Pros vs. Joes: The debate shaping Canada's future flag football Olympic hopefuls
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Caked in mud, clothes soaked from sweat and a January rain that drenched Tampa Bay, Hunter Lake decided it was the perfect moment to propose to his girlfriend, Chantelle Gangoso.
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With whistles from their Van City Vice flag football teammates and the games going on behind them at the 2025 World Flag Football Championships in Tampa Bay, he dropped to his knee and surprised her with a ring.
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Couples that play together, stay together, as the saying goes. So it's one ring down for Lake and Gangoso, but there are six others they'd like to add — the Olympic rings.
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'I'd never even thought about being an Olympian at all until I heard flag football was going to be a thing,' Gangoso, a Vancouver native, said of the new 2028 Summer Games sport.
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The footballing couple shared their story at a camp for Football Canada at McLeod Athletic Park in Langley last month, where the best B.C. flaggers tried to put themselves on the map to be part of the Olympic team. The series of camps across the country culminated with around 85 men and women being invited to the final camp this weekend at the Université de Montréal, where the 12-person men's and women's squads will be selected.
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TSN football analyst Paul LaPolic, a former CFL coach, is the head coach of the men's team, while longtime player and coach Rachel Lessard takes the reins of the women's team.
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The official route to the Summer Games in Los Angeles has yet to be announced. Preliminary framework has the top three teams from the 2026 World Championships — which Duesseldorf, Germany, is likely to host next year — making the cut automatically. A second 'repechage' tournament in 2027 will see three more teams make it to L.A.
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First notable action for the 12-person Canadian squads will be the 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China, this summer for the women, while the men will head to Panama in September for the IFAF Americas Flag 2025 Continental Championships.
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Flag football jumped back into the headlines earlier this week when NFL owners voted to allow players to compete in the Summer Games. With NFL training camps opening a week after the Olympic tournament wraps, there would be no conflict with the NFL schedule.
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Not so for the CFL, which would be in the middle of its season when the tournament is on. After months of official milquetoast backing for the idea of CFL players in the Games — the head office offering up phrasing like 'leveraging resources' and 'an opportunity to grow the game' — new CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston says only he's trying to make it happen.
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