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Nipissing First Nation member Ellie Penasse, who played in the inaugural Little NHL tournament under her brother\u2019s name, was honoured by the Ottawa Charge. \u2013 Photo courtesy of Ottawa Charge<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNipissing First Nation member Ellie Penasse, who played in the inaugural Little NHL tournament under her brother\u2019s name, was honoured by the Ottawa Charge. \u2013 Photo courtesy of Ottawa Charge<\/p>\n
By Sam Laskaris<\/p>\n
GARDEN VILLAGE \u2013 More than five decades after she made a bit of history, Ellie Penasse was honoured by a professional women\u2019s hockey club.<\/p>\n
Penasse, a member of Nipissing First Nation, was invited to partake in the ceremonial opening face-off prior to the Ottawa Charge\u2019s Indigenous Peoples Celebration Unity Game on Mar. 4.<\/p>\n
The Charge competes in the eight-team Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League (PWHL). Club representatives asked Penasse to be involved with the puck drop after they heard of her childhood story.<\/p>\n
In order to be allowed to participate in the inaugural Little Native Hockey League tournament back in 1971, Penasse, who was just six years old, had her family tell a fib about her gender.<\/p>\n
Since she was keen to suit up for the Nipissing Warriors in the historic tourney, which was staged in Little Current, Penasse\u2019s mother registered her under her brother\u2019s name, Raymond, who was one year older.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to use my brother\u2019s name to ensure that I wouldn\u2019t get denied,\u201d said Penasse, who is now 60 and lives in Garden Village. \u201cSo, I sort of lied about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penasse said she played in the tournament, often simply called the Little NHL, for a couple of years under her brother\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Girls were not officially barred from the tournament, which has become the largest First Nations youth hockey event in the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a written rule,\u201d Penasse said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t want to take the chance and find out that girls weren\u2019t allowed. For a while, I was the only girl that was playing at the outdoor rink and on the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penasse was able to utilize her brother\u2019s name in the early days of the tournament since he was not competing in the event himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually never played hockey,\u201d she said. \u201cHe played hockey with his boots on. He didn\u2019t want to skate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since there was no local hockey association to play for while she was growing up, Penasse simply participated for Nipissing clubs in the annual Little NHL.<\/p>\n
By the time she was eight, she started playing under her own name, but she doesn\u2019t recall her Nipissing squads having much success at the tourney.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just starting out, so I don\u2019t believe we won awards or any of the championships,\u201d she said. \u201cBut every player was gifted a participant badge. They were little badges that were sewn on the jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penasse, who works as her First Nation\u2019s housing\/apartment coordinator, was understandably thrilled when she discovered the Charge was looking to honour her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, I was overwhelmed with it getting bigger and bigger and the support that we were receiving,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd they were sharing the welcoming and the planning of it with me. So, it was really exciting to start preparing myself for the big day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several dozen Nipissing First Nation members joined Penasse for her trip to the Nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy community stepped up, too, and joined us with a bus of fans or community members coming (to Ottawa) to celebrate with me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
During her on-ice presentation, Penasse had the opportunity to briefly speak to Charge assistant captain, Jocelyne Larocque.<\/p>\n
Larocque, who is M\u00e9tis, was a member of the Canadian women\u2019s hockey squad that captured the silver medal at the recent Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy.<\/p>\n
Penasse was also presented with a Charge jersey by team officials off the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve proudly displayed it in my house already,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After her opening ceremony duties, Penasse watched the game from the stands with the Nipissing contingent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI celebrated with them and hung out,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I talked to a few kids that were curious as to what happened after they found out I was a girl. A young girl came up to me and it was cute. I explained it to her and just encouraged her to work hard and play hard, and maybe she can eventually get to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penasse also said she loves the fact that a pro women\u2019s league now exists in North America.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think it would be as big as it is today,\u201d she said. \u201cNow there are no limits. And it\u2019s so exciting to watch it on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penasse added that she is planning to return to Ottawa next season and watch a couple of Charge games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nipissing First Nation member Ellie Penasse, who played in the inaugural Little NHL tournament under her brother\u2019s name,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-557482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}