Abby Hoffman Research Papers

Abby Hoffman is a former elite Canadian track and field athlete. Abby, her real name Abigail is Jewish and was born in Toronto in 1947. During her childhood, she learned to skate when she was only 3 and showed her interest in playing hockey when she was 9 years old (Abby Hoffman, 2017). Her inspiration of playing sports was watching her elder brothers, Paul and Muni who were Hockey players. Going back to the early times, Women have been a part of hockey and their popularity led to the creation of Ladies Ontario Hockey Association in the early 1920 forming teams like Aura Lee, North Toronto. However, after the Second World War when a lot of kids from 14,000 to 100,000 were seen playing Hockey, girls were sidelined (Plummer, 2014). Unfortunately,

She competed in 4 Olympic Games, 4 commonwealth games and 2 Pan-American games. She also became the first women to be a Canadian flag bearer in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal for the opening ceremonies (Barris, 2015). Abby Hoffman has been a political science teacher at the University of Guelph for 3 years and was a sports consultant in the Ontario government. In 1981, she was the first Canadian female athlete to be elected to the Executive Committee of the Canadian Olympic Committee. In 1982, the Hoffman’s remarkable struggle was remembered by creating the Abby Hoffman Cup by the Ontario Women’s hockey association (Celebrating Women's Achievements, 2000). It was the first national women’s tournament by far in the history. As a result, women’s hockey is a highly anticipated Olympic event now. When she ended her career as an athlete she started her work as being an activist and became first women as the Director General of the Sports Canada, a federal government sports agency. The University of Toronto’s hart house got eventually opened to women because of Abby’s efforts in the year 1966. Her efforts in the hart house were remembered with a plague "Only she who attempts the absurd will achieve the impossible" (Abigail "Abby" Hoffman, 2009). She was also named one of the “50” makers and breakers in Canadian sport as she has made tremendous records and broken some rules. After being 10 years with the Olympic association, in 1993 she started working as a Director General in the Women’s for Health Bureau. She pointed out that women need a lot of healthcare as they have to face a lot of stress because of fewer wages and family responsibilities. She also took part in the International Amateur Athletic Federation and was a speaker at many conferences and addressed a lot of women issues. She became a part of Canada’s sports hall of fame in 2004