Clarkson Cup
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The Clarkson Cup is an ice hockey trophy that serves as the women's hockey equivalent of the Stanley Cup. Like the Stanley Cup, it was created by and named for a Governor General of Canada, in this case Adrienne Clarkson.
[edit] History
With the 2004-05 NHL season cancelled because of lockout, the Stanley Cup, for the first time since the Spanish Flu epidemic, would not be awarded. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson proposed in February 2005 that, since the Stanley Cup was to be awarded to the best professional hockey team of the year, it should be awarded to the best women's hockey team, as they were still playing. However, fans of both the men's and women's games did not like the idea, with many preferring the creation of a new trophy of professional women's hockey supremacy.
On September 14, 2005, as Clarkson was reaching the end of her term, she announced a new trophy for women's hockey. The Clarkson Cup, like the Stanley Cup, is made of silver, with the design honours going to Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit.
The Cup was first awarded to the Canadian national women's hockey team on July 10, 2006. It is expected that the Cup will eventually be contested between the champions of the National Women's Hockey League and the Western Women's Hockey League, the top two women's leagues in Canada. However, the high travel costs between Western Canada and Eastern Canada for women's teams (which had led to the Calgary Oval X-Treme and Edmonton Chimos to break away from the NWHL to form the WWHL) may preclude the trophy from being contested in a one-on-one finals series, akin to the Stanley Cup Finals, at the present time. It is expected that a Clarkson Cup tournament may involve more than two teams, similar to how the Memorial Cup or the Esso Women's Nationals tournament is presently organized.
[edit] Champions
- See also: Stanley Cup Challenge Games
| Month/Year | Winning Team | Coach | Losing Team | Playoff Format | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Team Canada | Melody Davidson - Head Coach | Team Sweden | Olympic tournament | 4-1 |
Canadian silversmith Beth M. Biggs was commissioned to make the Clarkson Cup. She designed and build the sterling trophy and collaborated with 3 Inuit artists, Okpik Pitseolak, Therese Ukaliannuk and Pootoogook Qiatsuk. The Inuit artists designed and chased some of the decoraction onto the Cup. There are images of Sedna, an Inuit goddess, arctic animals, ancient masks and the flowers of the provinces and territories of Canada.
