Irene Wall died in 1967. It was Canada’s centennial and a year when women’s hockey was about to gain a foothold in the hockey world, with new tournaments, teams and organizations popping up across the country. None of this would have been possible without Wall, who was a true builder for the game and for women’s sports in general.
Wall’s hockey impact on the game dates back to 1928, when she was elected president of the Quebec Ladies Amateur Hockey Association.
In 1929, she was also elected president of the Montreal City and District Ladies Hockey League (originally called the Verdun City and District Ladies’ Hockey League), which played out of the Mount Royal Arena. At the time, Wall was in a season of playing goals for the Viauville Grays. After the 1929 season, Wall promised expansion, with the league targeting six teams the following year. Upon her re-election as president of Quebec’s provincial organization, Wall’s efforts were praised.
“Miss Wall has led the Association through a very successful year and she has the confidence of every league playing under the Association,” wrote The Montreal Star on April 30, 1929.
As Myrtle Cook wrote in December 1929: “Irene Wall, who manages the citadel for the Grays, is president of the League and it is largely through her efforts that the organization has become such a strong organization. Irene is among the fans of Montreal not so well known just as a great player, but as a very competent manager. She is extremely versatile in her sports activities.”
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The 1929–30 season proved to be one of Wall’s best on the ice. By the new year, her Grays team had faced the rest of the competition without Wall conceding a single goal.
“Greys goaltender Irene Wall has not had a goal against her yet this season. With opposing forwards sending them in from all angles, this is a remarkable record,” Cook wrote for The Montreal Star. After finishing first overall, Grays faced Northern Electric in the league final. They drew back-to-back 0-0 in the opening matches of the championship series, with Wall living up to her name. However, in game three, Northern Electric retained their title and eventually squeezed one through Wall to win 1–0.
By that spring, Wall continued to grow her resume, not only as a builder in women’s hockey, but in women’s sports as well. As Cook wrote: “Irene Wall has to be the busiest executive in Montreal. As president of the Quebec Ladies’ Hockey Association, City and District Ladies’ Hockey League, Grays Hockey Club, secretary-treasurer of Canadian Ladies’ AC, Montreal and District Ladies “League softball is just a few of the positions expertly filled by the titan-haired athlete.”
Wall remained one of the best goaltenders in the game throughout the decade, including a stellar 1935–36 campaign in which the Montreal Maroons won a provincial title to advance to the Preston Rivulettes for an Eastern Canadian championship.
“The Quebec champions played a 10-game schedule without a loss this year and their goaltender, Irene Wall, had shutouts in nine of the games,” the papers wrote.
In her leadership roles, Wall was known as a fierce negotiator, advocate and voice in defense of those she represented. Some of those fights included keeping Quebec equal and all provincial voting rights in national sports matters. Wall was always outspoken and had staunch supporters and detractors, but always expressed what she thought was right, and best for athletes across Canada.
Canadian Sports Hall of Fame member Alexandrine Gibb, who was a pioneering sportswriter for The Toronto Star for more than thirty years, praised Wall in 1938, saying, “She has had hockey experience and knows that game and is a capable and hard man. -working official in any sport.”
As The Toronto Star wrote that same year, “Irene Wall is a hard-working, hard-fighting girl, so loyal to her friends that it hurts her. She is serious about federation work. You can’t help admiring her sincerity.”
As a player, after more than a decade as a leading figure in women’s hockey in Quebec, Irene Wall briefly “appeared” in the crease for the Montreal Royals in the 1939-19140 season. She not only re-entered the game as a player, but stopped the Royals to an 8-0 shutout of the Kickees. It would be her last recorded match.
The 1939 season also saw Wall re-elected as president of the Montreal City and District Ladies’ Hockey League. At this point in the league’s history, acquiring ice time was a major issue as men’s teams gained precedent and World War II loomed. At the time of her re-election, Wall was described as “a tool to keep the game rolling through good times and bad…”
After leaving the Second World War, a period of lull for many women’s sports organizations, Wall would be elected president of the Women’s Amateur Athletic Federation of Canada in 1946. Before 1946, Wall was the organization’s secretary and president of the Quebec Branch. WAAF, a governing body, wanted to oversee women’s sports in Canada as existing federations and organizations led by men would not help operate women’s sports. For her role with the organization, Wall was honored by the Queen in 1953 and awarded the Queen’s Coronation Medal for her “long service to women’s sport in Canada”. The WAAF was the first organization, led at the time by Alexandrine Gibb, to successfully advocate for the participation of Canadian women in the Olympic Games, a feat achieved in 1928. Wall was a key figure in Canadian athletics development from the 1920s through the twentieth century. fifties.
Wall spent her life finding ways to get women and girls involved in sports. Her efforts also included founding the West End Figure Skating Club in 1955, one of many opportunities Wall created for women and girls.
For her efforts in softball, athletics, speed skating and hockey, Irene Wall deserves recognition in the same breath as other fundamental builders in Canadian sports. Her efforts are worthy of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and have laid the foundation for the growth of women’s hockey in Quebec.
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