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Imagine that a Canadian sports team won ninety-six per cent of all the games it ever played — over the course of twenty-five years; that it sawed through its competition, going undefeated as it captured four consecutive Olympic championships; that it was named the best to ever play its sport, by the sport’s inventor, no less. Wouldn’t that team be an icon in Canada?

Well, there is such a squad, but, unfortunately, the team is virtually unknown outside its native Alberta. I’m talking about the Edmonton Grads — a women’s basketball team that dominated the sport between 1915 and 1940.

Fortunately, M. Ann Hall has set out to cure our collective national amnesia with her new book, The Grads are Playing Tonight! For a quarter century, the Grads pulverized their competition — regionally, nationally, and internationally. The team’s dominance was due in part to coach Percy Page’s tough, regimented practices and no-nonsense philosophy of the game. He created a feeder system that recruited and trained young women in the sport, guiding the best of the best to the Grads squad.

Although the team disbanded in 1940, its legend lives on in wild rose country. Hopefully, Hall’s book will help spread the story across Canada.

This review appeared in the August-September 2012 issue of Canada's History magazine.