纪念Edmonton Grads谷歌标志涂鸦标志

纪念 Edmonton Grads
2019年11月9日

The Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Club, better known as “The Grads,” started as a high school girls basketball team and became a sports dynasty. Today’s Doodle celebrates The Grads’ induction into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame on this day in 2017. It was a fitting honor for a team that holds arguably one of the best winning percentages in North America—approximately 95 percent over 25 years—in any sport.. With outstanding sportsmanship and determination, The Grads also defeated stereotypes that had discouraged women from participating in competitive sports.

Teacher Percy Page started the team in 1914 as a physical education program for the 60 girls at McDougall Commercial High School in the Canadian city of Edmonton. In their first season, they won the provincial championship, and when some of the graduating seniors indicated that they’d like to continue playing, Page was inspired to set up The Grads after they graduated in 1915.

During the next quarter century, The Grads went on to win 23 of 24 Provincial Championships and racked up stats that would be the envy of any team, including earning winning streaks of 147 and 78 games, separated by just a single loss. They went undefeated in the Western Canadian Championships from 1926 to 1940 and won 29 of 31 games in the Canadian Championships, never losing a series. After the Grads won the Underwood International tournament, also known as the “North American championship,” for 17 years straight, tournament organizers decided to let them keep the trophy permanently.

The Grads additionally won seven of nine games against men's teams and went unbeaten in 27 exhibition games at four Olympic Games—though they never won a medal since women’s basketball was not yet an Olympic sport.

When The Grads first started, basketball was a fairly new sport, having been invented in 1891 by Canadian James Naismith. He would later recognize the Grads as “the finest basketball team that ever stepped out on a floor.”