all the way back in 1889, with Lady Isobel Stanley famously taking the ice — she was the daughter of the Governor General whose silver cup would eventually become the NHL's top prize.
But even decades later, there were still plenty of misogynists trying to keep women and girls off the ice. By 1955, there wasn't a single girls hockey league in Toronto, with just one small, four-team league operating in East York — still officially outside the city back then, and a lonnnng way from the Hoffmans' home in the Junction.
Still, Abigail was determined. That fall, she learned about the Little Toronto Hockey League — a new league for young kids — and begged her parents to attend the registration day. Her father finally agreed. When they arrived at Varsity Arena, they found hundreds of boys signing up. And when her dad headed off through the crowd to ask whether there were any girls' teams, Abigail decided to take things into her own hands.
She lined up, waited her turn, and then handed over her birth certificate to register. The organizers were so busy, they didn't look at it too closely. They just wanted to make sure she was the right age. It never occurred to them she might be a girl.
When the phone rang, it was her mother who picked it up. The league was calling with all the details, letting them know what team their son was on and when he should show up. Abigail's mom didn't have the heart to tell them the truth. As she later explained to The Toronto Daily Star, she didn't want to crush her daughter's dream. So, she swallowed hard and went along with the ruse. "From then on we were in it up to our necks."
For the next four months, Abigail Hoffman was one of the league's best players. She began as a forward, but was so tough — "a little rugged," as her coach put it — that they moved her to defence. She was a talented backchecker, not afraid to get physical and knock the boys into the boards. She was popular with her teammates, respected by her coaches and league officials.
They never suspected a thing. They all knew her as Ab Hoffman, the name she wrote on her stick — or Abi. Since she was nine years old, with short hair, she didn't look out of place among the boys. There was no awkwardness in the dressing room; all the players put their pads and uniforms on at home, so all they needed to do at the rink was to lace up before heading out onto the ice. It was only her talent that risked outing her. During one game in which she nearly put a puck in the back of the net, her brother got a little overly excited in the stands. "Look," he shouted, "she almost scored!" His mother quickly shut him up.
And then, there was the all-star team.
As the spring of 1956 approached and the season drew to a close, the Little Toronto Hockey League picked a squad of its best players to play at a big tournament in Scarborough. Hoffman made the cut. But there was a new registration process, which meant a second look at the birth certificate. This time, her manager noticed the gender.
The officials were absolutely shocked. So was the whole city. And the world beyond. The story made the front page of The Toronto Daily Star and was covered by the CBC, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Time magazine, and Newsweek. There was even a Pathé newsreel.
When her teammates first heard the news, some refused to believe it. "Aw, quit kidding," one of them told the press. Another was clearly having trouble wrapping his head around what it meant for her pronouns. "He — she — is just one of the gang," he said. "Good hockey player, too. I hope we don't lose him — her, I mean."
Some sources claim Hoffman was banned by the league when they found out, but in truth it seems she was allowed to keep taking the ice. "She plays as hard as the boys," her coach told The Star, "and doesn't give any quarter." The chairman of the league agreed. "She is a darn good hockey player." A couple of weeks later, her teammates presented her with a trophy commemorating her remarkable season. It became such a big story, she was even celebrated by NHL teams, including being invited to meet the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.
Her father claimed the family hadn't intended to make a political point, but also made it clear he supported his daughter. "I don’t think cheerleading should be the goal of a girl's sports endeavors," he told the press. "She should be out there playing the same as boys." And in the days to come, girls all over the city were inspired by the story of Abby Hoffman, demanding their own right to play. Later that same month, the Little THL organized a girls' hockey school. When a hundred students showed up, it made the front page of the paper. The Star wondered whether some might be future Maple Leafs. With the eyes of the city upon them, the organizers promised to create an entire new league for girls.
But they never did make good on that promise. Instead, the city's hockey establishment responded by making it even harder for girls to play. They quietly passed a new rule officially banning girls from playing with boys. And when the Ontario Human Rights Code was introduced just a few years later, it contained an exemption allowing for gender-based discrimination when it came to sports teams. Girls, it suggested, didn't have a right to play with boys.
For Abby Hoffman, that season at Varsity Arena was just the beginning of an illustrious sporting career. She would soon shift her focus to the track, where she became one of the greatest runners in Canadian history. She was sixteen years old when she won her first gold medal at the Pan Am Games. More would follow in the years to come. She would represent Canada at the Olympics four times.
Her final appearance came in 1976, when the games were held in Montreal. More than 70,000 people gathered at Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremonies that year, including the Queen and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. As representatives of the host country, the Canadian athletes were the last to appear in the Parade of Nations. When they stepped out onto the track in front of the enormous crowd, they were met by an earth-shaking roar. And there, leading them out into that thunderous welcome, was Abby Hoffman. Twenty years after she snuck onto that hockey team in Toronto, she was the flag-bearer for Canada's national Olympic team.
But even then, the ban against girls playing with boys was in place on our city's hockey rinks. And it would be for years to come. It was in 1981 that another girl challenged the rule, much as Abby Hoffman had a generation earlier. Justine Blainey was twelve years old when she made the roster of the Toronto Olympics — one of the teams in the Metro Toronto Hockey League, the same league that had once overseen the Little THL. But since the rule introduced after Hoffman's all-star season was still in force, she was blocked from taking the ice.
Blainey refused to accept that answer. She took her case to court, arguing the ban violated Canada's new Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the Ontario Supreme Court ruled against her. "I feel very upset," she told the papers, "not only for myself, but for my coach … and for all the other little girls who won't be able to play in higher levels of hockey. I'm also sorry for Abby Hoffman, who wanted for thirty years for girls to play."
By then, Hoffman was the head of Sport Canada, the first woman to run the federal agency that supports athletes across the country. She'd already spent much of her career fighting for equality in athletics. When she was kicked off the track at Hart House for being a woman, she refused to back down, returning over and over again. Now, you'll find a plaque on that spot, erected in her honour. She was one of the leaders of the push to get the Olympics to include women's long distance running. She co-founded the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport. And she kept championing women's hockey, too.
Hoffman helped create the Canadian National Women's Hockey Championship; the tournament's trophy was named in her honour. In the years to come, that event would help pave the way for the Women's World Championship and for women's hockey to finally be included in the Olympics. It's not hard to draw a line straight from Abby Hoffman to the Professional Women's Hockey League, whose first game was played at the old Maple Leaf Gardens just two weeks ago.
Hoffman wasn't used to giving up. And neither would Justine Blainey. The twelve-year-old kept fighting, even after the Supreme Court ruled against her. She appealed the decision, supported by a sworn affidavit from Abby Hoffman. It took three decades of struggle, but the rule was finally struck down. Nearly thirty years after Abby Hoffman took the ice at Varsity Arena for the first time, girls in Toronto were once again allowed to play with the boys.
The Toronto History Weekly needs your help! Over the last six months, the number of paid subscriptions has stalled — for every person who has generously started supporting the newsletter with a few dollars a month, someone else has been forced to stop. And since this thing involves a ton of work every week, it’s only by growing the number of paid subscriptions that I’ll be able to continue doing it. Thank you so, so much to everyone who already has — and if you’d to make the switch yourself, you can do it by clicking right here:
Take a Free Tour of Our Toronto Sports History Exhibit
This Saturday! I’ll be teaming up with one of my co-curators Morgan Campbell to lead a couple of tours through our Myseum exhibit, sharing some of our favourite stories and a bit about how it all came together. It’s free with registration! The tours are happening at 1pm and 3pm; you can register here.
And if you can’t make it on Saturday, there’s still plenty of time to check out the exhibit yourself. Here’s everything you need to know:
How much: It’s free! (Though donations to Myseum are welcome.)
Where: Myseum of Toronto, which is inside 401 Richmond (right across the hallway from the Spacing Store).
When: It’s open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm, and runs until March 9.
Sandford Fleming’s Bizarre Love Story
This week was the very first edition of my new regular radio segment on Newstalk 1010. I’ll be popping up every Tuesday at 3:20pm on The Rush With Reshmi Nair to share some of the weirdest stories from the history of our city. I kicked things off with the tale of the famous engineer Sir Sandford Fleming, how he brutally dumped his girlfriend, and how he finally fell truly in love.
It starts around the 9:45 mark here:
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
ANCIENT BURIAL NEWS — An update on the Indigenous burial ground uncovered by construction workers in Riverdale last weekend. It’s still too early to know for sure, but according to the CBC some experts believe the bones are likely part of a Wendat ossuary. Read more.
MORE ANCIENT BURIAL NEWS — Meanwhile at blogTO Erin Horrocks-Pope writes about some of the other Indigenous burial grounds uncovered around the city, including Tabor Hill in Scarborough. Read more.
ROB FORD STADIUM NEWS — There’s a petition against council’s recent decision to rename Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke in honour of the notorious Rob Ford. Toronto Life talks to the woman behind it. Read more. Sign the petition.
MADGE NEWS — Madonna was in town this week, which seems like a good time to look back at the piece I wrote for this newsletter last year, about when she faced off against the Toronto Police Morality Squad in a battle over the city’s soul. Read more.
BUDS NEWS — At TVO, Steve Paikin argues that “one of the greatest Maple Leafs ever to don Toronto’s blue and white … hasn’t been suitably celebrated by his former team.” Read more.
SCARBOROUGH FOLLY NEWS — The Bolster Avenue Folly is no more. The “odd collection of plaster and facade masquerading as a house near Pharmacy & St. Clair” began as a bungalow in the 1970s, but has recently been demolished after being abandoned for years. Read more.
GET IN LOSER NEWS — The movie Mean Girls is now somehow 20 years old, which I guess makes it history. Elisabetta Bianchini takes a look at some of the spots around Toronto where it was filmed, including Etobicoke Collegiate, Convocation Hall and one of my own teenage hangouts, Sherway Gardens. Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
ANNUAL FALL AUTHOR SERIES: LORNA POPLAK
January 25 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — Town of York Historical Society
“Lorna Poplak will present on her publication The Don Jail as she investigates the origins and evolution of Toronto’s most infamous jail, presenting a in-depth exploration of the jail from its inception through jailbreaks and overcrowding to its eventual closure and rebirth.”
$17.31 for members; $22.63 for non-members
ST. ANNE’S ANGLICAN CHURCH: A UNIQUE TORONTO TREASURE
January 31 — 7pm — Online — North Toronto Historical Society
“St. Anne's is designed in the grand Byzantine Revival style -- unusual for an Anglican church. The interior is remarkable: it was decorated by local artists, including several members of the Group of Seven. Architectural historian Marta O'Brien will reveal the fascinating stories behind the art and architecture of this beautiful worship space.”
FINDING 19th CENTURY BLACK HISTORY IN TORONTO
February 1 — 7pm — Online & In-Person at St. John’s Anglican Church — The West Toronto Junction Historical Society
“Embark on a captivating journey through Toronto’s rich history with acclaimed genealogist and historical researcher, Hilary Dawson. With a profound expertise spanning over three decades, Dawson has meticulously uncovered the hidden stories of African Canadians in the 19th century, particularly in the vibrant landscapes of Toronto and Etobicoke. Her invaluable contributions have been recognized by the Etobicoke Historical Society, which honored her with the prestigious Jean Hibbert Award in 2002. Now, she invites you to join an enlightening talk where she will delve into the lives of African-Canadian families, exploring their communities, challenges, and the remarkable contributions they made to the cultural tapestry of Toronto.”
AN EVENING WITH LOST RIVERS
February 1 — 6:30pm — Toronto Reference Library
“Helen Mills is the indefatigable force behind, and face of - the Lost Rivers project. She will be talking about the past, present and future of the Lost Rivers, about the GTA as a bio-region and about early mapping of lost rivers in Toronto. She'll show how to investigate the historical, archeological and topographical clues to the pre-built landscape in our city, and in your own neighbourhood.”
Free with registration!
THE STORY OF WINDERMERE UNITED CHURCH — A SWANSEA LANDMARK FOR MORE THAN A CENUTRY
February 7 — 8pm — Online & In-Person at Swansea Town Hall — Swansea Historical Society
“Windermere United Church has played an important role in the life of the Swansea community ever since the congregation was founded in 1912, as Windermere Methodist Church. When the United Church of Canada was created in the 1920s, Windermere Methodist became Windermere United. For many decades, the congregation grew and prospered, and in recent years it was noted for its outreach initiatives. In 2023, as the membership was shrinking, the decision was made to merge with Runnymede United. We are pleased that the landmark building at the corner of Mayfield Avenue will be preserved as a hub for community-oriented activities, now known as the Windermere Campus of Runnymede United Church.”
Free, I believe!
ATROCITY ON THE ATLANTIC: THE LONG WAKE OF A FORGOTTEN WAR CRIME AGAINST A CANADIAN HOSPITAL SHIP
February 29 — 8:15pm — Toronto Reference Library
“On the evening of June 27, 1918, an unarmed, clearly marked Canadian hospital ship called the Llandovery Castle was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat. Sinking hospital ships violated international treaties, so the submarine commander tried to kill the survivors to conceal his war crime. ... This presentation will discuss the attack, the survivors and the deceased, why the attack was forgotten, and the long aftermath of an atrocity that continues to impact military conduct and international law today.”
Free!
THE LIFE & TIMES OF ALFRED LAFFERTY
March 21 — 7:30pm — Montgomery’s Inn — The Etobicoke Historical Society
“In 1869 Alfred M. Lafferty, M.A., Richmond Hill, was a witness to the marriage of William Denis Lafferty, a black farmer who lived in Etobicoke. Who was the man with the same surname and a university degree? Hilary J. Dawson’s research uncovered the story of the Lafferty family, and the successes, challenges, and tragedies they faced. The Lafferty parents arrived from the United States in the 1830s as freedom-seekers and their two older sons later farmed in Etobicoke. The youngest son, Alfred, won prizes for excellence at both Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto. Alfred M. Lafferty would be the first black High School Principal in the province. Later, he became the first Canadian-born black lawyer in Ontario.”
Free for members; annual memberships cost $25
Thirty years is a long time. Wonderful to read of her parents support.
Glad I found you! I'll be in Toronto in April and am always looking for history-type things in new cities