The unlikely Tigers superfan whose life lessons influenced a generation of Dal women’s basketball players

On any given day, Peggy McAlpine could be seen walking along the forested trails of Point Pleasant Park in Halifax. She was often in stride with her longtime friend, Carolyn Savoy, who coached the Dal Tigers women’s basketball club for 35 seasons until 2009. A fixture at games, McAlpine’s positivity and caring nature extended to players beyond the court.

“She would see us training in the park,” recalls Leah Girdwood, a former Dal varsity basketball player and recently retired assistant coach with the Tigers. “She would support us and stick around to make sure that as we crossed the finish line, she could cheer for us.”

Girdwood became close with McAlpine during her five seasons as a Tiger in the late 2000s. McAlpine was in her nineties at the time.

“As a fan, she would make time to speak to us after the game and acknowledge what we did on the court and how hard we were working and ask us the questions that were going to drive us to do better in life. ‘How's your rest? How's your water?’ She asked great questions of us, and she cared.”

McAlpine’s dedication to the Tigers grew out of her friendship with Dr. Savoy rather than any formal connection to the team. She attended more than 100 games over the course of two decades and could often be found laughing on the bus with Dr. Savoy on the way to road games.

Sport as community

McAlpine knew how to take care of herself and those around her, and the late Dr. Savoy — who passed away from cancer in 2015 — admired that in her friend.

“That was what connected them because although Carolyn was competitive and wanted to win, she also wanted to enhance the lives of the women on her team outside of basketball and introducing them to Peggy was a part of that,” says Anna Stammberger, who played Tigers basketball for five seasons until 1983.

Image: Snapshot of Carolyn Savoy, left, and Peggy McAlpine.

Stammberger became Dr. Savoy’s successor in 2009 and coached for 12 seasons, until retiring in 2021. She shared with McAlpine a desire for strong communities of women, with sport as one aspect.

“It was nice to have someone, of a different generation, who was a strong supporter and believer of the sisterhood just like Carolyn and had that insight and knowledge that she wanted to share.”

Girdwood played for both Dr. Savoy and Stammberger. She laughingly recalls McAlpine’s table-etiquette lessons for the team at Dr. Savoy’s house in 2006.

“A lot of us were learning for the first time about outside forks or dessert spoons, and we were just a mess,” recalls Girdwood. “It was kind of like herding cats. She laughed along with us but was so patient because she knew that it was going to help us to interact in professional settings in the future.”

Born in northern New Brunswick and raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia as the eldest of five sisters, McAlpine moved to Halifax her early twenties with her husband, Bob. During the Second World War, the couple offered a resting place and a meal to soldiers waiting to board ships out of Halifax.

Her warmth was boundless and shared freely.

After her husband died in the 90s, McAlpine moved back to the city from Chester, a seaside town near Halifax, where they had lived for several years. That’s when her friendship with Dr. Savoy became even stronger and her love of the Tigers unmissable.

Golden Girls

Naturally, McAlpine’s jovial spirit was unmissable at Dr. Savoy’s retirement roast in 2011.

“Peggy was right in the middle of it laughing the loudest,” recalls Girdwood. “She knew, we all knew, that how much you can laugh with each other shows how close the connection really is. Peggy would be the first one to crack a joke about something Carolyn had done, and they would roll off each other like the Golden Girls. If we were making a joke about Carolyn's fur coats or making us run too hard at practice, Peggy was right there with it.”

Image: McAlpine, shown left in white, at Dr. Savoy's retirement party.

In 2016, a year after Dr. Savoy’s passing, Stammberger reached out to McAlpine. They went to see Maudie, a biographical film based on the life of beloved Nova Scotian folk artist, Maud Lewis, at the Oxford Theatre.

“Even then, at 98, she insisted on walking with me instead of being dropped off at the front,” recalls Stammberger.

McAlpine told her that she would drive to Marshalltown with a car full of women to visit Maud’s house and buy her playfully painted scenes. She advocated for arts and culture in Nova Scotia and loved Tigers basketball.

Helen Margaret “Peggy” McAlpine passed away on Sept. 3, 2021, at the age of 105, in Halifax. Her warmth and excitement for life is fondly remembered throughout the Tigers women’s basketball community.