Geraldine Heaney (born October 1, 1967) is an

Irish-Canadian ga, Gael-Cheanadaigh , image = Irish_Canadian_population_by_province.svg , image_caption = Irish Canadians as percent of population by province/territory , population = 4,627,00013.4% of the Canadian population (2016) , po ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

coach and former

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the la ...

. She played 18 seasons and over 1,000 games with the

Toronto Aeros The Toronto Aeros, often called Beatrice Aeros after their primary sponsor, the North York Aeros, and the Mississauga Aeros were a semi-professional women's ice hockey team that played in Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario. The team played its home ...

organization, won six Ontario provincial championships and was named

Ontario Women's Hockey Association The Ontario Women's Hockey Association (OWHA) is the governing body of women's ice hockey in the Province of Ontario, Canada. The OWHA is a member of the Ontario Hockey Federation (OHF), the Ontario branch of Hockey Canada. The Association was form ...

(OWHA) most valuable defenceman on three occasions. The Aeros retired her jersey number 91 in 2006. Internationally, Heaney was a member of the Canadian national team in the first seven

Women's World Championships A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

, winning gold each time. She is a two-time Olympian, winning silver at the inaugural tournament in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

tournament, and gold in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. On June 14, 2022, she became the head coach of the

Toronto Six The Toronto Six is a professional women's ice hockey team based in Toronto playing out of Canlan Ice Sports – York. They are one of two Canadian teams in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) (formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League ...

of the

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...

. A pioneer of women's hockey, Heaney is credited with aiding the growth of the sport. Her offensive prowess as a defenceman earned her comparisons to

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

star

Bobby Orr Robert Gordon Orr (born March 20, 1948) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest of all time. Orr used his ice skating speed, scoring, and play-making abilities to revolutionize the pos ...

, particularly after she flew through the air after scoring the gold medal-winning goal in the inaugural

world championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. In 2008, Heaney became one of the first three female inductees, along with

Angela James Angela Diane James (born December 22, 1964) is a Canadian former ice hockey player who played at the highest levels of senior hockey between 1980 and 2000. She was a member of numerous teams in the Central Ontario Women's Hockey League (COWHL) ...

and

Cammi Granato Catherine Michelle Granato (born March 25, 1971) is an American former ice hockey player and one of the first women to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November 2010. She currently works as an assistant general manager for the Vancou ...

, to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame. She was the third woman, after James and Granato, to be inducted to the

Hockey Hall of Fame , logo = Hockey Hall of Fame Logo.svg , logo_upright = 0.5 , image = Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto.jpg , caption = The Hall's present location on Yonge Street since 1992 , map_type = , former_name = , established = 1943 , location = 30 Y ...

, and was inducted into

Canada's Sports Hall of Fame Canada's Sports Hall of Fame (french: Panthéon des sports canadiens; sometimes referred to as the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame) is a Canadian sports hall of fame and museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Dedicated to the history of sports in Canad ...

in 2014.

Early life

Heaney was born on October 1, 1967, in

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and ha ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. Her parents, Mike and Kathleen Heaney, emigrated to Canada when Geraldine was one year old, but she retained pride in her Irish birth, often returning to Ulster. Her family settled in

North York, Ontario North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...

, where she grew up and developed her passion for hockey, often playing

goal A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to a purpose or ai ...

for her brothers on outdoor rinks. A gifted athlete, Heaney also played

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

fastball The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. "Power pitchers," such as former American major leaguers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, rely on speed to prevent the ball from being hit, and have thro ...

and

in-line hockey Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport ...

Playing career

Toronto Aeros

Heaney first joined a girls' hockey team at age 10, playing against girls up to six years older than her. She joined the

in 1980 at the age of 13. It began a career with the organization in which she played over 1,000 games at the

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

level and later the

National Women's Hockey League The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...

(NWHL). She was a member of six provincial championship winning teams and named the

's top defenceman on three occasions: 1987–88, 1991–92 and 1992–93. While studying recreation facilities management at

Seneca College Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology is a multiple-campus public college in the Greater Toronto Area, and Peterborough, Ontario, Canada regions. It offers full-time and part-time programs at the baccalaureate, diploma, certificate and ...

in Toronto, Heaney was recruited to play

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, but immediately switched to hockey upon learning the school operated a women's team. In 1987, she led Seneca to an

Ontario Colleges Athletic Association The Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) is the governing body of all intercollegiate sports in the Canadian province of Ontario. The OCAA is a part of the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association. The OCAA, with Ontario University Athletics, ...

championship and was named to both her league and the provincial championship all-star teams. Heaney was a member of four national championship teams with the Aeros. The only player to appear in the

Esso Women's National Hockey Championship The Esso Women's Nationals was the Canadian women's senior ice hockey championship from 1982 to 2008. The winners of the event received the Abby Hoffman Cup. The second place team was awarded the Fran Rider Cup, while the third place was given t ...

every season between 1987 and 2001, Heaney was named the best defender of the tournament in 1993, 1997 and 2001 and was named most valuable player in 1992. Three months pregnant with her first child, Heaney ended her club career in 2004 by scoring the

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society), ...

-winning goal to capture the national championship. In recognition of her 27-year playing career, the Aeros retired her uniform number 91 in 2006.

International

The first

International Ice Hockey Federation The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF; french: Fédération internationale de hockey sur glace; german: Internationale Eishockey-Föderation) is a worldwide governing body for ice hockey. It is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and has 83 m ...

(IIHF) sanctioned

Women's World Championship The Women's World Championship was the first women's professional wrestling world title. History Cora Livingston defeated Hazel Parker in 1906. Though the contest was originally for the Featherweight Championship, from that point she was billed ...

was played in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

, in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

. Heaney was selected for Team Canada, but as she was a

landed immigrant Permanent residency (PR) in Canada is a status granting someone who is not a Canadian citizen the right to live and work in Canada without any time limit on their stay. To become a permanent resident a foreign national must apply to Immigration ...

, she had to rush the process of gaining citizenship before she could play. Canada and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

were the class of the tournament and met in the final. Heaney scored the gold medal-winning goal in dramatic fashion as she deked around two American defencemen before sliding the puck into the net as she tripped over the goaltender and flew through the air in a fashion reminiscent of

Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...

winning goal in

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

. The goal, coupled with her skills as an offensive defenceman led to Heaney becoming known as the "Bobby Orr of women's hockey". The 1990 tournament marked the first of seven consecutive gold medal victories for Heaney, and she was the only player to appear in the first seven World Championships for Canada. She received the Directorate Award as the tournament's best defenceman at the

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

tournaments, and was named a tournament all-star in 1992. Women's hockey was added as a full-medal sport for the first time at the 1998 Nagano Games, and Heaney was named to the Canadian Olympic team. While Canada had won every World Championship to that point, defeating the United States in the final each time, the Americans had begun to defeat Canada at other tournaments. Heaney scored two goals and added four assists in six games; however Canada lost the final to the United States, 3–1, and settled for the silver medal. Heaney planned on the 2002 Salt Lake Games being her final tournament. She ended her international career with an Olympic gold medal after Canada defeated the United States 3–2 in the final. The final was controversial as the American referee called 13 of the final 16 penalties in the game against Canada. Heaney described the feeling of the Canadian players following the game: "We got an unbelievable number of penalties. We never had any idea that could happen. he officialstried to give them the game, and we weren't going to let that happen." In addition to celebrations in Canada, Heaney was recognized as a sporting hero in Northern Ireland. Heaney also played in two World Ball Hockey Championships. She won a gold medal in 1992 and silver in 1994.

Coaching

Heaney turned to coaching and spent six seasons as coach of the University of Waterloo Warriors women's hockey team, though the program often struggled as it lacked the resources compared to larger university programs. Heaney left Waterloo in 2012 to coach her daughter's

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession A profession is a field of work that has ...

team. On June 14, 2022, Heaney was hired by the

of the

as the team's third head coach in franchise history.

Legacy

An offensive defenceman, Heaney appeared in 125 games with the Canadian National Team, scored 27 goals and recorded 66 assists. In World Championship play, she holds Canadian records for most games (35), goals (8), assists (28) and points (36) for a defenceman. A pioneer of modern women's hockey, Heaney has been recognized by numerous institutions. She has been inducted into the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association and Canadian Ball Hockey Halls of Fame. In 2008, Heaney joined countrywoman

and American

as the first women inducted into the

IIHF Hall of Fame The IIHF Hall of Fame is a hall of fame operated by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It was founded in 1997, and has resided at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto since 1998. Prior to 1997, the IIHF housed exhibits at the Interna ...

. Proud of her induction, Heaney saw it as a sign of worldwide recognition of women's hockey, and added: "There are so many young girls playing hockey now, it's amazing. I really feel we need to promote the game worldwide, not just in Canada, and inducting women now should help that." Five years later, Heaney became the third woman (following James and Granato in 2010) to be inducted into the

as part of its 2013 class. She was scheduled to be inducted into

as part of its 2014 class.

Personal

Heaney settled in

Ancaster, Ontario Ancaster is a historic town in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, located on the Niagara Escarpment. Founded as a town in 1793, it immediately developed itself into one of the first important and influential early Kingdom of Great Britain, Bri ...

, following her playing career where she and her husband John are raising their two children, Shannon and Patrick.

International statistics

Awards and honours

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heaney, Geraldine 1967 births Canadian women's ice hockey defencemen Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Sportspeople from North York Ice hockey people from Ontario Ice hockey players at the 1998 Winter Olympics Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics IIHF Hall of Fame inductees Living people Medalists at the 1998 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 2002 Winter Olympics Northern Ireland emigrants to Canada Olympic gold medalists for Canada Olympic ice hockey players of Canada Olympic medalists in ice hockey Olympic silver medalists for Canada Order of Hockey in Canada recipients People from Lurgan Women's ice hockey players from Northern Ireland