‘Burst into football’: Blue Bombers get in on growing sport of girls flag football

The girls league was launched earlier this month by the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers. More than 200 players from 19 teams will compete in six weeks of games.

Standing on a field of green turf at a sporting facility in Winnipeg’s south end, Solape Obasa keeps her eye on the football, waiting for the moment she can catch it and run.

But before the 17-year-old at Winnipeg’s Elmwood High School got the chance to wait, she had to work for the opportunity to get on the field at all as part of a new high school girls flag football league.

“I’ve always liked the idea of girls playing flag football since the guys have football. I always wondered why no girls were allowed on the team,” Obasa said in an interview.

The teen doesn’t call herself a football fan, but said she loves to jump at trying something new that taps into her athletic abilities.

But that opportunity ran into a roadblock at Elmwood High, which previously had a boys tackle football squad but nothing on the gridiron for girls.

Obasa and other students pushed staff to establish a girls flag football team. They were told if they could find 15 participants ready to play, they would be in.

It didn’t take much for the team to fill up, said the team’s head coach, Zhanna Samborski.

She credits the speed of the game, the camaraderie of the sport and the chance for girls to “elbow (their) way into a male-dominated field” as the reasons for the interest.