Gridiron gals going to get paid to play

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This article was published 14/05/2020 (2150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Getting paid to play women’s tackle football didn’t seem realistic when Breanne Ward and Hanna McEwen first started in the sport.

Ward, a 28-year-old defensive tackle who grew up in Lundar, was a dancer until a player from the Western Women’s Canadian Football League’s (WWCFL) Manitoba Fearless approached her at a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game in 2011 and asked her to consider trying out.

McEwen, a 21-year-old running back from Winnipeg, felt she was meant to play football as she was one of the more aggressive players in her hockey, soccer and volleyball days growing up. In 2013, she finally gave it a shot when she heard about the Manitoba Girls Football Association. The league only had four teams at the time and games were played on half a field with only six players per side.

Those humble beginnings were the first step in getting these two players to where they are today. This week, Ward and McEwen announced they’ve signed contracts with the Denver Gold Rush of the newly formed Women’s Football League Association (WFLA). It’s the first paying professional football league for women, making Ward and McEwen the first Manitoba women to go pro in the sport. The season was slated to start this summer, but owing to COVID-19, Ward and McEwen, who weren’t allowed to discuss their contract details, won’t head to Denver for training camp until April 2021.

Ward played for the Canadian women’s tackle football squad in 2017, but she never thought she’d one day be able to cash a paycheque from playing.

“It’s pretty surreal and crazy. It hasn’t really hit us and it probably won’t until we head down to Denver,” said Ward, an X-ray technologist at Health Sciences Centre.

“Women’s football is constantly an uphill battle and people don’t even know there are teams in Winnipeg right now. When I made Team Canada, I thought that would be the top of where I’d ever be. I thought that was the be-all and end-all for women’s football, so to have this opportunity, it’s crazy. I mean, we’re getting paid to play a sport that we absolutely love.”

The duo have been key players for the Winnipeg Wolfpack of the WWCFL for the past few seasons. When McEwen heard about the launch of the WFLA south of the border, she immediately reached out to her teammate.

“As soon as I heard about it I messaged her. I said ‘Oh my God, Bre, they’re trying to make this pro league. We’re going to get paid and they’re actually going to treat us like actual athletes. We have to be a part of it. We gotta figure it out. We’re going to move to the states and we’re gonna do it.’ So ever since we figured it out, we’ve been talking every day about how we’re going to get an opportunity, if they’re going to have tryouts, and all that kind of stuff,” said McEwen, who’s studying to become a massage therapist.

“(The coronavirus) messed up some things obviously, but we kept pushing and trying to contact teams. We did Zoom calls with some teams but as soon as we met Denver’s owners and their GM, we knew right away this organization was for us. They’re great people and a great team to be a part of.”

The league hasn’t played a single down yet, but Ward and McEwen have high expectations for the WFLA and believe it will be a success. Currently, there are approximatey 15 franchises and the inaugural season is scheduled to begin in May 2021 and will run through August.

“There’s definitely some skepticism around it, but the people behind it are doing this the right way,” McEwen said. “It’s definitely going to be a journey with lots of ups and downs, but they’re really pushing to make this happen… They want it to be like the NFL with 32 teams.”

While women’s football is rapidly growing in popularity, it still has a ways to go. When McEwen and Ward tell people what sport they play, the reaction isn’t always positive.

“I wish people knew how hard we work and how we are actually athletes. We all have full-time jobs for the most part, but yet we all still put hours and hours of training in and we’re just as aggressive and mean on the field as the guys are… Some of these girls will mess you up on the field. I just wish people understood how aggressive we are,” Ward said.

Ward and McEwen already know what it’s like to be trailblazers and prove females belong on the gridiron. Ward suited up with the guys on the St. Vital Mustangs major team when she was 23, and McEwen made history in high school when she became the first girl to play at Kildonan East Collegiate.

“It was definitely a milestone, but I was really humble and it didn’t soak in what I did until a few years later when I saw there were three girls on the team at KE and it just made me realize the impact that I had in being the first… It really created that change and now it’s acceptable for girls to try out and if they want to play, they can play,” said McEwen.

“Having (the WFLA), it gives girls goals and dreams that they can one day play in a professional league.”

For Ward, opening doors for the next generation of female players means more to her than sacking any quarterback.

“Little girls can wake up just like their brothers and guy friends and they can go out, work out and dream about getting paid to play the sport that they love. The amount of messages I’ve gotten from all the girls that I’ve coached and stuff like that, I’m just so happy,” Ward said.

“I was literally crying reading the messages because they’re so excited and saying ‘I want to follow in your footsteps’ and honestly, that’s one of the most rewarding parts of this whole thing.”

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31