Fran Rider


Fran Rider was one of the founders of the Ontario Women's Hockey Association. She began playing hockey in 1967 with the Brampton Canadettes, predecessor to the Brampton Thunder.
The Ontario Women's Hockey Association was formed in 1975 by Cookie Cartwright. About a decade later, Rider would become the executive
director of this association. The Association was formed to generate interest in women's hockey. She helped to organize the unofficial Women's world hockey championship in 1987. She also helped to organize the 1990 Women’s World Championships with no financial support from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. When Angela James was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 8, 2010, James said that without Rider, she would never have made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2015. In 2016, she was made a member of the Order of Ontario. Along with Scotty Bowman and Murray Costello, Rider was among the 2017 class named to the Order of Hockey in Canada.

Accolades

During May 2018, Rider was part of a group of four female athletes, including Cassie Campbell, Jen Kish and Kerrin Lee-Gartner to publicly pledge their brain to a Canadian research centre. The posthumous donation shall be made to Toronto Western Hospital’s Canadian Concussion Centre to further research on the effect of trauma on women’s brains.