Ellie Penasse sporting a Nipissing Warriors jersey. The NFN team was an influential part of the hockey culture for Penasse and many kids growing up in NFN when she joined the Little NHL during its first year in 1971. 
A young Ellie Penasse in her hockey gear in the early 1970s. At 6 years old, Penasse joined the Little NHL league when it was first established in 1971, blazing a path for future female players. Now 60, she is set to be honoured as a hockey pioneer. 
Ellie Penasse in the 80s when she played for the Canadore Kittens, the college’s girls hockey team.
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
Ellie Penasse was not a household name in the days when she began her hockey journey back in 1971. It was the year that the Little Native Hockey League was founded, and Penasse, 6 years old at that time, was the league’s first and only female player. Little did she know at that time, Penasse was blazing a trail in women’s hockey, and that recognition for her contribution would come much later. Now 60, Penasse was invited to the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) Indigenous Peoples Celebration on Wednesday, March 4, to be honoured for her contributions in paving a path for women in hockey.
Penasse’s passion for hockey came naturally. Growing up in Garden Village, she explains that it was typical for kids to be surrounded by hockey in some way, shape or form, and that the local team was a big deal for their community. “Everybody was following the Nipissing Warriors at that time, around 1970. They had won a major championship at Fort Williams, in 1972,” she recounts, adding that two of her own brothers, and a brother-in-law, were on the team. Penasse remembers getting on a bus and going to their games whenever she could. “The deal was that you could come to the game, but tomorrow morning you’re waking up and going to school, no matter what time you got home at, and usually it was late! That bus was packed all the time, and that’s where the passion started for a lot of us,” she recalls. At home, Penasse jokes that the television had two channels, “you had the news, or hockey,” so there was seemingly always a hockey game to watch somewhere.
It wasn’t just watching hockey that stoked her passion, as Penasse had the opportunity to play on the reserve too. She describes happy childhood memories of playing hockey and skating in the bay when it froze over winter. The community would rally on makeshift rinks on the lake. “Everybody had hockey skates, probably from a rummage sale, and just hand-me-downs,” she remembers. It was these fun community games where she honed her skill and got noticed enough that when the Little NHL was established, the community leaders agreed to let her sign up. “My mom went to a council meeting at that time and asked if they would support it if we took the chance, and they said yes,” she explains. While she admits there wasn’t any formal rule against girls playing in the league, she says that it was very uncommon, and they didn’t want to take a chance and get denied.
Not only did her mother get support from the community, Penasse passed herself off as a boy, just in case people had something to say about her being on the NFN roster. “When I played, I used my brother’s name on the roster. So they wouldn’t know I was a girl, I went under Raymond Penasse. I used that name for a couple of years, and once they found out, they just started putting ‘Ellie’ down. Whether or not the other team knew I was a girl, I don’t know,” she recounts.
