World Footy News

We have had a number of articles on the progress of football in Canada - covering Mike Pyke, the OAFL, the EAFL, the NWPAFL, the NDJAFL and junior football.

Now it is time take a snapshot of women’s footy in Western Canada and specifically Calgary. The west is arguably the centre for women’s football in Canada with the Calgary Kookaburras, Edmonton Emus and the Vancouver Wildcats supplying just over half the players for the Northern Lights, the Canadian national women’s team.

The Calagary Kookaburras were founded in 2007, travelling to the US Nationals each year since, winning the US Nationals in 2008, runner up in 2009 and winning the Canadian nationals in 2009 against the newly formed Vancouver Wildcats. 2010 was a bit of a lull even after recruiting all Australian Alice Broughton from the ACT. Alice played for the Edmonton side that went down convincingly to the newly-formed Montreal side in the Quebec 2010 Canadian Nationals.

A combined Calagary/Montreal side went down to Denver in the USA Nationals but the Northern Lights defeated the USA in both Toronto international games that year. In 2011 the attention shifted to the International Cup where by Canada defeated arch rival USA but fell to Ireland in the final. Two Kookaburras were named in the world’s women team.

2012 saw the Kookaburras back on track with good player numbers and also for the 2013 season. They run a two team metro league in the form of the Kingfishers and the Nighthawks when they are not travelling to Edmonton, Vancouver or representative games. The distances involved in travelling keeps the numbers of games played low and importance of domestic preparation high.

Currently the Kookaburras are training indoors working on their fitness and eagerly waiting for the snow to clear so they can kick a few balls around. Already the focus is on this year’s 49th Parallel Cup but long range planning has already commenced for the 2014 International Cup. In both areas - they should do well.