The walls of Whitney Forum now pay tribute to a group of groundbreaking female athletes.
The new Flin Flon Minor Hockey Female Wall of Fame was officially unveiled Feb. 22, paying tribute to past and present female hockey players.
The inaugural group of honourees for the wall are Amber Chrisp, Crystal Springer and Indra Wood, each products of the Flin Flon Minor Hockey system who went on to represent their community at national or collegiate levels. Several current female minor hockey players were on hand to meet and congratulate the honourees.
Springer, one of Flin Flon’s best homegrown goalies, is perhaps best known for her accomplishments in the American college ranks. She joined the Middlebury Panthers college club in NCAA Division III for her freshman season, then transferred to Harvard, eventually becoming the Crimson’s starting goaltender. Springer won a national championship with the Crimson in 1999, posting sterling numbers in net while both playing with and against future Olympians. While playing with the hockey club, Springer also played on the Harvard softball team.
After leaving Harvard, Springer coached before returning to Canada. She is also a member of the Saskatoon Ball Hockey Hall of Fame.
“It’s pretty incredible to be recognized. I think one thing for us is to think about how supportive Flin Flon and the community was for me to just get opportunities to play and develop and grow as a player. It's pretty humbling and it feels great to be recognized.” Springer said.
The second entrant to the wall of fame was the youngest player to be featured. Wood is, like the other inductees, a Flin Flon Minor Hockey product.
She joined the Banff Bears in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League while in high school, then joined the King’s College Monarchs team on scholarship in NCAA Division III. Recruited in part for her faceoff skills and two-way play, Wood played a season for the King’s College squad before moving back to Canada. Wood now plays for the Brock Badgers intermediate team in Ontario.
“I'm excited about it - ecstatic about it, honestly,” Wood said of the honour.
“For years, having to play on boys teams and fight to be recognized and fight for my place on the team, I’m really glad all the years of hard work are finally showing up on this.”
Some non-obvious ties bind the honourees. One of Wood’s role models, Jennifer Botterill, is a former teammate of Springer’s at Harvard.
Chrisp laced up the skates in Flin Flon Minor Hockey at age 5 and joined local representative teams for much of her childhood. Chrisp was named to Team Manitoba at the 1991 Canada Winter Games, playing in the event’s inaugural women’s hockey competition. Alongside other future stars like former Canadian Olympian Sami Jo Small, Team Manitoba finished fifth. Chrisp, who was not in attendance for the dedication of the wall of fame, went on to play high-level women’s hockey in Winnipeg.
While feats and accomplishments from the men’s game can be found on almost every wall of the Forum, finding artifacts of the women’s game can be difficult, if not nearly impossible. Despite a long history of women’s hockey in the community, little recognition has been paid to dominant players.
Springer and Wood both hope the wall of fame initiative can play a role in giving female players past, present and future recognition for their skills.
“I think it starts to put us on more even footing with the guys. It’s a male dominated sport and it’s nice that they are looking at it. There are women from Flin Flon that are achieving in hockey,” Springer said.
“You have to see that women are able to make our way out into the world and show that we can play college hockey, that there is a future. I think it’s a great part of the puzzle pieces, to see the women’s national team, to see their fight for equality and equal pay. It’s really great to see,” Wood added.
Women’s minor hockey in northern Manitoba is currently in a state of flux. With few registered players at higher age levels, all-female teams are becoming harder to organize. In recent years, the Norman Wild midget program - which Wood played with at one point - was axed. At the same time, enrollment for girls in lower age divisions has skyrocketed. Currently, around 30 female players are registered with Flin Flon Minor Hockey through all age groups.
Both inductees have hope for the future of northern women’s hockey.
“When I see and hear there are 30 girls playing, that’s a huge improvement from when I was here. Between three age divisions, when I was in my last year here, we had enough girls for one team to play in the league here and that was basically it - we had maybe about 12 total,” Springer said.
“Being able to play bantam AAA and midget AAA in my years, it was difficult, hard to practice and get together to improve and play as a team. It’s unfortunate that after I moved, the midget team folded. Hopefully, if these girls are inspired by this and stick with hockey, there’ll be a place for a team in the future,” stated Wood.
