Esso women ' s hockey nationals The Esso Women ' s Nationals is the Canadian women ' s senior ice hockey championship , established in 1982 . The winners of the event receives the Abby Hoffman Cup . Nine or ten teams ( depending on the tournament ) qualify for the event , with two from the province hosting the event . History . The split between the National Women ' s Hockey League and the Western Women ' s Hockey League in 2004 , this is the only event in the professional women ' s hockey calendar that sees teams from the two leagues play against each other . Although an agreement between the NWHL and the WWHL was reached in 2006 to merge the two leagues ( wherein the latter would be absorbed as a separate division of the former ) , difficulty in setting up the Nationals alongside an interlocking playoff format prevented the merger from taking place - the Nationals eventually would take place mere days after the WWHL playoffs and before the NWHL playoffs . With the collapse of the NWHL soon after and the establishment of the Canadian Women ' s Hockey League in Eastern Canada , the Esso Nationals , which will also serve as a playoff of sorts between the WWHL and CWHL , received a format overhaul starting in 2008 , in which the top two teams from the WWHL ( representing British Columbia , Alberta , and Saskatchewan ) and the top two teams from the CWHL ( representing Ontario and Quebec ) automatically qualifying for the event . Teams representing the provinces without teams in either league fill out the remainder of the field , due to Hockey Canada requirements that every province be represented . The Abby Hoffman Cup will be awarded to both the club pool and the team pool champions . Similarly , the Fran Rider Cup and the Maureen McTeer Trophy ( the trophies awarded for the silver and bronze medalists at the Esso Nationals ) will be awarded in both the club and team pool tournaments . To level the playing field ( which in recent years had been dominated by club teams ) for 2008 , the four club teams play in a separate tournament from the four all - star teams ( and thus two championships will be awarded at the Esso Nationals ) , with the intent that the club pool ( with the Clarkson Cup as its championship ) will be splintered off into its own tournament at some point in the future . The 2008 tournament also saw the first American team to qualify , with the Minnesota Whitecaps joining the Calgary Oval X - Treme in representing the WWHL in the club pool . The format is the same for both the club and team tournaments : after the four teams play a single round robin pool , the four teams are seeded based on their standings and play a single - elimination tournament for the championship . This arrangement had lasted for only one year ; in 2009 , the dispute between Clarkson and the Clarkson Cup ' s artists was settled , and a new championship , the National Canadian Women ' s Hockey Championship , was created for the professional teams , under the same format . However , this was not without cost : rumors were abound that the Esso Women ' s Nationals would be discontinued in favor of introducing a midget championship , which was realized with the Esso Cup .