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Vancouver Sun
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Vancouver Sun
Pros vs. Joes: The debate shaping Canada's future flag football Olympic hopefuls
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. 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. 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. '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. 'It'd be cool if we could go together.' 'That could be a dream come true, to have any part of it,' added Lake. 'Man, I'm down to even be the water boy for Team Canada, if they'd have me.' A post shared by Chantelle Gangoso (@cgangoso) 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. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 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. 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. 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 . 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. 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. 'I would love for CFL players to be competing at the global stage of the Olympics,' Johnston said Monday. 'I'm a huge believer in the importance of flag football when it comes to the growth of the game in our country. We don't have it quite as easy as that league down south in terms of managing our schedule, that'd be possibly an interruption. We're looking at a number of ways we might be able to handle it. I can tell you, my motivation is to get our players there.' Combined with the backing of the CFL Players' Union, it now seems there may be some pros who could be competing with these Joes. Darrell Doucette, who captained the U.S. team that won the 2022 world title and was undefeated the 2023 Continental Americas tournament, has long labelled himself as the Patrick Mahomes of flag, and pushed back at the idea of NFL inclusion pushing him out. 'I think it's disrespectful that they just automatically assume that they're able to just join the Olympic team because of the person that they are,' Doucette told The Athletic . 'They didn't help grow this game to get to the Olympics.' Doucette has a point. While his record is far more impressive than his throwing mechanics , they helped build the game. And the 12 men who come out of Montreal this weekend will form the base group for Canada, the ones who will start the process. Why should pros get to come in and reap the reward of their work? LaPolice, whose CFL coaching career spans three decades, said his experience shows that teams are always changing, and the door for pro players to grace Canada's roster isn't locked. 'Certainly, all those scenarios are a long time away,' he said Friday, before hopping on a train for the weekend camp. 'My experience as a professional coach is, it's day to day, week to week, season to season. We expect every year a roster should improve and continue to grow. 'We've got who we identified as the 35 best guys in the country, and we need those guys. We need to take those guys down to 12, and then go to the United States. We have a tournament in the United States in June, get some reps. Then in September, we go to Panama City, to see where we are from our world ranking (perspective) and that's kind of what the focus is. 'We're just starting this. … We want to start building across the country next year, more evaluations, and go across city to city and make sure we do our best to continue to build their roster. … This is Year 1. The Olympics aren't for a couple years. We just want to start our process and start getting better.' The profile of elite flag and tackle players share some similarities, though the games are as different as three-on-three basketball is from its full-court brethren. On one hand, a quarterback read is a quarterback read. Players assess the field the same: Is it man defence? Is it zone? Where is the hole in the zone for receivers to sit down in? But Olympic flag is five-on-five, with a significantly smaller field: 70 yards long by 25 yards wide. You get eight downs to score, four downs to get to midfield. No punts, and balls turned over on downs go back to the defence's five-yard line. Flat-out speedsters don't have the same advantage they would on a larger field. Quickness and catch radius — whether by height or jumping ability — rule the offence. Separation is measured as much vertically as it is by crips routes and footwork. Pass-rushers — a maximum of two — start seven yards from the line of scrimmage and explode toward the quarterback from the snap. Length and lateral quickness are their main strengths. Tackling a player is different from trying to yank a flag off a Shakira-hipped offensive player who can dip and dodge, wriggle and spin. Those who play tackle football tend to run with the ball 'high and tight,' while flag players are less concerned with ball security — there are no fumbles, with balls hitting the ground being declared dead — and instead focus on elusiveness and avoiding tackles. 'We want the best athletes out there, but we're also trying to build a program that's not going to be just professional athletes. We'd love to see them represent Canada, but it's not going to just happen for 2028, right?' said Katie Miyazaki, Football Canada's director of high performance. 'If there are some professionals, or former professionals, that want to put in the time and learn the game and play the game, we'd absolutely love for them to be part of our program. But again, we're trying to build a program, not just send a team. 'We don't truly know what the best flag football athlete looks like. We're still developing that profile, looking at it from an analytical lens.' Warren Craney, who ran Football Canada's player-identification camps across the country, wasn't ready to wade into the pros-versus-joes debate. What he looks for in the camps is a 'pop' — someone who separates themselves from the pack both literally and figuratively, and also demonstrates a situational football IQ. Basketball players make good converts to the sport, as they have all of those attributes, plus good hands and an understanding of offensive timing, passing, and zone defences. 'It's very difficult question. The one thing I will say is: there's a reason they're playing professional football,' he said, adding he watched former Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end Antony Auclair — who won a Super Bowl with Tom Brady but retired last year — at an ID camp in Quebec City earlier this year. 'He just moved differently than everyone else on the field. It's a difficult question, but I think in the end, we need to find a way to get our best football players, our best flag football players, on that field, whether they're professional athletes or whether they're professional flag players. 'The bottom line is I've coached high performance for a long time: talent is talent. Men, women, flag, tackle … talent is talent. 'I can walk into a gym and grab a basketball player that's never played football in his life, and after six weeks he could be a starting defensive end or he could be a starting receiver,' said Craney, who coached at York University and also coached Canada's junior team to U19 World Cup gold medals in 2012 and 2016. 'Football's a late-entry sport. It's not like hockey, where you got to have the skates on at four years old. These guys can come in, and with a great coach and a great program, they could get it done. I think flag players can play tackle. I think tackle players can play flag. Is there gonna be a learning curve? One hundred per cent. But again, I'm gonna go back to talent is talent.' The women's team won't have the same pros-versus-joes issue, without any football leagues to draw upon — every one to start up faded away, including the schmaltzy Lingerie Football League and the Women's Professional American Football League of the late '60s and '70s. (Of note: The WPFL boasted the Canadian Belles from Toronto, who won the World Championship the league's final year .) It's put even more emphasis on the ID camps for Football Canada to develop a player pool. Flag has exploded in popularity as a gateway into the sport for women, and an alternative form for those parents and youth concerned about the long-term effects of the physical damage the sport can cause. When Lake, Gangoso and their Van City Vice team went to Tampa in January, they were just one of 1,268 teams from 13 countries in categories from youth to adults elite. There were 83 teams from Canada, but the U.S. still dominates, with 357 coming from Florida alone for that tournament. The five-against-five format has only been played in Canada for about two years, with many adult rec players still playing seven aside or touch, and in pop-up leagues that aren't under Football Canada's umbrella. 'It's a good introduction into football, and I say this especially on the women's and girls' side, because it's becoming a space where they're welcome,' said Mizayaki. 'Tackle is great — it's a sport for everyone of all body types, which is very, very true — but having the confidence to want to set foot in that space has to be set up in the right way. 'It's just such a great sport. And I think it is the future of football … It's just such an inclusive game that you can play all over the world.' The road for flag to be included at the 2028 games started when it was featured at the 2022 World Games, an international multi-event tournament that has disciplines not contested in the Olympic Games. They often serve as test runs for potential Olympic inclusion. The NFL already had a relationship with the International Olympic Committee, and they share several corporate sponsors and companies. Behind the scenes, sources said the NFL already agreed previously to make NFL players available for the Olympics, and funnelled millions in 'activation money' to make the event a success. There are Olympic fates the sport looks to avoid. Raygun's iconically disastrous performance for Australia at the 2024 Games ensured breakdancing would never return to the six rings. Softball has yo-yoed in and out of Olympic participation — it will be in L.A. in 2028 after missing Paris 2024 — due to the American domination. The International Federation of American Football hopes flag will be a continuing participant, and is focusing on details like ensuring refereeing is consistent and harmonized throughout different regions. It hopes to follow the path that snowboarding took, going from maverick outside sport banned by many ski resorts to an indispensable Olympic discipline, surviving the culture clash to find success. Flag is at the beginning of its journey, just as LaPolice is a the beginning of his journey with flag. He willingly admits his otherwise-impressive coaching curriculum vitae has a distinct lack of experience where flag is concerned, apart from two years of coaching his son's team. As a member of the committee tasked with hiring a coach for Football Canada, LaPolice decided to step down and throw his own hat in the ring, the job too attractive to watch from afar. He's thrown himself into the job. The first step: research and video. He spent the weeks leading up to his official announcement watching Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Italy, the Philippines, every nation he could find video on. He's leaned on the flag community, picked the brains of figures like Mason Nyhus — a former U.S. flag football standout, now on the coaching staff of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The weekends see LaPolice locked in his office from 7 a.m. to dinner, sketching out plays for the smaller flag field. Over the long weekend in Kingston, while reporting on the Ottawa Redblacks training camp in the morning, he spent the afternoon at Richardson Stadium at the Elite Flag Nationals watching, talking and learning. 'I did have some apprehension. I don't know the game maybe as well as others. They're like, 'LaPo, you'll know the game eventually. It just takes a little bit of reps. You'll study film and offensive football. You just got to get experience with it,' he said. 'I think what maybe some of the (national team) flag guys will appreciate hopefully is the attention to detail. Whether it be from playbooks, how we design things, how we talk to the quarterback, how we break things down. We just want to try to increase that level for everybody in the organization as we start. 'What I'm excited about is, I chase curiosity and I choose to try to get better. And as a veteran coach in the CFL, I was always trying, 'How can I do no-huddle? How can I do different things offensively? This is certainly right up my alley from creativity standpoint, but I've got a lot of learning to do. 'I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'm looking forward to being with a bunch of kids and talking football and starting to learn about scheme and strategy. 'It's a whole new world.' jadams@ @
Ottawa Citizen
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Ottawa Citizen
Pros vs. Joes: The debate shaping Canada's future flag football Olympic hopefuls
Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content '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. Article content Article content View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chantelle Gangoso (@cgangoso) Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content 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.
Calgary Herald
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Calgary Herald
Pros vs. Joes: The debate shaping Canada's future flag football Olympic hopefuls
Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content '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. Article content Article content View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chantelle Gangoso (@cgangoso) Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content Article content 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. Article content 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.
