WESLEY CHAPEL — There were plenty of times as she stood behind the bench this season that Toronto Six assistant coach Angela James had to restrain herself.
The 57-year-old, one of the first female players inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, feels like she can still grab her skates and jump on the ice.
“It’s painful, it’s absolutely painful,” James said during the Premier Hockey Federation’s Isobel Cup playoffs this past week in Wesley Chapel. “I want to go and just take it on. My mind says, ‘Yep, I can do it,’ but my body says, ‘No, I can’t.’”
James has carried that passion for the game with her since she first picked up a stick at age 8. She didn’t have access to girls leagues at the time and had to fight for a place among the boys. Nearly half a century later, she continues to work to increase opportunities for female players, even if it means sometimes taking them to task.
Days before she was introduced as part of the Toronto Six’s new ownership group (along with ex-NHL player Anthony Stewart, former NHL coach Ted Nolan and Bernice Carnegie, co-founder of the Carnegie Initiative for inclusion and acceptance in hockey) earlier this month, James posted a message on a Facebook group page expressing her disappointment in the rival Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association.
She believes the PWHPA, which houses most of the U.S. and Canadian women’s national team players, is slowing the sport’s development through its refusal to join the PHF and instead start its own pro league.
“Women’s hockey is bigger than the PHF and the PWHPA,” James wrote. “Together we can make history. The best women players in the game deserve to be competing at a pro level in ONE league.”
James didn’t always have such influence, or even opportunity, in hockey.
Growing up in the Flemingdon Park area of Toronto, she was registered in a boys’ novice league but was permitted to play only after her mother threatened legal action, according to her bio on the Hockey Hall of Fame’s website. At age 8, she was so good she was moved up to the pee-wee level, where she played with 11- and 12-year-old boys. But after just one year, she was no longer permitted to play.
James was such a prolific scorer at Seneca College in Toronto, she was called the “Wayne Gretzky of women’s hockey.” She played in the first-ever women’s world championship and went on to win four world medals. She remains the only Black player to captain the Canadian national team at the senior level. After the Hockey Hall of Fame amended its by-laws in 2009, James joined Cammi Granato as the first female inductees the following year.
A former national team player who also spent two seasons playing in the National Women’s Hockey League (the predecessor to the PHF), she is uniquely qualified to weigh in on the current state of the sport.
“We need to come together,” James said. “We have to think of the larger picture, because it’s bigger than just the two groups. It’s about pro hockey. And I tell you, if we can make this happen, there’s a lot of people that are going to want to line up to really get involved. And I think that will come.”
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The PHF rebranded from the NWHL for the 2021-22 season in an attempt to shift the emphasis from the gender of the players to their talent and skill. Since the NWHL’s inaugural 2015-16 campaign, the league has expanded from four teams to six and seen upgrades to facilities,…
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