Player, administrator, cheerleader, volunteer chief bottle washer, mover and shaker. In her lifelong association with women’s hockey, Fran Rider has been all these — and more.

     It’s hard to tell if Fran Rider gets a bigger bang out of playing godmother to women’s hockey in the province (and the rest of the country) or taking to the ice to patrol the blueline with the Senior A league Newtonbrook Panthers.

    

      Rider’s association with the game, as a player and volunteer, goes back a long way. She started playing — and also pitched in as a volunteer when and wherever help was needed — in 1967 when women’s hockey was in its infancy. Since women’s hockey advanced from frozen ponds into the Olympic arena in 2002 as a full-fledged medal event.

    

     Although she didn’t get a medal, Rider could at least bask in the glow of the gold medal Canada’s women won in Salt Lake City. It marked the first time Olympic Games medals were handed out to women (four years earlier in Nagano, Japan, women’s hockey was a demonstration sport). For Fran Rider and Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, it was a moment of great pride, not just because Canada won, but finally they were finally able to enjoy the fruit of their labour.

     As Executive Director of the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association — also a president for 11 years and an executive board member since 1978 — Rider had an insider’s view. She and Mayor McCallion were committed lobbyists for international competition and world championships. They lobbied International Olympic Committee delegates pursuing the inclusion of female hockey at the Olympic level.

Rider is also involved with the Canadian Hockey Association on various capacities, among them as director of the Female Council. In recognition of her considerable accomplishments and efforts beyond the mandate of her position with the provincial association, Fran Rider was recognized in 1999 among the 25 Most Influential People in Mississauga Sports and two years later   elected to the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame.

     These are but a few of the bouquets of recognition she has received over the years: she was the first woman to receive the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association Award of Merit (1994); Ontario Hockey Association Gold Stick Award (1992); Canadian Amateur Hockey Association Minor Hockey Service Award ( also first woman to receive this recognition in 1986); Central Ontario Women’s Hockey League Special Sportsmanship;

     Canadian Hockey Association Female Breakthrough Award (again, first recipient in 1998); Ontario Ministry of Culture and Citizenship Contribution to Sport Award (1998).

     The Canadian Hockey Association Senior Women’s National Championship’s silver medal trophy is named the Fran Rider Cup in her honour. Rider served as chair of the first women’s world hockey tournament in 1980, was steering committee member for the first World Championship in 1990, and chaired both the 1997 World Championship in Kitchener and the 2000 millennium World Championship in Mississauga. It’s not surprising that Fran was asked to write the introduction to Proud Past, Bright Future: 100 Years of Canadian Women’s Hockey, a book written by veteran Hockey Night in Canada television personality Brian McFarlane.

     On the local level, she has had a hand in the rapid growth of the Mississauga Girls Hockey League and she’s the dynamo driving the annual Dominion Ladies Hockey Tournament, the largest in the world. She was committee member for two decades, 11 years of these as tournament director.

She’s patrolled the blueline for the Newtonbrook Panthers when they became the first Central Canadian Tier-3 champions in the 1989-’90 season.

     While hockey — in particular, women’s hockey — ranks highest on Rider’s list of sporting interests, it’s not the only game in town for her. She also played on Ontario provincial championships team in field hockey and fastball. In the summer months, she’s playing fastball with the Barrie Suzuki Coates ladies team.