After one year of Senior C hockey, James moved up to the Toronto Islanders in 1980, a Senior AA team in the newly founded Central Ontario Women's Hockey League (COWHL). The league was at the highest level of women's hockey in southern Ontario at the time, and James established herself as one of the league's stars within a year. She played in the first women's national championship in 1982, scoring the tying goal in the third period en route to a 3–2 overtime victory over Team Alberta to win the McTeer Cup.
