The three schools in Carbonear (Church of England,
Roman Catholic, United) all offered their students the opportunity to
play hockey. After-school games were organized by teachers. Emma Howell
played on the Carbonear girls’ team, known as the Carbonettes and
Olive Wilcox played for the Bay Roberts Roverines.
One winter, the Carbonettes discovered that their
numbers would be short in an upcoming game at Bay Roberts against the
Roverines. Emma’s brother, Fred, was a slight man and it was decided
that he could pass a female player. With a head-scarf, his curls carefully
arranged around his face, and a little lipstick, his disguise was so effective
that he even fooled a local waitress before the game. The first period
went without incident. However, Fred’s aggressive playing style
soon shone through his disguise, and his body checking gave the ruse away.
Sixty years later, the incident still amused the Roverines’s Olive
(Myers) Wilcox and the Carbonette’s Emma (Howell) Wells as they
describe their versions of the incident.
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