Women on Ice opens up the almost unknown story of women’s ice hockey in western Canada during the First World War and the 1920s. The Vancouver Amazons, with their championship laurels and a close association with hockey’s famous Patrick brothers, were perhaps the most famous, but they were only one of a number of hockey teams that met during the annual Banff winter carnivals to compete for the women’s ice hockey championship of western Canada.

Meticulously researched and studded with captivating photos, the book introduces us to a whole host of teams from British Columbia and Alberta – the Regents, the Hollies, the Rustlers, the Amazons, the curiously named Swastikas, and many more – teams that deserve to be legendary, but are now largely forgotten.

Although the crowds at women’s games were sometimes bigger tan the men’s, the popularity of women’s hockey declined in the 1930s. Subsequently, the history of all women’s teams in western Canada was consigned to obscurity. In Women on Ice, Wayne Norton rescues much of the detail and drama of hockey’s fascinating history.