Long before PWHL expansion, the Vancouver Griffins were the city's 1st women's pro hockey team
CBC
When Diane Nelson decided to start a women's pro hockey team, her mother warned her of the risks.
"The advice she gave me was like something you would give a gambler: You've got so many quarters, once you use it up, promise me that you won't go beyond," said Nelson.
Nelson, then a West Vancouver school principal, owned the Vancouver Griffins, a short-lived women's professional hockey team that played in the National Women's Hockey League from 2000 to 2003.
More than two decades after the Griffins played their last game, Nelson says she is delighted that the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) announced that Vancouver would be home to its first expansion franchise.
Nelson's mother, now 96 years old, was also excited by the news.
"It kind of validates that it wasn't a crazy idea," Nelson told CBC News. "It is something that has tremendous possibility and I'm just glad that I'm able to share it with my mom."
Looking back, Nelson says she was "naive" about the prospect of owning a pro women's hockey franchise at the start of the 21st century.
"The doors of opportunity that were supposed to open for me didn't," she said.
Nelson is hopeful that those doors may finally have opened for professional women's hockey in the city.
The PWHL, which consists of six teams from Canada and the U.S., announced Wednesday that the new team will be known temporarily as PWHL Vancouver while it works to develop team branding, including a logo and name.
PWHL Vancouver will start playing in the 2025-26 season, which is expected to begin in November. The team will be the primary tenant at the Pacific Coliseum on the grounds of the Pacific National Exhibition in East Vancouver.
It will practice steps away at the PNE Agrodome.
Vancouver was chosen as the seventh PWHL franchise after an eight-month process that saw expansion bids from groups in more than 20 cities.
Earlier this year, Vancouver hosted a PWHL Takeover Tour game that drew more than 19,000 fans — the fourth-largest turnout in league history.
What started out as a class project has landed four University of Guelph students in the finals of the NHL and NHLPA Hockey Innovation Competition in Ottawa.
A new generation of kids on Prince Edward Island will get a chance to peep through the Polka Dot Door this summer.
Five athletes from Mistissini are gearing up to ride 1,000 kilometres this summer as part of Quebec’s Grand défi cycling challenge, but first they need to raise $13,500 to support the ride.
A Toronto non-profit says it's launched the province's first harm reduction program for adults with intellectual disabilities.
In Havana on Friday, Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez argued that Canada should maintain the commercial relationship with Cuba that has made it the country's largest foreign investor after Spain.
About 100 people gathered outside the Colonial Building in St. John’s on Saturday for an anti-war rally. They were met with some counter-protesters, highlighting different views on the Iran war.
The two candidates hoping to become Quebec's next premier in less than a month took part in a first official sparring match Saturday, with Christine Fréchette accusing her opponent of having a big ego and bringing the debate over shale gas back to the forefront.
Amanda Lathlin, the first First Nations woman to be elected to the legislative assembly in Manitoba's history, has died, the provincial NDP said on Saturday.
Colten Poitras describes Indian relay as an extreme sport.
After more than 48 hours of heavy rainfall, conditions began to ease Saturday morning, but the City of Fernie, B.C., says untreated wastewater is still being released into the Elk River.
An Alberta town reeling from the loss of its rinks has advanced to the final stage of a national competition, with $250,000 on the line.
Members of the new Arctic Canada Tourism Network want to make sure their industry has a voice in conversations about the future of the Arctic.
People continue to flock to Banff National Park.