BTS: Home Game: Toronto Loves Basketball - Women
On June 13, I was thrilled to officially launch Home Game: Toronto Loves Basketball at the Museum of Toronto, Harbourfront Centre. I was honoured to be one of the named co-curators with Perry King and Kayla Grey, and the incredible crew of curators, designers, and staff at the Museum, most especially the Executive Director, Heidi Reitmaier. The official opening was timed with the anniversary of the Raptors’ historic championship victory in 2019 and made for a great party on the Toronto waterfront! The show runs Wed-Sun until October 12 and there’s great programming all summer. But that’s only the beginning…
Having researched the history of basketball in Toronto for the past 2+ years, I’ve learned so much about the evolution and changes of the game in the city, its players, historic moments, and its many important sites. One of the most important things I learned is that Toronto basketball did not follow a single history. The game emerged in fits and starts, in different times, neighbourhoods and communities in different ways and for different reasons. There is so much more to the many histories of basketball than we could include in the official exhibition. So, I wanted to take some space here to talk about the stories behind the images, artifacts, art and stories in the exhibition itself.
Perhaps one of the most surprising things I learned about basketball in Toronto is how early women’s basketball came to the city.
Like the US, women’s basketball in Toronto and Canada began in educational settings. The first women were admitted to the University of Toronto (UofT) in 1884 and after were provided with athletic opportunities thought appropriate to women of the emerging middle and upper classes. The Ladies Basketball Club was announced in 1895 and by the late 1890s, women at UofT were active in fencing, tennis, ice hocky and basketball. According to the Canadian historian, M. Ann Hall, “Basketball was the most popular team game, although finding a suitable place to play was often a problem” (The Girl in the Game, 31). A dedicated facility for women was finally completed in 1959 and women were granted full access to shared facilities at the university in 1972.
Women’s basketball and its distinct set of rules came from US colleges. In 1892, physical education teacher Senda Berenson Abbott (née Valvrojenski) read about James Naismith’s new game in Springfield, Massachusetts, and adapted the prevailing rules of basketball players at Smith College just down the road in Northampton. The first women's basketball game was played in 1892 between the freshman and sophomore classes at Smith. These modified rules were later published by the American Sports Publishing Company as the Official Basketball Guide for Women (1920), known as “Spalding Rules.” The women’s game rules were designed to encourage “play” over competition and to reduce “the tendency to roughness.” They re-enforced the popular belief of the time that white women of particular classes were physiologically more vulnerable and would be injured (and potentially mentally and morally compromised) by excessive physical exertion. The modifications from the men’s game included 6 players on the court – 3 forwards and 3 guards, who played within 3 defined spaces on the court, 2 players per area. Players moved only minimally, taking a few steps on a single “bounce” or by an “air dribble,” created by throwing the ball in the air briefly and running under it. In 1894, dribbling and guarding another player were expressly prohibited.
Portrait of Senda Berenson Abbott (left) and the Smith College basketball team, 1904 (New England Historical Society)
As basketball spread to UofT and Queen’s University, among other Ontario universities, the rules were modified to permit each player to cover two-thirds of the court and became the dominant rules for the Canadian Intercollegiate Women’s Basketball League in 1921.
Alexandrine Gibb
With an influx of working-class women to Toronto after WWI, women’s basketball spread outside universities. To support workers outside of business hours, companies such as Eaton’s created recreational leagues for women. In 1919, Alexandrine Gibb, who formerly played at UofT, organized the Ladies Ontario Basketball Association with teams from Toronto, Hamilton, London and Stratford. The dominant records and documentation detail predominantly the participation of white women. However, the historian Ornella Nzindukiyimana has detailed the history of Black women’s participation in sports in Southern Ontario from 1920 to 1940. She notes the emergence of a Black women’s basketball team in Hamilton in 1947 known as the Sepia Queens.
Edmonton Grads
First winners of the Underwood International Trophy, 1923.
Despite these advances in Toronto, women’s basketball in Canada flourished primarily in the western provinces, where women began playing by a different set of rules. Supported by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the ladies mercantile basketball league played throughout British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The most successful club by far was the Edmonton Commercial Graduates, or “Grads” (1917-1940), open to students of MacDougall Commercial and other business schools in the city. From 1923 to 1940 when the team disbanded, they were undefeated in international competition with the US and dominated in the Olympic Summer Games of 1924, 1928 and 1936, all of which they won undefeated.
Switching to so-called “boys’ rules” in 1922, the Grads dominated national play as well. In 1922, the Grads soundly defeated the Toronto Lakesides, but the success of the Grads sparked continued interest in women’s basketball in Ontario with more women coaching teams and running leagues. The difficulty with different rules persisted until the establishment of national women’s leagues, including the Canadian Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Union in 1969.
Opportunities for women continued largely through community organizations, such as the YWCA, and in universities. Canadian women continued to compete for the national championship trophy (known still as the “Bronze Baby”). The Canadian Amateur Basketball Association (CABA, later Canada Basketball) was established for men in 1923, but women were formally recognized as part of the Olympic Games in 1976. The Canadian women placed 4th in the 1984 Olympic Games and 3rd in the FIBA World Cup 1979 and 1986.
Little has been published about Toronto women’s basketball in the 1950s through the 1970s, but the game appears to have largely thrived outside of Toronto. Among the 100 top women Canadian players selected by U Sports Women’s Basketball for its 100th anniversary in 2020, only 3 of the names listed Toronto as a hometown and only 6 played for UofT and 1 for Ryerson (now renamed Toronto Metropolitan University). This is in comparison with 6 highlighted Laurentian University players, 8 from University of Victoria, and 13 from the University of British Columbia. The vast majority of recognized players played in Alberta (the home province of the Grads), British Columbia and Saskatchewan. In news reports from the women’s world basketball championships, highlighted players from the national team featured players from Quebec and B.C. The first woman inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978 was Noel Robertson (née MacDonald) of the Edmonton Grads, 1933-39. The first women’s team inducted was the Edmonton Grads in 1980, followed by the University of Winnipeg Women’s 1992-94 team in 1995. With the introduction of basketball to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canadian teams featured top players such as Liz Sillcott and Sylvia Sweeney from Montreal. (Sillcott would play as one of the few Canadians in the first professional Women’s Professional Basketball League, 1979-81.)
The first GTA athlete to be recognized by the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame was Tammy Sutton-Brown from Markham, Ontario in 2023. She played with the Markham District High School from 1992-97 and then at Rutgers University from 1997-2001. She led the Canadian national team in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a two-time WNBA All-Star. She is the only Canadian to earn a WNBA title as part of the 2012 Indiana Fever.
According to local newspaper reports, women’s basketball remained active in high schools, colleges and universities throughout the 20th century. Local teams received television and newspaper coverage. The Canadian Women's Interuniversity Athletic Union (CWIAU) was established in 1972 with 4 qualifying teams and expanded the tournament to 8 teams in 1979. The University of Toronto won once in 1986 and Ryerson (now, TMU) won in 2022. However, despite the rise of girls’ and women’s basketball in Toronto high schools, including recognized programs such as Eastern Commerce and colleges like George Brown, top GTA players began pursuing athletic opportunities in the US.
There are many reasons, but one possible reason is the passage of the US federal civil rights law Title IX as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law prohibited sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. The result was a significant expansion in US women’s college sports to ensure equivalence with men’s athletics, including lucrative scholarships, television appearances and increasingly world-class facilities. The high profile of many Division I US teams far exceed the facilities, audiences and exposure available to athletes at Canadian universities and colleges, including opportunities for professional careers including the WNBA (since 1997) and internationally. As a result, some of Toronto’s most prominent female players since the 1980s sought success at leading NCAA programs and beyond. According to Canada Basketball, Canadian players have appeared in the NCAA Tournament since at least the early 1980s. More recently, Kia Nurse (of Hamilton, Ontario) played for the University of Connecticut, 2014-18 and has been on WNBA teams, most recently the Chicago Sky. Alyssa Jerome of Toronto won the NCAA D1 Women’s Championship as part of the Stanford University team in 2021.
In 2026, the Toronto Tempo will bring the WNBA to Toronto and Canada. (Full disclosure, I’ve had my season ticket deposit in since 10 minutes after it was announced). But, this wasn’t the first pro women’s basketball team in Toronto. In 2020, Nakissa Koomalsingh, also known as Keesa K, founded HOOPQUEENS, Canada’s first professional women’s basketball league. The league is playing right now with games all month. (Tickets: here.)
Throughout the Home Game exhibition of the next several months, I’ll be writing more about the histories behind the exhibition and giving curatorial tours at the Harbourfont location. Let me know if there’s anything I’ve missed or that you want to know more about. Contact: https://www.sarahbaycheng.com/contact. You can also access community-based histories and share your own through an augmented reality app created with my colleague, Prof. Angela Norwood and her amazing students in the York University Design Lab, but that’s a subject for another post.
In the meantime, enjoy the show and Go Tempo!