By: Mike Still (@mikestill94)
All photos by: @xpression.photography
For a decade, defensive tackle Breanne Ward has been grinding on the gridiron.
A veteran of the Manitoba Fearless and Winnipeg Wolfpack of the Western Women’s Canadian Football League (WWCFL), she was the only female on the St. Vital Mustangs majors team as a 23-year-old and also made the women’s national team in 2017.
This past week, her tackle football journey took another enormous leap forward, as she and fellow local product Hanna McEwen signed contracts to play professional football with the Denver Gold Rush in the newly-formed Women’s Football League Association (WFLA).
The association — which looks to begin play next spring due to CO-VID19 — is based out of the states and is aiming to become the standard when it comes to a paying women’s football league.
McEwen — a 21-year-old running back who was the first girl to ever play high school football for the Kildonan East Reivers — first found out about the league via social media, alerting the 28-year-old Ward shortly after.
“As soon as [McEwen] found out about the league she let me know. We both have our sights set on the highest level of football that we can play. Really from there we just kind of followed their social media,” Ward noted.
“[The WFLA] had virtual combines, so we sent in our information and got into combines with as many teams as possible. From there, they reached out to us if they were interested, and we were lucky enough that Denver reached out to both of us. I just feel better going out there with her, and having someone from home, because this is such an adjustment for us.”
While this will be a new experience for the pair, Ward is prepared for what will come, thanks in part to her time with Team Canada.
“I think the biggest thing is to have mental resiliency. I always tell people when they ask about Team Canada that it was the most stressful, nerve-wracking and amazing experience. There was just so much time and you got to dig so much deeper into your football IQ. It was just football all the time. You just have to have that focus, and that’s one of the biggest things that I think I’ll take in there.”
The WWCFL veteran hopes that by embarking on this new journey, she and McEwen can help inspire other female ballers to achieve their dreams.
“Realistically, me growing up in the football world over the last ten years, I didn’t have professional female football players to look up to. I would always look to tennis and Serena Williams, and women’s basketball. You’ve seen how far that has come, and that’s where we want women’s football to go.”
The next ones up in a long line of trailblazers
While Ward and McEwen’s efforts on the field have been impressive, they wouldn’t necessarily be where they are today without the work of many others who have helped expand the reach of the women’s game, both locally and nationally.
In discussing ambassadors of the sport, names such as Tannis Wilson and Lisa Zueff-Cummings immediately come to mind.
The pair were instrumental in the creation of the Fearless in the late 2000’s (which existed a full two years before the WWCFL) and also spearheaded the Manitoba Girls Football Association in 2011.
Their efforts also helped pave the way for the U18 Girls Red River Cup, the first-ever high performance tackle football tournament for female teenagers, which Manitoba hosted last year.
Ward was a coach for the gold medal-winning Team Manitoba black squad during the tournament, and sees the value in holding such an event on an annual basis.
“It was just really nice to get to know who the girls were. They really are so, so smart, and some of these girls are playing on boys teams too. We just need to keep developing these girls so much more, and to be a part of that, I loved the experience.”
Not to be forgotten in the list of tackle football trailblazers are Adrienne Dudek and Christine O’Donnell. The former helped create the Wolfpack program, while the latter is a three-time member of Team Canada at offensive line who also played for Oak Park in high school.
“I played against [Dudek] my first two years, we got to play provincial team together, and then we played on the Wolfpack, which her dad started. I also got to coach with her last summer. Those are the people that we looked up to,” Ward noted.
“Even Christine O’Donnell. She is a beast. She beat me up through my whole career. If there’s one person who made me a better football player, it’s Christine O’Donnell. She’s a three-time Team Canada player. I’m really fortunate that within our small female football community I’ve had people like that to look up to.”
As Ward and McEwen set their sights on women’s tackle football glory, there’s no denying the increase in its popularity.
Last year, Alberta held their first-ever girls tackle program, while the Maritime Women’s Football League offers opportunities at the senior level out east. In the United States, the Utah Girls Football League became the first of its kind in 2015, while an increasing number of senior level teams are also entering the mix.
The creation of each respective league represents further growth in the popularity, advocacy and reach of women’s tackle football.
“Looking at our WWCFL teams here, you have women who’ve been trying to advocate and get the word out,” Ward says.
“If you ask any female football player, we always get asked oh, is it flag, is it touch? We are always explaining no, we play tackle football with CFL rules. There are a lot of roadblocks, and it really just comes with being a female athlete.
We just need more support in that respect, so we kind of have to just look to ourselves. You have to look inside yourself, and also to your teammates, because that is exactly who supports you. We all have the same mindset and we just have to keep pushing.”