TORONTO (CP) - Female hockey players will soon be hoisting the Clarkson Cup over their heads as the men do the Stanley Cup.
Canada's former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson presented a trophy in her name to the first recipients of it - the Canadian women's Olympic team - at a news conference Monday in Toronto.
"We will give it to the best in women's hockey this year because I wanted to do it at soon as the Cup was done and what is better than what you have done as a team?" Clarkson told the players.
"I'm hoping very much that in the future we'll be able have this as a challenge Cup so it will be played for across the country in an annual way."
The trophy is a silver cup, featuring Inuit designs, with handles on both sides.
"It's out of the north that ice comes, get it?" Clarkson said.
During the NHL lockout of the 2004-05 season, Clarkson floated the idea that women should be able to play for the Stanley Cup, since the men were not.
She then decided to create her own version of the NHL's Stanley Cup, donated to the league by Lord Stanley, governor-general of Canada from 1888-93.
"We officially have our Stanley Cup," Canadian team captain Cassie Campbell said. "This is as official as it gets."
The intention is for the trophy to be given to the team that wins the national women's championship.
The top two women's leagues in the country, the National Women's Hockey League and the Western Women's Hockey League, are currently in discussions to make that happen, said Julie Healy, Hockey Canada's director of female hockey.
"These two leagues working together is really the humble beginnings of probably the best women's league that will exist in the world," Healy said. "I believe that's what Madame Clarkson has wanted that Cup to be for."
The Calgary Oval X-Treme and Edmonton Chimos broke away from the NWHL in 2004 to form the WWHL and were joined by teams from Minnesota, B.C. and Saskatchewan.
The NWHL currently has seven teams in Ontario and Quebec.
"I know they are talking and working together," Healy said. "That is the elite club level of hockey in Canada, those two leagues, and all of our national team players that aren't away at school play in those leagues. That's the right fit."
The number of American players allowed on each team in both leagues will be increased from two to four next season.
Because of the distance between the teams and travel costs, the WWHL and NWHL champions may meet for the Clarkson Cup in a similar format to the Memorial Cup, in which the three major junior men's leagues and a host club play for the title.
"I think from a financial perspective that is the only way it's ever going to work," Healy said.
National team veteran Danielle Goyette, who also plays for the X-Treme, didn't lift the Clarkson Cup over her head - she'd rather do that on the ice - but had her picture taken with both the former governor-general and the trophy.
"To see a Cup like that coming to women's hockey is a dream come true, to be able to see that in the future girls are going to be able to play for that trophy," Goyette said. "Maybe in the future, the goal is going to be to play for that trophy more than the Olympics."