Female tackle football ready for next step in Calgary

As the snow continues to melt and days get longer in Calgary, more football players are hitting the gridiron, and one local group is hoping more girls are ready to strap on the pads.

Registration is now open for a six-a-side tackle football league for females 13 to 17-years-old.

“We started with camps a couple of years ago. One of the common things that kept coming up with the girls was where they can go after even the pee-wee level,” Elisha Torraville, director of female football for the Calgary Bantam Football Association, told CityNews.

“The skill and confidence to join football past the age of seven, eight, nine for girls seems to be a problem. The league is meant to bring in new girls and show girls they belong in this sport, whether playing, coaching, officiating, managing — whatever they want to do. My whole purpose is to get more female involvement in football.”

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Previous camps were very well attended, leading to an ‘a-ha’ moment for those running them: why not start a league?

“There are many girls out there who want to try football but have been too intimidated to jump on a boys team or even with the Calgary Rage, the women’s team, and it can be intimidating if you’ve never played football before,” Torraville admitted. “Over half of the girls that have registered for the six-a-side have never played football before, ever. So that’s really exciting to me because that means we’re touching a whole area that has never been tapped into.”

Focusing on six-a-side is an ideal starting point for the league, allowing players the opportunity to experiment when it comes to positions.

“The game really becomes about offensive strategy,” she explained. “There are only six players across the field, and scores are generally a lot higher. You only have to have three people on the line, and it’s the middle player that’s not eligible but the other two, which normally on a 12-a-side offensive line nobody is eligible, but in six-a-side, those outside linemen can be eligible for a pass. We see in six-a-side that the girls get to try a border area and different positions than they would normally.”

“With six-a-side, you may try a little bit of running back or receiver. You may start on the line, do some blocking, and then catch a ball. We try to encourage kicks because that’s where this age group tends to have a harder time. The kick for after points is always worth two instead of one. If they want to pass it in, it’s only one.”

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The game is still three downs like we see in the Canadian Football League, but with the hopes of this female league, the coaches will have more creative flexibility with what you can do with your offensive schemes.

“You don’t have to follow any of the traditional positions. But, for example, you could have to running backs lined up with your quarterback and do more three on the line and three right behind,” Torraville said.

According to Canadian Women & Sport, “as many as 62 per cent of girls are not participating in any kind of sport compared to 44 per cent of boys, and one in three girls drop out compared to one in seven boys.”

The hope is, with the development of this female football league in Calgary, more girls will try the game and end up staying in the game.

For more information, visit Female Football Calgary on Facebook.