Winning women

Dalhousie’s first women’s basketball team was formed by the Delta Gamma Society in 1912, before the college had a gymnasium or coach.

The 1918–1919 varsity team, pictured here in regulation serge stockings and bloomers, beat Mount Allison to win the Intercollegiate Maritime Championship, with the Dalhousie Gazette praising the players for their speed and shooting accuracy—in particular star forward “Dal” Armitage, who scored an astonishing 73 of the team’s 77 points. Since the inception of the Atlantic University Sport conference in the early 1950s, Dalhousie’s women’s varsity team has won 10 championship titles, without a bloomer in sight. As pictured, left to right from the top: Helen Jessie Campbell, Laura Elizabeth Smith, Roberta Bond, Ottilie Low Caddell, Alice Lawton Wickwire, Susan Evangeline Atlee, Marjorie Ruth Dalhousie “Dal” Armitage.

Learn more about Dal’s University Archives at dal.ca/archives