Hilda Ranscombe

Early Years

Hilda Ranscombe was the youngest of nine children born to English immigrants. As a child, she played hockey with both boys and girls on the frozen Grand River near her home in Preston, Ontario (now part of the city of Cambridge). She spent many hours on a frozen pond improving her skating and practising puck-handling and shooting. She developed great speed and a hard shot.

Carl Liscombe, who played for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL) for nine seasons, played hockey with Ranscombe as a boy. He once said, “Hilda was just as good as any boy, and better than most, myself included.”

Preston Rivulettes

Hilda Ranscombe and her sister Nellie played on a girls’ softball team called the Rivulettes. At the end of the 1930 summer season, the girls talked about forming a hockey team. They sought the advice of Toronto Daily Star sportswriter Alexandrine Gibb. She suggested they join the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA) and find a local sponsor. With the help of MP Karl Homuth, they organized an amateur hockey team, also called the Rivulettes. Their coach was Herb Fach, manager of the local arena. The Ranscombe sisters were among the original 10 players, all aged between 13 and 19.

Glory Years

In February 1931, the Preston Rivulettes played their first game against the Grimsby Peaches, which they won by a score of 4–1. Over the next 10 years, the team played an estimated 350 games, losing only between three and five games (records vary). Throughout that time, Ranscombe was the team’s captain and its heart and soul. Her contemporaries said that she had no equal on the ice.

Olympic gold medallist and Globe and Mail sportswriter Bobbie Rosenfeld wrote that Ranscombe was a “dynamic right winger… We and others who have seen her streak along the ice lanes will readily admit her brilliancy as an individual member of this potent hockey machine.” Hockey fans nicknamed Ranscombe “Joliat” after the Montreal Canadiens star player Aurèle Joliat. She has since been compared to Gordie Howe and called “Preston’s own female version of Wayne Gretzky.”

Other Rivulettes players said Ranscombe was an inspirational leader who was a mentor, especially to younger players who joined the team in its later years. “Hilda took me under her wing,” said teammate Ruth Dagel, “showing me some of the finer skills and how to be a professional both on and off the ice.” Ranscombe responded to such praise by crediting her teammates. “The whole team was the most valuable player,” she said. Nonetheless, opposing teams would try to neutralize the Rivulettes by aggressively checking Ranscombe.

Statistics

In Hilda Ranscombe’s time, regular season statistics in women’s amateur hockey were not kept. However, in 21 championship tournament games from 1932 to 1939, Ranscombe scored 15 goals, had 12 assists, and served 24 minutes in penalties.

Later Years

The Preston Rivulettes disbanded due to financial difficulties and the beginning of the Second World War. While working in the insurance business, Ranscombe played in exhibition games and coached a girls’ team called the Preston Trianglettes. In her senior years, she suffered from multiple sclerosis. Following her death, her remains were interred at Parklawn Cemetery in Cambridge.

Awards and Honours

Hilda Ranscombe was twice nominated for the Lou Marsh Award (now the Northern Star Award), given annually to Canada’s top athlete. In 1938, she was nominated for the Norman Craig Memorial Trophy as Ontario’s most outstanding female athlete. She was inducted both individually and as a member of the Rivulettes into the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame, the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Her sweater and some equipment have been displayed at the Canadian Museum of History. Ranscombe has been inducted into the World Women’s Hockey Hall of Fame in the Pioneer Player category. The Hockey Hall of Fame library in Toronto has some of Ranscombe’s equipment and a book of documents attesting to her abilities, but she has not been made an inductee.