Milne, Pirrie, Maisey Among G
By Scott Taylor, Photos by James Carey Lauder
Pirrie and Maisey
If this were 1970, people would be
appalled at the state of the Winnipeg
High School Football League. After all,
in 1970, girls would be run off a high
school football field faster than you can
say, “Theresa Dion!*” But it’s not 1955.
As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau so
aptly pointed out, “It’s 2016,” and in the
WHSFL of 2016, girls play linebacker.
For Kyla Milne, football is a family
affair. Her uncle, Brock Campbell, is
a University of Manitoba Vanier Cup
winner and a Churchill Hall of Famer.
She and her brother Nick, played
together the past two seasons with the
Churchill Bulldogs.
Julia Maisey plays football because
it’s fun, although she will admit, that
one day she’d like to be a cheerleader
Brooke Pirrie
of Garden
City and
Julia Maisey
of Miles Mac
14 / sportslife
and a player at the same time, if only
somebody at Miles Mac would start a
cheerleading team.
And Brooke Pirrie has played football
with the boys since she was 12. She
simply loves everything there is to
love about the game and as a hardhitting linebacker with the Garden City
Gophers, she’s already a veteran of the
Winnipeg High School Football League.
Kyla, Julia and Brooke are the newest
face of the WHSFL. They are girls
playing a tough, collision sport with
the boys and they like it.
But they certainly aren’t alone. In the
WHSFL, there are 31 high school teams
in three varsity boys divisions and there
are actually quite a number of female
players including Ashley McCabe, a
Grade 12 student at Kildonan East is in
her second season with the Reivers and
a group of three at Fort Frances: Serene
Whitecrow, Chelsea Allan and Macey
McMillan.
It was only in 2006 that the
Pasternak sisters, Amy and Jesse, sued
the Manitoba High School Athletic
Association for the right to play on
the boys’ high school team at West
Kildonan Collegiate.
These days, girls playing varsity
football in the Winnipeg High School
Football League seems about as natural
as boys playing. Granted, there still
aren’t a lot of girls suiting up on varsity
teams but there are enough to notice.
Even though WHSFL commissioner
has never really bothered to notice.
Nobody will be suing his league for the
right to play.
“Don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl,
doesn’t matter,” said Henkewich, 63, a
former university DB and kicker who
had a tryout with the Blue Bombers
back in the 1970s. “If you want to
play, you can play. We’ve never had a
meeting about it. You know, whether