The Clarkson Cup () is a women's ice hockey trophy, which from 2009 to 2019 was awarded to the winner of the Canadian Women's Hockey Championship (CWHL champion). With the folding of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) in 2019, the Cup has not been awarded since. Like the Stanley Cup and Canada's Jeanne Sauvé Memorial Cup, it was named after a former Governor General of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson. Though initially awarded in 2006 to the Canadian national women's hockey team, it was intended to be awarded to the top women's club in Canada. From 2006 to 2008, it was not awarded, owing to rights issues between Clarkson, Hockey Canada, and the artists responsible for making the trophy. From 2009, the Clarkson Cup was awarded, as intended, to the top women's club team. In Canada it was considered to be the cultural equivalent of the men's Stanley Cup for Canadian women's ice hockey. History Origins When the 2004–05 NHL season was cancelled because of lockout, the Stanley Cup was not awarded for the first time since the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic. In February 2005, Adrienne Clarkson proposed that since the Stanley Cup was to be awarded to the best professional ice hockey team of the year (even though there were Canadian teams in the American Hockey League, which plays for the Calder Cup), it should be awarded to the best women's hockey team because they were still playing. That idea was brought to Susan Fennell, who was the Commissioner of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL) and also the Mayor of the Canadian city of Brampton. In a media interview, Fennell commented that while the women had great respect for the Stanley Cup, it belonged to men's ice hockey, and that the women actually did have a cup of their own, but simply one with no name. Fennell then came up with the idea that the Governor General should consider lending her name to the women's hockey championship cup, as Lord Stanley had done years before for the men's hockey championship. Clarkson was thrilled with the idea and later met with Fennell at Rideau Hall, where it was agreed that the women's hockey championship trophy would be named the Clarkson Cup. Originally, the NWHL Championship Cup was to have a new name placed on it. However, On September 14, 2005, Clarkson announced the creation of a new trophy for women's