Friday, March 11, 2022

Professional hockey player and Mayor of Mississauga in Canada

That's Hazel McCallion, who just died at 101. She played professional hockey from 1940 to 1942 in a women’s league and continued to skate until about three years ago.

She entered politics in 1966 and was elected mayor in 1978. At that time, Mississauga, a Toronto suburb, was just about a cow pasture. By the time she left office, 36 years later at the age of 93, the fields had been replaced with condo towers, a college campus, a transit hub and shopping centers in what is now Canada’s seventh largest city. Her nickname is “Hurricane Hazel,” an ode to her leadership in a massive hurricane and because of her brash style. She never lost an election, coasting to victory in most subsequent elections by outsize margins.

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