Men’s football has traditionally been the main sport for most universities across Canada during homecoming. However, the push to showcase other sports is becoming more popular across Canadian universities, as well.
For St. Francis Xavier University (St. F.X.) in Antigonish, N.S., they broke tradition by replacing the annual men’s football game with women’s rugby for their 2019 homecoming.Two of the main leaders in facilitating the change was St. FX’s Athletics Department and the Advancement Depart-ment, which deals with tasks such as maintaining Alumni relationships.
Wendy Langley, director of development in the Advancement Department, was one of the individuals to push the project through. “It all became about timing, and when would this idea garner the greatest support,” she said. “It became more about getting people to say yes to this than trying to combat the no’s.”
“We really felt strongly [that] it was an overwhelming success,” Langely added.
She also pointed to a few milestones which helped sup-port having women’s rugby for their homecoming, including the 50th anniversary of women’s athletics at St. F.X. University, a milestone with history behind it.
“It really made sense that if we’re going to do this right, that it be a female team at the spotlight for homecoming,” Langley said.
St. F.X.’s women’s rugby team has also won six U Sports national championships in the last 10 years, making them one of Canada’s most successful varsity teams in recent memory.
“We had the great fortune of the women’s rugby team winning the national championship shortly after our planning. The defending national champions deserved the spotlight.”
Players on the women’s rugby team not only credited their school for changing tradition, but for providing the platform to commemorate women’s sport.
First-year player Dani Franada says the decision was a testament to the sport and the history of the team.
“I think it was such a pioneering move on the part of the uni-versity [to] deviate from the traditional Saturday football game to a rugby game,” said Franada.“The change was a large state-ment to the game of rugby and a great tribute to the history of women’s sport at St F.X.”
“We were lucky to have received an overwhelming amount of support from our community and the absolute privilege and opportunity to take part in a piece of history.”
It’s rare for universities to make changes, but for those with-out a men’s football team, they are used to having a different sport on display.
Ryerson University recently showcased men’s hockey for their 2019 homecoming, featured in the old Maple Leaf Gar-dens, now known as Mattamy Hall.
Ryerson recently created their homecoming in 2018, but faced criticism for not featuring one of their varsity teams. Instead, they sold tickets for students to watch the Toronto Ar-gonauts, a CFL team who play a few kilometres away at BMO Field.
Third-year Ryerson student Monica Brighton attended Ryerson’s homecoming this year, and was surprised to see the large crowd supporting their men’s hockey team.
“Putting the tailgate party at Pitman Hall, there was a lot of people, it didn’t seem like there was the same amount of people inside Mattamy, but there was,” she said. “It was Ryerson ori-ented, and that’s what’s important.”
Brighton also credited her school’s marketing for providing visibility to women’s varsity teams.“
They seem to have a bigger platform for female sports at Ryerson than men’s sports in my opinion, so I think we’re already there.”
St. F.X.’s homecoming is also welcome news to Maya Addai, a third-year winger on Carleton’s women’s rugby team.
Addai pointed to Carleton men’s soccer as an example of a varsity team which could be proposed as an alternate for the tra-ditional men’s football game.
“I really feel that a lot of the Carleton teams have really grown in the past few years,” she said.”
“Since football has always been done, there’s never been a change that possibly was gonna be good. For St. F.X., they’re the first ones, I really feel this can prompt Carleton to choose other sports.”
Back at St. F.X., Langley could not agree more.
“When we were first starting the conversation, it wasn’t being blocked. I think everybody was aware there was going to be a risk, but there was nobody coming forward saying to not do this.”
Langley stated “anything is possible,” when asked if St. F.X. will feature the women’s rugby team again in their 2020 home-coming game.
“I think now that there was a small change in tradition, that conversations are being had, and everything is on the table at this point,” she said.
“It’s important that universities not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. Don’t get caught up in tradition, things need to evolve. Change is good.”
Feature image provided.
