A century after women’s hockey was pioneered in Ottawa by the likes of Lord Stanley’s daughter, hundreds of girls are converging on the capital to celebrate their sporting heritage and embrace the legacy of Lady Isobel Stanley.

An estimated 2,000 players, coaches and officials from 57 local, Ontario and Quebec teams are set to compete in the second-annual Capital Classic House League Tournament, hosted by the Ottawa Girls’ Hockey Association (OGHA) and sanctioned by the Ontario Women's Hockey Association.

The opening Feb. 11 face-off at Tom Brown arena launches the four-day, 117-game battle between almost 900 players, from novice to intermediate, in one of the fastest-growing tournaments of its kind in Eastern Ontario.

The Capital Classic also marks the 119th anniversary one of Canada’s first reported seven-a-side women’s game at Ottawa’s old Rideau Rink, where the University of Ottawa Faculty of Arts building now stands.

The Daily Citizen reported the evening spectacle under the front-page, man-bites-dog headline: “Ladies Play Hockey.”

A year earlier, in 1890, young Lady Stanley became one of the first women photographed playing shinny, in an ankle-length white dress on the Rideau Hall rink.

Her hockey-loving father, Governor-General Lord Stanley of Preston, likely never envisioned organized girls’ hockey — else there might be a second Stanley Cup — much less a 2010 women’s hockey team favoured over Canada’s men to win Olympic gold.

Female hockey’s long struggle for legitimacy officially began in 1892 with game in Barrie, Ontario, recognized by Hockey Canada as Canada’s first women’s match. Others, however, give that honour to an 1889 four-a-side Ottawa match between Lady Stanley’s Government House team and the Rideau Rink ladies team.

The first female “club team”, the Love-Me-Littles, formed in 1894 Kingston, Ontario, future home of three-time hockey Olympian and current Team Canada forward Jayna Hefford. Four Kingston novice and peewee teams, competing under the more menacing “Ice Wolves' “ league banner, are to defend their hometown hockey pride at the tournament.

Ottawa hockey history will be in play, too. The downtown McNabb arena, one of eight tournament rinks, sits across the street the former Dey’s Skating Rink, where the Ottawa Hockey Club — the modern-day Senators — won its first Stanley Cup in 1903. A modest marble plaque outside an unassuming neighbourhood coin laundry denotes the spot.

Women’s hockey spurted and sputtered amid sneers and snickers throughout much of the 20th century. The female side of the sport didn’t truly come of age until 1990 when the national women’s team won the world championship at the inaugural International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) women’s world games — in Ottawa.

Girls began flocking to organized girls’ teams, swelling rosters from about 8,100 in 1990 to more than 85,000 today. In the 1998-99 season, the ranks exploded by 30 per cent after women’s hockey debuted as an Olympic sport at the 1998 Nagano, Japan games.>

“It’s the one area where there’s always growth,” says Andre Brin, of Hockey Canada. “You have to think this year in Canada, with prime time and the (Team Canada women’s) exposure, it should be interesting, to see if it drives another headlong registration rush next season.”

Sabine Dixon (wearing glasses) & the rest of the Snow Leopards

Sabine Dixon, 10-year-old goalie for the OGHA’s Atom Snow Leopards, has always lived in a world where women’s hockey was a high-performance, world-class sport. “I started playing road hockey with my family and I thought it might be fun if we played on real ice with a real team,” she recalls. “I picked goalie because it’s really fun to stop big saves and you stay on the ice the whole game." “There are some boys in my class who play hockey and they were surprised,” to learn she’s a net-minder. “In gym class, we play hockey and I’m always the first pick for their goalie.”

Nurturing raw young talent and enthusiasm requires volunteers, community resources and financial support. Major Capital Classic sponsors include The SAM Group, the Taggart Group of Companies, Egg Producers of Ontario, Best Western Macies Hotel, Emond Harriden LLP and Remax real estate broker Susan Chell.

It also takes exceptional individual commitments and leadership. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty just presented Stephanie Steward, OGHA president for five years, with a "Celebration 2010" community sports hero award as one of the province’s “unsung heroes” of community sport.

As a league executive and mother of two long-time OGHA players, Steward witnessed the birth of modern girls’ hockey in Eastern Ontario.

That the second-annual Capital Classic has grown to 58 teams from 43 last year — some teams were turned away for lack of space — “just shows the demand that’s out there for girls to play,” she says.

“They’re always looking for somewhere to participate and, overall, every association that I’m aware of has waiting lists at almost every age for their normal registrations every year.”

A chief goal of the tournament, she says, is fun — “To walk away saying, ‘That was great and we’re coming back next year’.”

- Ian MacLeod

For additional tournament information, interviews with players, league and tournament executives and other media assistance contact Ian MacLeod at 613-289-0622 or (evenings) 613-728-5891 or imacleod@sympatico.ca