'Only the beginning': The Indigenous girls’ football team that’s making history
For the first time ever, the Falcons Football Club is fielding a senior girls’ team which is competing in the Manitoba Girls Football Association.
Based in Bonivital, the team is almost entirely made up of Indigenous girls from Sagkeeng First Nation.
Most have never played football before and have long commutes just to get to practice.
"They drive every day, an hour and a half just to get to practice and then an hour and a half home after practice,” said Kathy Calancia, Falcons head coach.
Through a partnership with a high school in Sagkeeng First Nation and a rise in interest of girls wanting to play football, the Falcons Football Club established its first senior girls’ team.
However, very few of the girls had any experience playing the sport beforehand.
"Ever since I was in elementary [school] I've played basketball, and basketball has been my favourite sport and then I wanted to try something new,” said Falcons defensive back Emery Fontaine.
With an experienced coaching staff and just two players with any playing experience, tactically speaking, the goal is simply to learn the fundamentals.
The biggest lesson the head coach hopes these girls take away from the experience is how to approach a challenge with confidence and aggression
"When you're aggressive and you’re confident, then you come off as a new player or a new person,” Calancia said.
“Their heads are held high and their body language is all different and this is going to help them in life, in their future and every aspect of everything."
Playing in her first ever game last week, quarterback Jodie Laforte said there was a sense of fear taking the field.
"For the first game I was really nervous, I had butterflies [in my stomach] all day and I was just really scared just because it's tackling,” she said, adding that after the first game her favourite part is the tackling.
Faith Scott is one of the two experienced players on the team, and the only non-Indigenous member of the team.
She said less than a month into the season, the experience has already been a rewarding one.
"Our team is doing really good. It's only been like three weeks and we've all accomplished our own goals in a way and I'm very proud to call this my team,” Scott said.
The team will continue to make history later this summer when it competes at a national tournament as the first-ever team made up of all Indigenous girls.
Calancia hopes is the first of many milestones for this club.
"I want these girls all coming back to me because we need to play again next year. This is only the beginning of the amazing things that are to come,” she said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
BREAKING New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial
New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Residents of northern Alberta First Nation told to shelter in place
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
Secret $70M Lotto Max winners break their silence
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Remains from a mother-daughter cold case were found nearly 24 years later, after a deathbed confession from the suspect
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
Monthly earnings rise, payroll employment falls: jobs report
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
First in Canada procedure performed at London, Ont. hospital
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.