Lethbridge Steel Award
Earlier this week, the Lethbridge Sport Council announced its annual award winners. Among them was the Lethbridge Steel women’s tackle football team, picking up the Knud Petersen Spirit in Sport award. MPP has been tied closely to the Steel over the last year, so we had to take a moment and call up our good friend Kristen Schaefer, president of the Steel organization, to congratulate her and get her reaction to the award.
Kristen says the team was immensely grateful for the award and the recognition it represents. “We find a lot of people don’t know about our team or the WWCFL,” Kristen says candidly, “so it means a lot for us as a team to be recognized.” She went on to add that she feels like this is a win for female sports as a whole.
Over here at MPP, we’ve seen the tight-knit community of the Steel team firsthand, so we took this opportunity to ask Kristen what she thought builds such a strong bond between her teammates. Kristen takes a moment to think about that before putting the explanation to the length of their practice time. The Steel start practices with the returning players in January, onboarding their rookies in February and March before finalizing the team in April ahead of the season’s official start in May. She says that having a short season (4 games, 2 home, 2 away, and then playoffs in the current WWCFL format), that practice time is really important to build a good team. “You build trust that you know your job and your teammate knows her job. That creates this extreme, strong team respect.”
We took a detour in our conversation and talked about last season. If you didn’t follow the Steel last season, their playoff run was quite memorable. A road win against the conference-favourite Calgary Rage led the Steel to their berth in the finals last year, where they ultimately placed second in the league. Kristen looked back on that time and remembers the season as a series of highs and lows. In order to get to the semi-final against Calgary, the Steel endured a crushing loss to the same Calgary team earlier in the season and also lost a key member of their coaching staff halfway through their season. “The season schedule was also a challenge,” Kristen admits, “we had 2 home games followed by the rest of the season on the road where we had some upsets against us.” Following 2 losses in a row in a short season and losing their coach, Kristen recalls a key pivot point in their season where “[the team] could have fractured after that loss to the Rage, but we all came together as a group. That’s when we knew we had something special, as everyone came together and we had this moment of not letting it break us as a group. That just propelled us into the rest of the season.”
That statement really highlights for me why the Steel deserve the Knud Petersen honours this year. Unfortunately, the award comes at a bitter-sweet time as the WWCFL announced last week that the 2020 season was officially cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kristen confesses that accepting that news has been really hard on the players and coaches. “Everyone had already put a lot of time in and were so excited to build off the success of last year”, she says and points out the team has already been training and recruiting for the season for 3 months already. She acknowledges the necessity of the WWCFL’s decision and the importance of putting everyone’s safety first, but it doesn’t make it easier on a team who was hoping for big things this season. Kristen still holds out hope that the National Championship for female tackle football, scheduled for the first week of August in Sherwood Park, AB, will still go ahead. At this time it has not been cancelled, but officials are watching the situation closely.
We asked what the team is up to with their “off-year”. Kristen points out that the team has so many different women from different walks of life including students, full-time workers, business owners, and
mothers – some more than one of those at a time – so the answer is different for each player. She does acknowledge that overall “it’s a very weird time right now, we’re very close to each other and at this time we’re usually practicing so much we’re kind of distant from our families and friends. This year is odd because everyone is now so close to their families and distant from their Steel family.”
As we started to wrap up, Kristen had some thoughts for the future. She would like to see the growth of football and girls’ sports in general at earlier levels. Currently, most of their recruits have very little exposure to football, and very few have ever played on an organized team before. She and her teammates love to teach new players the game but it would be nice to start developing the talent pool earlier. Kristen enjoys that right now she gets to be a role model to some younger women who have started to follow the team. “A few girls have come up to me while I’m in my gear, they recognize the logo and say they’re excited to get old enough to play. You just wish they had something they could do now when you hear that, so they don’t have to wait.” To those women looking at possibly joining the team, Kristen points out that they still hold open practices and tryouts every season. “I think anyone interested should come out!” Kristen tells us. “They should also know that one of the things I love about football is there’s no perfect body type. Each position needs a different height, weight and size so no matter who you are, you are definitely athletic enough and there’s a position that’s fit for you.”
Otherwise, Kristen is just looking forward to 2021 and getting back on the field with her teammates. Lethbridge hosted the regional finals a few years ago, and she is also hopeful that with a growing fan base and the exposure from awards like the Knud Petersen award this year, the team can get the supporters and volunteers they need to play host again. She hopes anyone interested in volunteering with the team in any capacity will reach out when next season rolls around.
In closing, Kristen asked us to pass along a message on behalf of her and the team:
“We would love to thank our fans and volunteers, and everyone else who comes out. We’re disappointed we don’t get to play this year but we’re working hard for next season. For those who haven’t been out to a game, I recommend follow us on Facebook, Instagram and come see us next year! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. The thing we always say is football is usually in the summer and fall, and we play in the spring. If you’re missing football between the Super Bowl and the start of the CFL season, come on out, you won’t be disappointed!
