Women’s football getting the Showcase it deserves

As part of Vanier Cup weekend, Football Ontario is hosting a Canadian Collegiate Women’s Flag (CCWF) Showcase tournament, featuring eight top teams and clubs in the country. It’s the next step in the growth of the women’s game.

Olivia Ghosh-Swaby, a Neuroscience PhD student at Western, has played a significant role in moving women’s collegiate flag football forward in the province. (Photo: Courtney Caird).

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They’ve been playing an exciting brand of football for years. And they’ve fought hard for recognition and legitimacy. This week — the biggest week of the year for Canadian university football — the women will get an opportunity to show off their skills as part of Vanier Cup festivities at Western University. 

On Friday, in conjunction with Football Ontario, some of the best women’s university flag football teams in the country will take part in the 2022 Canadian Collegiate Women’s Flag (CCWF) Showcase.

The event, an all-day affair (11am-9pm), will feature an eight-team tournament held at Mustangs Field on campus the day before the Laval Rouge et Or and Saskatchewan Huskies square off in the Vanier Cup national championship game at Western Alumni Stadium. 

“This is the first time we’ve ever hosted a women’s football event at the same time, or in conjunction, with a USports event, which is really cool,” said Olivia Ghosh-Swaby, the executive director of the Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association (OWIFA). “Football Ontario has been great allies with our group, and the Vanier Cup committee has also been very supportive in getting us included in the (championship) weekend.”

Five teams from Ontario (Western, Waterloo, Guelph, York, U of T) and a trio from Quebec (Montreal, Laval, Concordia) will compete Friday in a 5-a-side flag tournament that will include a round robin portion and then playoffs and a gold-medal game. It comes on the heels of last Saturday’s OWIFA fall kickoff tournament at Sheridan College’s Oakville Campus which featured the same 5-a-side format.

“This is the first year we’ve hosted a short fall season, so it’s really exciting,” said Ghosh-Swaby, who captains Western’s club team. “What’s new this year is the non-contact element, because that’s what’s going to be demoed in the 2028 Olympics, and the NFL is really pushing for it to become a sport.”

OWIFA piloted a 5-a-side non-contact game last year in one provincial tournament, and the Association qualified three teams to compete at the inaugural National Collegiate Flag Football Championship last spring (May 6-7) at Carleton University, hosted by Football Canada. The University of Toronto and two teams from Western earned a spot in the tournament, which included teams from Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Women’s intercollegiate flag football has come a long way in recent years, and Ghosh-Swaby has been there for much of it, ever since arriving at Western in 2015 as an undergraduate student (she’s now pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience). Besides quarterbacking Western teams, she’s helped grow the game across the province through OWIFA, which now boasts nine sanctioned programs (with another three schools, Ottawa, Carleton and Brock, on their way to being ratified).

(Photo: Laurel Jarvis).

One of those sanctioned programs, of course, is Western itself, and Ghosh-Swaby spearheaded the process for the women’s football team to be reclassified by the university this year as a competitive sport club. It was an important step, she says, and it has helped establish a positive working relationship with Western’s sports and recreation department.

“And it really shows the value of our program,” Ghosh-Swaby said. “We managed to bring in 100 women who signed up and paid for a full year of football and stayed with us. That’s huge.”

The club can now sport the Mustangs logo (before, they used a modified logo, “a W with an off-centred bronco”). They can schedule and book field space for practices, they have an executive team, and they can compete – within province and out of province – under the Western Campus Recreation banner. (Other clubs with similar status include Equestrian and Artistic Swimming. A lot of Martial Arts clubs are also similar in nature).

It may not be the varsity status that some of their counterparts in Quebec enjoy, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. And showcasing their skills during Vanier Cup weekend, alongside other top women’s football clubs and teams, is also a move towards more legitimacy of women’s collegiate flag football.

“The Showcase is going to be fun,” Ghosh-Swaby said. “The Quebec teams … it’s our goal to be at that level, and this is a chance to see where we compare with the other programs.”

In Ontario, the OWIFA hosts a few two-day tournaments each year during the months of February and March. Last year, Western and Laurier won tournaments in 11-a-side contact action, leading up to the April 3 provincial championship (hosted by Football Ontario). It was Western who came away with that title – with Ghosh-Swaby at the helm. The team finished the 2022 spring season with a 17-1 record overall.

Afterwards, Western’s Olivia Gordon (wide receiver) was named league MVP after a year in which she hauled in 15 touchdown passes. Gordon and Sam Hopkins (linebacker) were named First-Team All-Stars. Meanwhile, Bleska Kambamba, a former Western football standout and eighth-round pick of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2020) was named runner-up for coach of the year, while Hakeem Sadiq earned a coaching lifetime achievement award.

In September, OWIFA named its nine-member 2022-23 executive team. Ghosh-Swaby is joined this year by a pair of Western teammates, Ruby Malk and Brittany Messam. Oh, and Western picked up right where they left off last spring. Sporting two teams in the Sheridan College tournament last weekend, their top squad came away with the championship, finishing with a +116 point differential over three games. But this time, it wasn’t Ghosh-Swaby under centre.

“I’ve always been quarterback with Western, but I’m transitioning now so that we can get some newer athletes in there and ready and in form for the next three years,” she said. “I need to be thinking about the future. So, I’ve switched to receiver/running back, which has been great. That’s where I started when I first played football back in grade 6 and all the way through high school. I’m small but fast, and I like to think I have good hands. I think quarterbacks are underrated with their hands …”

The Mustangs in action at last weekend’s kickoff tournament at Sheridan College. (Photo: Courtney Caird)

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She’s already had plenty of practice. Even when OWIFA teams didn’t have tournaments in the fall, they still practiced throughout the fall. This year, for instance, the Western women opened on September 20 and have been practicing three times, including Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 6:45am (yes, some of that in the dark). They work out on the practice fields beside the Faculty of Health Sciences building. And there’s been a lot to work on.

“We have two styles of football to prioritize,” Ghosh-Swaby said. “The 11v11 contact flag has a lot more elements and a lot of the more traditional pieces to tackle football, so that involves a lot of teaching. So, we started with that. And then we started really getting ready for 5v5.”

In fact, most OWIFA programs now start training in the fall. Many ramp up following the end of the men’s football season, as many women’s team coaches are OUA football players. Last year, more than 400 athletes and over 70 coaches were involved in OWIFA action. And that number is expected to grow this year.

Olivia Ghosh-Swaby is one of them, and she’s just as enthusiastic today about women’s flag football as she was seven years ago.

“It’s become a passion project. I love it. Beyond the football on the field, I train and lift five to six times a week, so it’s just part of my everyday routine,” she said. “If I didn't have football, I honestly don’t know what I’d be doing in my spare time.

“Having a group of friends and people you see regularly … that culture element is huge for me. My best friends have come out of playing the sport. And I love seeing the impact (football) has on other women in the sport.”