When Hazel McCallion was five years old growing up in northern Quebec, her older brother bought her a pair of skates for Christmas and took her out to a homemade ice rink in a field close to their home. This was her first time skating and she initially had some trouble getting the hang of it.
“You’ve got to keep your head up next time,” McCallion told Global News she recalled her brother saying when she fell and hit her head.
It was a bit of a rough start to her relationship with skating, but it was from that point on that McCallion started to love being on the ice and, not long after, playing hockey.
That love of skating and the obsession with hockey is something that the iconic former Mississauga mayor has held on to throughout her life.
Now 97 years old, there are growing calls for McCallion to be recognized for her relationship with the sport and all of the steps she has taken to help it grow throughout Mississauga and the world. A petition was launched for her to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
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“I think it’s important for Hazel to be recognized because at the moment there are no women’s builders that have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame,” said Daniel Harbridge, who launched the petition April 3.
“Recognizing her contributions to the game recognizes that women’s hockey goes back as far as when Hazel started playing in the mid-1920s.”
Harbridge launched the petition on Twitter with the account @HazelHallofFame and since then, the idea has started to get quite a bit of attention online.
Long before becoming the mayor of Mississauga, McCallion played hockey in a women’s league in Montreal where she was paid $5 per game at a time when women getting paid to play hockey was unheard of, Harbridge said.
“I was very fast,” McCallion said.
“Small, but fast.”
McCallion played hockey for a number of years in Montreal before moving to Toronto in 1942 for a job position. In Toronto, she did not have very much time to play hockey anymore, but still tried to get out on the ice whenever there was time, she said.
She held on to her passion for hockey, and in the 1970s, McCallion began working with Fran Rider, one of the founders of the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association (OWHA). Rider had been working to promote women’s hockey throughout the world and make it an official sport of the winter Olympics.
“I did whatever I could even though I was working for my company and in 1978 was elected mayor, but whatever time I had I was prepared to give to assist her (Rider) in her vision,” McCallion said.
It paid off and, in 1998, women’s hockey became a part of the Olympics largely as a result of McCallion and Rider, Harbridge said.
During her 36-year reign as Mississauga’s mayor, McCallion said she also worked to ensure that plenty of arenas were built in the city so that kids could have access to rinks.
“I really believe that sports can do a lot to motivate young people but also form a discipline,” she said.
In 1998, McCallion was also instrumental in getting Mississauga an Ontario Hockey League team and a new arena for it.
“She worked with the city of Mississauga to have the Hershey Centre built and that provided an opportunity for Don Cherry to get a franchise for Mississauga,” Harbridge said.
McCallion said she was also able to get the OWHA declared an official hockey league by the provincial government. For the 2000 Women’s World Hockey Championship, Mississauga was given hosting rights, something McCallion pushed for.
Rider is currently recognized as a builder in the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame, but when Harbridge was doing some history research on women’s hockey and came across McCallion’s role in the sport, that’s when he began advocating for her to get recognition in Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder.
“I never dreamed that it would be even considered,” McCallion said.
“It would be quite an honour.”
McCallion said she still likes to go for an occasional skate today. She also continues to work with the OWHA.
In addition to the online petition, Harbridge submitted a more formal application to the Hockey Hall of Fame earlier in April, but said he has not heard anything back yet.
“I think it’s amazing that at 97 she’s still doing the work that she does,” Harbridge said. “I read that she still goes into the OWHA offices two or three times a week.”
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