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College Hockey in the US...How it all began

OnMAA

OnMAA

Vort Doen.....Heija Heija Heija
I think this is worth a view for those of you interested in the history of the game.

Three of the trail blazers part of that Original "Pembroke Pandas" team were in attendance at the recent 50th anniversary celebration.

http://www.brownbears.com/sports/w-hockey/2013-14/videos/Hockey50thFINAL

The current Brown team wore vintage jerseys in the game commemorating this historic occasion. All current college players can thank some of these trail blazers to help pave the path for them all these years ago.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

Remember when women's colleges within universities had distinct names? Pembroke....Jackson....Radcliffe......now is Barnard the only one remaining? The Radcliffe name still persists in crew, but all other Harvard sports have long since abandoned the Radcliffe name. Wonder when the Pembroke-to-Brown transfiguration occurred. And note that Radcliffe, unlike the Pembroke Pandas, has no nickname or mascot. According to Wikipedia (which, I suspect, like Thurber's Golux tends to make things up at times) Barnard's mascot is "Millie, the dancing Barnard Bear." Oh my.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

Watson Rink said:
Remember when women's colleges within universities had distinct names? Pembroke....Jackson....Radcliffe......now is Barnard the only one remaining? The Radcliffe name still persists in crew, but all other Harvard sports have long since abandoned the Radcliffe name. Wonder when the Pembroke-to-Brown transfiguration occurred. And note that Radcliffe, unlike the Pembroke Pandas, has no nickname or mascot. According to Wikipedia (which, I suspect, like Thurber's Golux tends to make things up at times) Barnard's mascot is "Millie, the dancing Barnard Bear." Oh my.
Click to expand...

Not sure when the Pembroke to Brown change occurred, but if memory serves me correctly, sometime in the 70's. I'll look at the wall of fame pictures at Meehan next time I'm there. It will tell the tale.

In the meantime here is an interesting timeline for Female Sports at Brown. It shows that as recent as the early to mid nineties, women were still fighting for equal rights.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Pembroke_Center/documents/Final_Timeline.pdf
 
Oh the Tribulations of Establishing a Varsity Program

Oh the Tribulations of Establishing a Varsity Program

At least Pembroke was first in the nation on the ice and didn't have to run into the buzzsaw of playing previously established teams.

All of us Cantabs love to work into any conversation the fact that once, when Boston College's women's ice hockey program was transitioning from club to varsity status, the Crimson defeated the Eagles by a score of 17-2.

This thread impelled me to look up the origins of Harvard's women's hockey and what did I find out?....that when the Crimson took the ice for the very first time, Providence College spanked them by a score of....17-zip!
 
Watson Rink said:
All of us Cantabs love to work into any conversation the fact that once, when Boston College's women's ice hockey program was transitioning from club to varsity status, the Crimson defeated the Eagles by a score of 17-2.
Click to expand...
When Harvard destroyed BC 17-2 back in 2002-03, the Eagles had already been a D-I team for a number of years. For example, they had beaten Harvard 7-2 back in 1996. The Eagles just didn't care that much about women's hockey because BU was still a club team.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

ARM said:
The Eagles just didn't care that much about women's hockey because BU was still a club team.
Click to expand...

Now there is some history fodder for TTT. BU can take all the credit for the resurgence of BC women's hockey. :D :D
 
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Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

ARM said:
When Harvard destroyed BC 17-2 back in 2002-03, the Eagles had already been a D-I team for a number of years. For example, they had beaten Harvard 7-2 back in 1996. The Eagles just didn't care that much about women's hockey because BU was still a club team.
Click to expand...

At that time the team only had two full scholarships, and as I understand it both were held back that year by Head Coach Tom Babson for incoming coach Tom Mutch.
 
Hux said:
At that time the team only had two full scholarships, and as I understand it both were held back that year by Head Coach Tom Babson for incoming coach Tom Mutch.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the information. Giving a program only two scholarships is one indication that a school doesn't care very much. It doesn't make it a club program, it makes it lacking in resources due to an apathetic athletic department where that sport is concerned.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

ARM said:
Thanks for the information. Giving a program only two scholarships is one indication that a school doesn't care very much. It doesn't make it a club program, it makes it lacking in resources due to an apathetic athletic department where that sport is concerned.
Click to expand...

Clearly, that has changed at Chestnut Hill.
 
Re: Oh the Tribulations of Establishing a Varsity Program

Re: Oh the Tribulations of Establishing a Varsity Program

Watson Rink said:
At least Pembroke was first in the nation on the ice and didn't have to run into the buzzsaw of playing previously established teams.

All of us Cantabs love to work into any conversation the fact that once, when Boston College's women's ice hockey program was transitioning from club to varsity status, the Crimson defeated the Eagles by a score of 17-2.

This thread impelled me to look up the origins of Harvard's women's hockey and what did I find out?....that when the Crimson took the ice for the very first time, Providence College spanked them by a score of....17-zip!
Click to expand...

If memory serves correct, the first coach of the Crimson, and one of the architects of starting the program at Harvard, was Joe Bertagna, currently the Commissioner of Hockey East.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

OnMAA said:
Not sure when the Pembroke to Brown change occurred, but if memory serves me correctly, sometime in the 70's. I'll look at the wall of fame pictures at Meehan next time I'm there. It will tell the tale.
Click to expand...

I was a Pembroke Panda in the early 1970s. Pembroke merged with Brown in the winter of 1971. The Pandas remained the Pandas for a decade or so after the merger, then finally became the Bears like the men. (Thank God they didn't call themselves the "Lady Bears" -- I can't stand all those "Lady" names for women's teams! I mean... the Lady Friars? Really? How does that make sense? LOL)

Playing women's ice hockey back then was a trip... and by trip, I mean we had to pay our own way by bus to Montreal every winter to play in a women's tournament at McGill. We really had almost no teams to play against in the U.S. I think Colby College was one of the earliest at the college level. There were some women's club teams in RI and MA that we scrimmaged with.

Title IX gradually eliminated many of the inequalities with men's programs. Hoorah for that!

The day the U.S. women played Canada in the Nagano Winter Olympics for the first women's hockey gold medal ever, I stayed home from work to watch the game. I was in tears when we won! It was so moving to see how the sport had progressed and come into its own. And we had some great Brown stars on those teams -- Tara Mounsey and Katie King on Team USA, and Becky Kellar on Team Canada. We even had an alum on Team Japan, and I'm sorry I've forgotten her name.

Thanks for letting me share a few memories. I didn't attend the big 50th-anniversary party last weekend for a variety of reasons, not least that I feel Brown's administration hasn't supported the hockey program -- men's OR women's -- adequately for years now and I'm fed up with that benign neglect. Good to remember the golden years before expansion and scholarship programs started siphoning the top players away from Brown and other Ivies. And proud of where women's college hockey is today.
 
Re: College Hockey in the US...How it all began

DarthBruno said:
I was a Pembroke Panda in the early 1970s. Pembroke merged with Brown in the winter of 1971. The Pandas remained the Pandas for a decade or so after the merger, then finally became the Bears like the men. (Thank God they didn't call themselves the "Lady Bears" -- I can't stand all those "Lady" names for women's teams! I mean... the Lady Friars? Really? How does that make sense? LOL)
Click to expand...

I agree, the "Lady" stuff, at any level, is lame.
 
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