By Heather Wassing
The Blue & Gold Women’s Club has done it again. The third event of the year was a second Women’s Football Clinic and I was fortunate enough to have the stars align (read: my wonderful mother-in-law agreed to watch my children) so that I didn’t have to miss out for a second time this year.
Upon arrival, the entire field was set up like the best kind of carnival. There were huge flags marking each of the stations and a big group of us Blue & Gold Women descending to the field to mingle. There were women like me, who would never be accused of being athletic, women who were clearly more of the athletic ilk and then the North Winnipeg Nomads to fill in the gamut of participants. We were broken into groups and sent off to eight different stations. Unaccompanied, I had moseyed on over to introduce myself to a couple of other ladies who were there by themselves, and we managed to stand behind a group of six ladies who adopted us.
Here are my thoughts on a few of the stations:
Yoga
I had heard about Linebacker Ian Wild’s yoga sessions with his Bomber teammates thanks to the magic of social media and was dying to catch a glimpse, so I was delighted that this was one of the stations. I went in thinking that it would be a cake-walk, but Wild sent us through a few really decent, slow sun salutations, a little bit of warrior 1 and finished it up with a very challenging pigeon pose. Challenging for me, anyway. My hips don’t bend that way. Of course, Ian Wild flung his leg out there like a seasoned yogi, showing us all how it’s done.
Running
Wait, what? Running? Aw, man… but WR Romby Bryant was very kind to us, keeping our running component to ladder drills. One foot, two feet, jumping jacks, zig-zags and sideways in-and-out. Nothing TOO crazy, but we were all getting pretty sweaty. Romby was good enough to take a group selfie for us at the end of our drills (I want a copy of that, if you’re reading this blog!)
Catching
The catching was a two-part drill with half of us being coached by RB Matt Bucknor and the other half with WR Julian Feoli-Gudino. My group had Bucknor for the first half, and he had us shuffling back about ten yards and dodging right or left (however he called it) to catch a pass. A gently lobbed pass that I barely caught with the top half of my arm, but caught it was, as were the majority of the passes. We all wound up feeling pretty high and mighty. Feoli-Gudino had us running in-routes to catch balls thrown from behind us. This was a lot more difficult (again, for me) but some of the ladies nailed it.
Kicking
Oh, Lirim Hijrullahu… Once it was established that we were being treated to instruction by THE kicking golden boy, the smartphones came out and there was an impromptu photo shoot. I’m glad that I’m not alone in my near deification of Hijrullahu. Once that was over and done with, we tested our skill at kicking (laces out!) and punting. We all liked punting more than kicking. There’s something about dropping that ball into the space between your hands and the ground and connecting with it, sending it sailing. Or wobbling. Kicking was my favourite station. As much as you can just go to the back yard to throw a ball or soft-tackle friends in a friendly game, it isn’t as likely that you’ll just grab a football and say, “I wonder how far away from myself I can kick this.” I’m not sure my back yard is big enough. But it turns out that it feels really great to kick a football. Of course, it’s much better when you’re being instructed by Lirim Hijrullahu…
Tackling
Apparently, tackling is a force that comes mostly from the hips. And apparently when demonstrated in slow motion for the purposes of instruction, as it was by DE Louie Richardson, a group of nine grown women can be reduced to giggling twelve-year-olds. Richardson had us line up in two rows to jump-step over soft risers and explode into a tackling dummy. He also tried to draw us offside, an offense for which we had to step back five yards in order to run the drill. Good for our little team, we were only offside once. The highlights of the tackling station were how into it we were getting (one of our team members literally tackled another to the ground by accident) and the last couple minutes where Richardson set up the dummy with soft padding for those of us who wanted to try full body tackles. The vast majority of us wanted to try full body tackles.
Blocking
OL Pat Neufeld and his gigantic blocking contraption met us at the blocking station. He demonstrated three-point stance and explained the mechanics of blasting up and out, keeping elbows bent, using one fluid motion to block and push back. My group of girls, most of whom likely need to stand on their toes to get things off the top shelf, were skeptical, but he was right. I think he mentioned that the dummy, a giant weight on a sled of metal poles, weighed over 200lbs, and every one of us pushed it back our five yards. And then by the time we got the hang of solo blocking, he let us pair up for a little bit more blocking fun. Blocking was my second favourite station. Also probably the one that I’m going to feel the most in the morning.
Throwing
Here we were run through our throwing paces by short-yardage QB Robert Marve. My favourite drill had us chopping (running on the spot) with our eyes closed until Marve told us to open them, then we had to find him, tell him how many fingers he was holding up and THEN we were allowed to throw the ball. (Before you ask, it was my favourite because it was the only time I managed to throw the ball into its little net.) Marve, like all of the players involved, was very generous with his praise and patience. He also rushed us through the drills as quickly as he could so that we would get to try out all of his paces in the ten minutes that we were allotted.
Reception
Then we reconvened at centre field, cheered all of the players who had been so generous with their time, and up we headed to a reception on the concourse, full of delicious treats provided by Granny’s Poultry and samples of the truly wonderful Blue Bomber Bin 1930 wines.
Women of Blue Bomber fandom, if you have ever been looking at the ladies’ night football clinic and even been the littlest bit interested, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I always passed because I thought I’d look foolish doing something that was clearly out of my area of skill, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The players and participants alike spent the night cheering each other on and laughing and having a really, really excellent time. Gather a group of friends together or come alone like I did, and meet new friends when you get on the field. Make sure that you’ve signed up for the Blue & Gold Women’s Club newsletter so that when time rolls around next summer to register for the Women’s Football Clinic, you don’t miss out. You owe it to yourself to go. You won’t regret it.
Go, Bombers!
