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 formed in 1975 by Cookie Cartwright to generate interest in women's ice hockey.^{[citation needed]} Roughly ten years later, Fran Rider became the association's executive director.

In 1976, Rhonda Leeman Taylor took on a volunteer position with the OWHA and helped the Association grow the number of registered female teams from 101 to 203, within three years.^[2] She became the first employee hired by Hockey Ontario to assist in the development of the OWHA, then in 1980 became its first salaried female employee.