Ms. Bonecrusher

>> Busy lives help keep the women of
the Montreal Blitz tackle football team

NO SAYING SORRY: The Blitz

by ERIK LEIJON

As far as good ol’ boys sports go, football could be the most phallocentric of them all. John Mellencamp once wrote that Jack was going to be a football star, but poor old pea-brained Diane was merely eye candy in the backseat of his car. Disney’s Remember the Titans brought blacks and whites together, but the women were still second-class citizens by the time “Ain’t No Mountain” started playing.

But when it comes to the Montreal Blitz women’s tackle football team, there’s no question they’re as bloodthirsty as any ’roid-raging NFL linebacker. They’re also beating common stereotypes of the fairer sex one bone-crushing tackle at a time.

The on-field Blitz, the only Canadian team in the Independent Women’s Football League (IWFL), North America’s premiere women’s tackle football league, play NFL-rules football with a smaller ball. None of the players or coaching staff are paid; the ladies simply love beating the shit out of other ladies for the fun of it. The women come from all walks of life: there are teachers, physiotherapists, cops, students and kick-boxers. One player even served with the Canadian Armed Forces in Bosnia. The only thing these women have in common is a mutual love of football and a lack of opportunity in their youth, since most have little or no experience playing tackle football when they attend their first Blitz try-out.

According to starting quarterback and owner Saadia Ashraf, the initial reaction to contact is usually what either attracts or deters a potential player. “A lot of the girls aren’t used to the contact at first. After one practice, you can usually tell who’s going to stay and stick with it.”

Even Ashraf, who has an extensive sporting background and teaches physical education (among other subjects) at Lindsay Place High School, played mostly flag football and only started playing semi-contact in the United States a year before joining the Blitz during their inaugural season in 2002. “Tackle football just wasn’t an option when I was younger,” she says. “Maybe the odd girl would get to play with the young guys in the youth leagues, but that was it.”

Ashraf is always looking to provide an opportunity for young women to learn to play tackle football, and many on the current roster were recruited by Ashraf either from Lindsay Place or John Abbott College. The current minimum age to play in the IWFL is 18, but two 16-year-olds have been practising with the team in the hopes they’ll be game ready once they become legal age.

Hard-ass coach

Although there was another owner when Ashraf first joined the Blitz, she assumed sole ownership of the team two years ago. Also joining at that time was head coach John Gibbon, a 25-year veteran of youth football in Montreal and Laval. Two years ago, Gibbon was ready to retire from football when his wife decided to try out for the Blitz. Out of curiosity, he decided to tag along, and he never left. He even brought his son Myles, a quarterback for Vanier who now serves as the Blitz’s offensive coordinator.

“I dealt with the politics and bullshit of minor league football for years and here there are no politics—we’re really a team, we’re a family. My wife and I are here, and so is my son, and these girls are all my daughters,” Gibbon says.

Gibbon could be considered an old-fashioned hard-ass football coach. He walks around with a bamboo walking stick referring to his “Moses Complex.” He cringes whenever one of his players says “Sorry” on the field, and is adamant that he “will not treat them like girls. They’re football players.” He doesn’t handle them with kid gloves, even though many of them have never played tackle football before. He compares the learning process to bringing up a player from ATOM youth level to CEGEP level by the time the season starts, but he says the girls learn quickly because they haven’t been bogged down by years of meddling from coaches and parents, as many of his male players were.

Juggling football and life

Sunday practice, one week before the season opener against the Manchester Freedom at Dalbé-Viau High School in Lachine, is a serious but friendly affair. The players crack jokes with each other and curse profusely. Based on the language used by the defensive line to describe their plans for the Freedom, the Manchester quarterback might not last until halftime. Coach Gibbon is as passionate about practice routes as most coaches are about the actual games, and is raving about how quickly Amy-Lee Gunter, a 21-year-old South African horse trainer, is learning how to play left tackle.

While NFL lineman D’Brickashaw Ferguson is considered undersized at 305 pounds, Gunter must make do at 145 pounds, which is tiny even by IWFL standards. “I’m the smallest on the line, but as long as I have good technique, it doesn’t matter what size you are,” she says. Gunter saw her first football game five years ago, and the Freedom game will be the first women’s game she’ll ever see, let alone play in. As a full-time horse trainer and rider in St-Lazare, Gunter’s schedule may interfere with her budding football career, which is the case with many of the women.

“There are only three players left from the original team (six years ago),” says wide-receiver and six-year veteran Alia Palmer. “A lot of players come and go—one of the challenges is to get players to carry over from year to year. Everyone here is juggling football, careers and family life.”

Big girls wanted!

In addition to trying to break even financially (the team lost money last year) and finding sponsors to help fund road trips and uniforms, Ashraf says spreading awareness to athletic ladies in the city about the team is just as much of a challenge.

“We’re always looking for more girls to come out, especially bigger girls, but sometimes they take it the wrong way when I approach them.” The team can add players throughout the season.

The future of the team and women’s football is actually quite bright. The league itself is healthy and the Blitz have enough returning players to compete come playoff time. Coach Gibbon is even more confident, saying the team is mentally tough, thanks to busy lives on and off the field. “Besides,” he says, “who’s tougher than your mom? Who’s smarter than your mom? Who has more determination than your mom? Not your dad. I’m a dad, and I know how my wife is. This team is like 29 moms on the field.”

For more information, including try-out info,
visit the team’s Web site montrealblitz.ourcyberhouse.com,
Dalbé-Viau High School (740 Esther-Blondin in Lachine)