By Will Beaumont – Contributor

Maggie Coffin and Ceilidh Leroux founded the flag football club at Bishops in 2021. 

They initially faced the challenge of creating a team, realizing that a varsity program wasn’t possible because the school couldn’t accommodate any more teams. As a result, they decided to establish a club team, officially launching it in December 2021.In January of that year the girls began practising and had an astounding turnout of twenty girls show up the first day. 

As a testament of their efforts, Maggie and Ceilidh were interviewed by CBC radio regarding the growth of flag football in April of 2022. They hoped that by doing this interview they would receive more acknowledgment from the school and receive more help.

September of 2022 rolled around and the team was able to finally get themselves more equipment such as flags, new balls and cones, as well as being given access to Optimist field once a week. However numbers at practice slowly began to diminish with practices normally consisting of at least ten to twelve people dropping to only two or three. 

September 2023 rolled around and brought a new spark to the team with over thirty sign ups on club day and with that came an amazing turnout at practice, a huge turnaround from the year prior. The team ranged from people only just beginning and wanting to pick up a new sport all the way to seasoned veterans who had been playing for years which helped set a great foundation for the team and its development and growth. With this growth they were able to buy their own merch and conduct a media day in November which made them really start to feel like a team and helped to fuel the fire that many of them possessed to hopefully be able to someday soon compete in RSEQ.

As January 2024 rolled around practices were a little lighter on numbers due to people not wanting to practice in the gym as opposed to a field. Even still numbers remained high with thirty active members remaining by year’s end. The team was able to finish off the year by throwing some fundraisers to continue pushing their dreams as well as team bonding hoping to continue to keep team morale high despite not being able to compete in RSEQ still. 

That brings us to the current day where the club is currently led by Maggie Coffin along with recently nominated co-leads Nikki Boucher and Aline Martineau-Gauthier. Club day saw them gain another twenty members although losing other members along the way. Through four years of ups and downs the team continues to persevere and grow despite many challenges along the way. The team has managed to recruit over sixty girls as well as taking charge of intramurals which they hosted weekly seeing roughly five or six teams turn out every week. The team has also remained in contact with the six RSEQ teams currently in women’s flag football and is now one of the last schools in Quebec not to be a member. The team’s goal is to get their story out in hopes of being able to continue to grow the sport as this school so as to one day be able to compete in RSEQ. The current issue the team faces is primarily the funding necessary to operate in terms of transportation, equipment and coaching staff. The hope is to continue to find more support to allow the program to reach its full potential. In the words of Maggie Coffin, “Flag football is inevitably growing, and it will only get bigger. If not now then soon”.