Ottawa Alert a tribute to women who helped break the ice a century ago

When news broke late last month that the nascent Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) had filed trademark applications for six team names including the Ottawa Alert, James Powell felt a sense of déjà vu.

Powell, a member of the Historical Society of Ottawa and author of the blog Today in Ottawa's History, had recently written about another pioneering women's hockey team with the same name. Well, almost the same.

The Ottawa Alerts — that's Alerts plural — burst onto the sports scene in 1915, a year into the First World War. With many of Canada's most accomplished hockey-playing men enlisting and serving overseas, there was suddenly room on the rink for the women.

Many of the men initially came to mock, but when they saw the quality of the games that turned around pretty quickly.- James Powell, Historical Society of Ottawa

The team drew young women from the Ottawa Ladies' College and the YWCA. 

Women's hockey was nothing new in Canada. Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy (née Stanley), daughter of the governor general who would later lend his name to hockey's most coveted prize, famously hosted an all-ladies shinny game at Rideau Hall in 1889. (A rematch the following year produced the first known photograph of women playing hockey.)

Women's hockey flourished over the following decades, and there were plenty of local teams. Powell lists the Rideau Club Ladies, the Westboro Pets and the Vestas of Hull among the popular capital region clubs at the time. 

Women's game was a novelty

The women's game was still seen as something of a novelty, however, and not everyone viewed it as a suitable pursuit for proper young ladies in the early 20th century. 

"It was considered unladylike, I would put it that way," Powell told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning earlier this week.

But spectators soon learned that these women could really play. Following a 1916 road trip to Cornwall, Ont., a local newspaper described the Alerts as "good players and very good stick-handlers," Powell said. 

They were tough, too.

"They didn't shy away from hits," Powell said. "It was really the quality of the matches that attracted the fans to the games."

In 1917, the Alerts travelled to Pittsburgh to take on the Polar Milk Maids, sweeping the three-game "world" series and gaining some international attention.

Toward the end of 1922, the Alerts joined the 18-team Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA). In their black and yellow sweaters and long skirts, the Ottawa team took on North Toronto in a two-game contest for the inaugural league championship in March 1923.

Ottawa won the cup with a total of six goals to North Toronto's two, with star player Shirley Moulds netting all but one goal for the Alerts. They won again the following year, and according to Powell the Alerts "remained a power in Ontario women's hockey through the rest of the decade."

Alerts drew big crowds

They were also a big draw at home, winning new fans with their action-packed play on such storied local rinks as Dey's Arena.

"They were extremely popular," Powell told Ottawa Morning. "Thousands of fans came to their games. Many of the men initially came to mock, but when they saw the quality of the games that turned around pretty quickly."

The Alerts lost some of their star players including Moulds to rival teams, and after a disappointing disqualification from the 1930 championship, the team "disappeared from the sports pages of Ottawa newspapers, most likely another casualty of the Depression," according to Powell.

The LOHA folded a decade later.

The Ottawa Alerts may be long gone, but they were never forgotten.

Star player stayed humble

Don Moulds said his aunt Shirley never talked about her hockey career. In fact, he only learned about her on-ice exploits after she died 50 years ago.

"I only got an inkling of her ability at hockey when a gentleman came up to me at her funeral [and] said that he had seen her play back in the '20s, and that she was as good as any of the junior boys at that time," Moulds told CBC.

Shirley Moulds excelled at many other sports including softball, tennis and later bowling. While she remained humble about those accomplishments, one of her great nephews researched her life's story, resulting in her induction into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

Shirley Moulds was a lifelong resident of Fifth Avenue in the Glebe, and later worked for the federal government. She was also an avid Ottawa Rough Riders fan, and a devotee of quarterback Russ Jackson in particular.

"Aunt Shirley is still missed by all of us who were lucky enough to know her," Don Moulds said.

In another modern tribute, the women's hockey teams from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University now compete for the Alerts Cup. The winner-take-all game has been held intermittently since 2004.

While the name of Ottawa's new PWHL franchise hasn't been finalized, Powell said the choice of the Ottawa Alert would be a fitting acknowledgement of the pivotal role those pioneering women played a century ago.

"I thought it was delightful," he said. "It was a great nod to a historic team."

Don Moulds appreciates the gesture, too.

"I think Alert would be an excellent choice," he said. "I'm sure my aunt would be totally on board with it as well."