Looks may be deceiving, especially if you’re cheering on the Moncton Stingrays.
This tackle football team is made up of high school girls who recently won the provincial championships beating Fredericton with a final score of 39 to 32.
Fifteen-year-old Alexia Brazeau says their hard work paid off, “Every team is going to try and get better next year to obviously win the championship, so we are just trying to work even harder, and get stronger and faster.”
It was her sister Meagan’s first year with the team. The 16-year-old says, ” It was a great team and I learned so much. I found that we really stepped it up in the finals. Some of the girls going into the semifinal game didn’t realize how big of a deal it was if we actually won that game. Then once we got to the finals, I found that people were focusing more and understanding what would happen if we won the game and that we’d be making history.”
It was the first time the Stingrays have ever won the Varsity Girls provincial championships.
(Photo: courtesy of Jason Bullerwell)
Head Coach Joel Irvine says, “She believed she could, so she did.”
Sixteen-year-old Kayla Briggs’ was also a member of the team for the first time, “Being a part of a group of girls who are always there for you. You always have someone who has your back and gives you a sense of security.”
She adds “At the beginning, I didn’t really feel like I fit in, but then as the year got along, I started to actually feel like I had a place here and I started to love the girls and the sport.”
This year, the Stingrays grew to almost 30 players.
Sixteen-year-old Alex Purdy has played football for six years, but previously a girl’s team wasn’t available, “Throughout the years, playing with the guys, a lot of girls came up, and people started realizing that girls could play too.”
Currently, in the province, there are three tackle football teams for girls in grades 9 through 12, in Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton.
But Head Coach Irvine says there’s the potential for a girl’s football team in every community.
“Let’s get this in communities that don’t have football right now. An ideal roster for six on six football is 20 players. There’s got to be 20 to 21 girls in the town of Sackville, or in Chatham or St. Stephen, for example,” Irvine says. “If we can find a champion in the community who will embrace this and run with it and be the driver, there’s no way that this league can’t grow rapidly, I think if we find those people, this league will explode. I really believe it.”
Irvine is a firm believer that it’s all about the lessons you learn in life, not about wins and losses, “Football is a metaphor for life. I think when kids start to play the game, it has an impact beyond just the football field. I think these young girls, through football, are learning how to maneuver through life, learning great lessons, economically, and socially, and they’re gonna be great future leaders in our community. They’ll see each other 20 years from now and they’ll be able to smile and remember back to 2022 when they won the title.”
The Moncton Stingrays were also recognized this week at a City Council meeting.
