Women hockey players put heat on Kenora, Ont., for earlier ice times, fearing leagues may fold

Female hockey players are demanding the City of Kenora change its ice allocation policy to make the sport more accessible to them.

The northwestern Ontario city has recreational and competitive women's leagues. Players say they've been fighting for years for ice times that meet their busy schedules.

The city's updated ice allocation policy, approved by council in December, has pushed the women's ice times back to 10 p.m. The leagues say that may force them to fold.

"We're looking to access ice time that's accessible for working moms," hockey player Jill Hager told CBC News.

"We all know how challenging it can be, that work-life balance. There's tons of research about women in sports and the barriers that women face when they're trying to access recreation."

A national study on sport participation among Canadian girls shows one in three girls quit sports by their late teens. Kenora's women's hockey leagues are trying to create spaces for women to stay active throughout adulthood, Hager said.

"We are busy women. We are exhausted at the end of the day. The evidence supports that women still do more household chores, child rearing, volunteer work in our communities and coaching our children," Hager said during a deputation to city council earlier this month.

"We are tired of advocating year over year for fair and equitable ice time. We are done," she continued. "Once our leagues are gone, there will be no place for our daughters or sisters to play."

Youth groups prioritized in policy

The City of Kenora has two indoor rinks.

Heather Pihulak, the city's director of corporate services and clerk, told CBC News in an email that changes to the ice allocation policy affected all adult groups, not just the women's leagues.

"As approved by council, the policy prioritizes all youth over all adult groups — period. This means that any ice time requests that were not youth were given the next time slot after prime ice time and did in fact push all adult leagues to later times because the youth requests filled the prime ice times," Pihulak wrote.

Any adult groups' requests for prime ice time from Monday to Thursday — between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. — that could not be fulfilled "were offered alternative times within [the] prime time hours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in addition to after 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday," she said.

Players from the women's leagues say the addition of the Kenora Islanders Jr. A Hockey Club in the community affected the new ice allocation policy.

The team, which includes players ages 17 through 21, is part of the Superior International Junior Hockey League. In April 2023, the city denied the Islanders' ice time request, but accommodated the team later in the year.

The ice allocation policy includes a user priority ranking list, with ice times for Kenora U-18 AAA regular season and playoff games at the top. There is also high priority for "podium pathway" users — athletes who are considered "capable of winning at the highest levels of international competition."

General recreational programs, seasonal clients and occasional clients are at the bottom of the list.

"Residents of the City of Kenora and residents of the surrounding Treaty 3 community will always receive priority over non-residents in the allocation of ice time," the policy says.

The Kenora Islanders' roster includes eight players from northwestern Ontario, including four from Kenora. Hager said she is not looking to disparage the Islanders and agrees youth groups must be prioritized.

"There's some men's groups that are being impacted by this as well, but we're sort of feeling it more because we really have no other option," she said. "We're just really feeling squeezed."

'This is our social time'

Shayla Smith, a goalie, said playing in the Kenora Women's Recreational League is what keeps her active, both physically and socially.

"For a lot of us, this is our social time," Smith said. "For those of us with young kids, this is your chance to get out of the house and talk to other people your age, and just have fun — step out of the mum roll for an hour and be someone else."

Aimee Matheson, president of the Fort Frances Girls and Women's Hockey Association, wrote a letter of support for Kenora's female players that was addressed to the city. She pointed to recent statistics from Hockey Canada, which say women's and girls' hockey participation numbers have recently exceeded 100,000 for the first time in history.

"The positive trends we are witnessing in women's and girls' hockey are not just statistics; they represent real progress in fostering a more inclusive and diverse sporting community.

"By not supporting this growth at the local level, we risk undermining the efforts and achievements of countless players, coaches, officials and supporters who are working tirelessly to advance women and girls' hockey," Matheson wrote.

Hager said moving their ice times to 9 p.m. or 9:30 p.m., as they were previously, would make a big difference.

"People say to us, 'Well, it's only an hour, it's only half an hour.' Well, the difference between starting at 9 p.m. and starting at 10 p.m. when you have to get up at 5:30 a.m. the next day is a huge difference for us."

Coun. Lindsay Koch is expected to make a deputation at the next council meeting in September to address the women's concerns. The leagues' seasons start in October after Thanksgiving.