It is that kind of enthusiasm that the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is seeking to harness in its efforts to maintain the steady growth of women’s ice hockey around the world.

The same spirit of improvisation witnessed in the streets of Kamloops held sway back in 1889 when Lord Stanley of Preston, Canada’s sixth Governor General and eventual namesake of the Stanley Cup, supervised the flooding of a large lawn on the grounds of the Government House - Rideau Hall in Ottawa - to create a rink after being enthused by an ice hockey match he had seen at the Montreal Winter Carnival. This whim enabled some of the first flourishes of the women’s game to take place - and to be recorded.

Lord and Lady Stanley and their children, including two daughters, reportedly spent many hours there playing their new favourite sport. Often, winter parties at Rideau Hall included hockey games between pick-up teams of men and women, and in 1890 one of those Stanley daughters, Isobel, was photographed on the makeshift rink with her female team-mates from Government House in what was the earliest known image on film of women involved in a game of ice hockey.

Before moving back to England in 1893, Lady Isobel and her siblings talked their father into buying a silver cup to present to the best amateur ice hockey team in Canada. Since 1926 it has been known as the Stanley Cup, the premier prize for National Hockey League (NHL) teams. Earlier this month, a similar tribute was paid to this pioneering sportswoman as the winners of the National Women’s Hockey League championship received, for the first time, the Isobel Cup.

The official start of women’s ice hockey is now reckoned to be 1891. On February 11 of that year, the Ottawa Citizen published the first newspaper account of a game between two unnamed women’s teams.

The women’s game has come a long way since then - although the tracks through the ice have been by no means smooth and straight.

During the 1920s, college teams were formed in both the United States and Canada, but in the wake of the Second World War the growth of the women’s game slowed, with the main focus falling on the swiftly expanding men’s game.

The women’s game enjoyed a renaissance during the 1970s, however, when new teams formed in Sweden, Finland, Japan, China, Korea, Norway, Germany and Switzerland and the college game thrived anew in Canada and the United States. Participation by girls in youth hockey rose, with many players taking advantage of the newly designed chest pads and pelvic protector gear.

The modern era of organised women’s hockey began in the late 1980s when the first international invitational tournaments were organised. In 1987 the first Women’s World Invitational Tournament was held in New York and Mississauga, Ontario, with teams representing Canada, Ontario, the United States, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Japan. The IIHF came under intensive and widespread lobbying to create a Women’s World Championship.

In 1989 the IIHF President attended the inaugural European Women’s Championships, and plans were drawn up for the future World Championships, the first of which took place the following year in Ottawa -  aptly enough - where Canada earned the first of the ten titles so far amassed.

Women’s ice hockey made its debut at the Winter Olympics at Nagano in 1998, with the United States defeating Canada 3-1 in the first gold medal match.

This week Canada, still featuring the 37-year-old who many regard as the world’s best, Hayley Wickenheiser, will seek to regain a title that has been won on the last two occasions - in 2013 and 2015 - by the United States.

While Canada regained the bragging rights at the 2014 Sochi Games with its fourth consecutive victory at the Winter Olympics (although the World Championships became annual rather than biennial in 2011, they are still not held in Olympic years), Wickenheiser - who now has four golds and a silver from the Olympics - has travelled to British Columbia eager to earn her eighth world gold.

“It’s going to be highly competitive,” she told insidethegames. “We are the defending Olympic champions and the United States are the defending champions. It’s always a tight match between us. We can also expect a strong challenge from some of the countries who have traditionally won medals at the Championships - Sweden, Russia, Switzerland and Finland.”

Wickenheiser, who first played for Canada aged 15 at the 1994 World Championships, has been an iconic part of the developing women’s game in recent years, as has her former American rival Angela Ruggiero, the youngest member of the 1998 Olympic gold medal winning team aged 18, who retired in 2011.

Both are members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Wickenheiser was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission in 2014, and Ruggiero, who took the same route into the IOC four years earlier, has performed numerous roles within the organisation since, recently being appointed to the Coordination Commission for the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and also the Athletes’ Advisory Commission for the Los Angeles 2024 bid. Both, as you might expect, are ideally placed to offer cogent views on how the women’s game has developed during their careers.

Reflecting on her time at international level, Wickenheiser added: “Generally speaking the quality of the game is far stronger now. The same nations are at the top of the game, but the general level of performance is definitely better. In the past you might see teams winning matches by five to 10 goals. Now the margin is more likely to be two to three goals. If you look at the teams finishing fifth to eighth in recent World Championships, you will see between six to 10 countries involved.

“Women’s ice hockey is currently the fastest growing sport in Canada and North America. And people look forward to the big meetings between Canada and the United States. Women’s ice hockey is viewed as the best female winter sport in North America, with soccer being the most popular female sport in the summer Games.

“I think a big part of the popularity of the women’s game in Canada is to do with the Olympic Games. For the past four Olympics the Canadian public have seen the women win gold. And after each victory, in the year after the Games, you always see 50 per cent more participants. 

“The men’s team is a different sort of beast. NHL players are pulled together for a couple of weeks every four years for the Olympics. It’s a short-term thing - come in, go back. For the women’s team the Olympics is the pinnacle, and the public see that.”

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation figures for the Sochi 2014 Games illustrate how the women’s game is closing the gap on the men’s in terms of popularity. The men’s team, who also took Olympic gold, were drawing TV audiences of around 15 million, about half the country’s population, but the figures for the women’s final, where Canada beat the United States 3-2, were just short of 13 million.

Ruggiero told insidethegames: “I think the women’s game has progressed significantly in the 18 years since I played in the first Olympic final - in terms of the quality of the play, and the sheer number of players now in the game. The talent pool is far greater, the standard and intensity of training has improved significantly.

“I also think there has been a big increase in respect and popularity for the women’s game. We don’t have an NHL. For the women’s game, the Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport - players dedicate themselves completely for the four year periods until the next Games. I remember my life in quads.

“For many years, ice hockey was perceived of as a men’s sport, but I think the perception has totally changed. A lot of federations have recognised that they have the opportunity to increase participation in the sport by at least 100 per cent if you open it up to women.

“If you are the President of a federation and you are looking to get more kids playing your sport, once you start looking beyond the traditional male roles you are looking at a group that is double the number. There is a reason for National Olympic Committees and national federations to be interested in doing this, from the point of view of both growth and economics.

“And when you look at the way new sporting figures are viewed in the United States - such as Ronda Rousey in Ultimate Fighting Championship - it’s clear that traditional gender roles in sport are being transformed. This is part of a larger phenomenon whereby the more opportunities you have to succeed in a society, the more likely you are to have strong female athletes.”

Between 2007 and 2010 the number of registered female players worldwide grew from 153,665 to 170,872. Women’s hockey is on the rise in almost every part of the world and there are teams in North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa and Latin America.

The IIHF President, Rene Fasel, says the women’s game has been “one of the key growth areas” in recent years.

“We have already seen big strides in the last decade with games becoming more competitive and better physical preparation of the top female athletes,” Fasel told insidethegames. “There is still much more potential and still a considerable gap between North America and the rest of the world although it is getting smaller.

“I would like to see hockey become more popular among girls in other countries, especially in Europe and Asia, and that women’s hockey gets more support from local communities and clubs.

“We also noticed that the gap between the countries playing in the IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship and the Olympic Winter Games and those in the tier below is getting much smaller. There are more countries with the potential of qualifying for our top events. Maybe one day we will have more teams at the top level than the eight teams we see in Kamloops.

“We need to stimulate the women’s game everywhere. Hockey Canada and USA Hockey have done a tremendous job, but we can also see good work and growth in other countries, within the various initiatives the IIHF has started in the last few years to support girls’ hockey at grassroots level as well as with the top athletes in the participating countries.

“Today we have women’s national teams in over 40 countries on all continents although they are of course at different stages in their development and the opportunities are not the same everywhere.

“This week India and Malaysia played their first international women’s ice hockey games and last year we saw women’s national teams in Argentina and Brazil.”

Both Wickenheiser and Ruggiero have been pioneers for women’s ice hockey, in the historical manner of Lady Isobel Stanley.

“I started very young, and I’ve been in the game a very long time,” said Wickenheiser. “I’ve played in men’s professional teams in Finland and Sweden, and I think I have had a lot of respect within the game. I’ve also been involved with the Philadelphia Flyers camp.”

In 2003, Wickenheiser was due to play in the Italian men’s league until the Italian Winter Sports Federation made a last minute ruling that she was ineligible.

“I was already on my way to the airport when I got the call telling me the federation had made a ruling saying that no women could play in the top league. And the International Hockey Federation didn’t appeal it. 

“I wasn’t really set back, though. It possibly worked out best for me in the end because I went to Finland and played for a very good men’s team there. But I still feel that if you are good enough you should be able to play, whether you are a man or a woman.”

Wickenheiser proved the truth of that dictum, becoming the first woman to score a goal playing in a men’s professional league during her 23 games for the Kirkkonummi Salamat team in Finland’s Division II.

“I had my own room, and I would join my team-mates in the dressing room just before we went out,” she recalled. “It was not a big deal at all. The guys were very respectful to me and I am still in contact with many of them. We would all be together for sauna nights, and bus journeys, and in a lot of ways I was made to feel like I was one of the guys. Playing for those teams in Finland and Sweden were some of the best times I have had in the game.

“I would definitely like to play up to the 2018 Winter Olympics if I can, although I will take it year by year and evaluate my level of performance.”

In the meantime, Wickenheiser is working for the future of the women’s game by running Wickfest - an international event which started in Vancouver in 2010 and involves 100 teams from the five to 18 age group.

“Next year we are planning to split it into two events, with 100 teams in each event,” she added. “I have got so much out of the game, and this is one of the ways in which I can give back a legacy to it.”

Like Wickenheiser, Ruggiero has also had to battle to be able to make an impression upon the men’s game.

In 2005 she became the first woman to actively play in a regular season professional hockey game in North America at a position other than goalie when she turned out for the Tulsa Oilers in a Central Hockey League match. She recorded an assist on the final goal of the game, making her the only woman to score a point in a North American professional hockey game.

Seven years earlier, however, fresh from winning at the Nagano Winter Games, Ruggiero was refused permission to play in a local game at a rink in Michigan. An undercover news team investigated the incident, and as a result the rink changed its policy over women players.

“I have been cut from boys’ teams in my youth, but, as an Olympic gold medallist, I wasn’t expecting to be turned away from playing in a public rink - where it is illegal to discriminate,” she said.

“It wasn’t a big deal for me personally - I just wanted to get my feet back on the ice after taking time away following the Nagano Games. It was more of a symbolic challenge, to say 'this sort of thing shouldn’t happen in this day and age'. Luckily the Nagano success helped me to have the effect of changing things. I was happy to make the point on behalf of other young women who might want to play there.”

At the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Ruggiero made the news with quotes to the Sports Illustrated website about the Canadian team’s tactics in their 16-0 win against Italy in their preliminary game, saying: “I’m upset that Canada has been running up the score, especially against the host nation. There was no need for that. Canada is running up the score for whatever reasons - personal, short-term.”

Reflecting on these comments now, Ruggiero, who recently earned an MBA at Harvard Business School, made clear her sharp political nous.

“I don’t think I was implying that the women’s game was in danger of appearing weak,” she said. “But just like the men’s game has had in the past, the women’s game has had growing pains - and I think to some extent it still is.

“We still need support from the International Hockey Federation, and national federations from places like Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden, where the success of the men’s teams makes it clear that there is the knowledge to pass on to women’s teams as well.

“My comments were more a reflection of the fact that it was a game where the defending champions were playing against the host nation, who had had automatic qualification. I’ve played in teams that have run up the scores against opponents, and I have never felt good about it afterwards.

“I felt that, if you are playing the hosts you have to respect that fact, especially in the Olympics. For instance, there is generally no fighting in the men’s game at the Olympics – different standards apply. You have to remember that we are all in this game together.”

Ruggiero’s achievements, both on and off the ice, are huge. But there is still an ambition nagging at her. “I would love to see the women’s ice hockey final as the finale to a future winter Olympics, rather than the men’s final,” she said.

And the IIHF President’s take on that?

“At the moment this is not something we have discussed yet, mainly due to the fact that we have more teams competing in the men’s ice hockey tournament and more games due to the fact that women’s hockey is still in a different stage of development.

“Don’t forget that women’s ice hockey was first played at the Olympics in 1998 while men’s ice hockey was played for the first time in Antwerp 1920. But never say never."