The Manitoba Girls’ Football Association (MGFA) celebrates its ten-year anniversary this year. The league is thriving, thanks in large part to the work of Lisa Zueff-Cummings and Tanis Wilson.
The pair were instrumental in the creation of senior women’s football in the province, dating back to 2007, and in 2011 they took things a step further. Cue the MGFA, the first full contact football program for girls in North America. The six-a-side game is played in the spring and is open to females aged 10-17.
“We shouldn’t all have to wait until we’re in our 30s to play the game, so we decided to create the MGFA so that all the young girls could actually get a chance to play, starting at a young level and be that much better if they decide to go to the next level,” noted Zueff-Cummings.
“I can’t believe it. Every day is still a challenge to maintain it – you have your good years and your bad years with getting enough players to maintain it – but I’m super proud of it. We’ve grown, and it’s been proven that if you build it, they will come. The girls want to play, and they will play, as long as someone takes it on and builds it.”
The league has grown exponentially over the years. It started as a trial season with three teams, and has expanded to see as many as eight teams at the senior level and 12 overall. In 2019, the league took another positive step when Manitoba hosted the U18 Red River Cup, the first-ever high-performance tournament for girls, which featured teams from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
“Our girls are demanding a higher level, so we decided that [2019] was the year that we were going to try and start that,” mentioned Zueff-Cummings. “It ended up that Sask was ready and willing to join us, so we started to work really hard in January of that year, figuring out exactly how we were going to do this.”
Over the years, the MGFA has become a feeder system to the Western Women’s Canadian Football League, which has two Manitoba teams in the Fearless and Winnipeg Wolfpack. Athletes such as linebacker Isabelle McDonald, quarterback Madison Siwicki and receiver, running back and returner Aashanti Tshiovo were all major players for a Fearless squad that hosted a playoff game for the first time ever in 2019.
Additionally, in July of 2019, Belle Jonasson, a former MGFA All-Star with the Transcona Nationals, made Team Manitoba’s U16 provincial team. In doing so, she became the first-ever female to crack the roster. That fall, she also suited up at the Division 1 level of high school football for Murdoch MacKay.
“[The MGFA] was a big stepping point for me going into a sport I’d never played before, and being such a role model to the other girls that are new to the sport too” she mentioned.
“After I made Team Manitoba, it kind of opened my eyes more to high school football. I thought if I could play Team Manitoba, then I can play high school.”
Jonasson, Siwicki, Tshiovo and McDonald all have the potential to make Team Canada’s women’s national team at a young age, which excites Zueff-Cummings. If and when that happens, it’ll be the “icing on the cake” for all the hard work done at the grassroots level.
“I think about it every day almost. I can’t believe that something we just kind of threw out there – because it pretty much was me and Tanis throwing it out there – has been bought into,” shee says.
“We still have dedicated volunteers and coaches that have been around with us since day one. They’re all addicted, they all love coaching the girls. I still sometimes can’t believe it’s been ten years.”