AFL gaining traction on the icy fields of Canada
Roar Guru
By Michael C, 9 May 2009 Michael C is a Roar Guru
On the back of Canadian Rugby convert Mike Pyke debuting for the Sydney Swans last Sunday afternoon, it is appropriate to look at where Australian footy is heading in Canada.
The greatest traction gained has been around Toronto. The Ontario Australian Football League boasts ten senior teams that play a thirteen round season plus finals. This is one of the largest single leagues outside of Australia.
Outside of that, Quebec has a small amount of activity. Alberta and British Columbia, though, have much more. Note though, some Quebec players make a nine hour one way trip to Toronto for a game!
Around Vancouver, there has been some target=”_blank”>recent growth.
Just a few years ago, there was only one Vancouver team. Now, there are five. The games are all eighteen a-side, which is significant.
The growth in recent years is also significant, including the Delta Bay Hawks, which is the senior club growing out of the North Delta Juniors program that began in 2003. This develops a junior to senior pathway, similar to Farum in Denmark.
Also reported recently, junior footy is kicking off in Alberta.
The North Delta program has been a success and was highlighted last year by the tour to Australia of the Canadian ‘Wolfpack’ junior squad for matches around the time of the International Cup.
There are some ‘natural’ advantages in Canada.
One is the proximity to the US and the reasonably buoyant US-Footy program, thus allowing annual ‘Test matches’ for Men’s, Women’s and Juniors. Also, Canadian teams can participate in the US Nationals, although border security raise some eyebrows when a busload of Canadians try to get through to play ‘Australian Football’ in America.
Another natural ‘advantage’ is actually ice-hockey.
Australian Football does appeal to Ice Hockey fans and players, and when ice hockey finishes for the summer, many players are now seeing footy as an ideal summer sport to keep in shape. This has been reported as assisting with recruitment and expansion.
Whilst then Mike Pyke may not be a ‘graduate’ of the CAFL, he is, however, a new poster boy to prove that a Canadian can make it.
With a little luck, Pyke may be able to fly the flag for five years or so and perhaps by then, some ‘home-grown’ Canucks might be ready to be drafted.
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Thurston said | May 9th 2009 @ 6:01am | Report comment
I emailed some pals who live in Canada, and none of them had heard of any Aussie Rules being played in Vancouver. There’s no mention of it in the Times Columnist sports results, the local paper in Victoria, BC. And if Toronto’s Globe and Mail is covering it’s a bit of a secret. Clearly the news need to get out, Michael. It’d be great if Rules cut into soccer, the main football sport in Canada (men and women). But Rugby Canada needs players like Mike Pyke. All good luck to him, but North American rugby can’t afford to lose players of his quality.
Chris Beck said | May 9th 2009 @ 9:20am | Report comment
I live in Seattle, and about nine or ten years ago I spent a summer or two learning the ropes of Aussie Rules.
My recollection is that at the time, the respective Seattle and Vancouver Aussie Rules communities were just beginning to become aware of each other. I would not be surprised if there are now regular matches played between teams in the two regions.
tifosi said | May 9th 2009 @ 10:39am | Report comment
i think the problem for playing afl overseas would be finding suitable venues. Unless its a cricket nation, where do they find the playing fields?
BigAl said | May 9th 2009 @ 11:38am | Report comment
They could play in empty paddocks – that’s how it started in Australia.
Norm said | May 10th 2009 @ 12:09am | Report comment
hahahahaha
Binga said | May 10th 2009 @ 12:26am | Report comment
I rekon Newzealand should be the obvious place to bring AFL at least they myt have heard about it
SideshowBob said | May 10th 2009 @ 4:30am | Report comment
Allow me to share a personal anecdote.
I had the good fortune to live in Vancouver back in 1996. A wonderful place to live and with its “milder” winter climate and a rare opportunity to play outdoor ball sports in Canada in the Australian off-season. Somehow rugby continues to be a winter sport there, though there was an odd game where it did start snowing (poor 3/4 line!). Being a forward, I took solace in the scrum and maul. Thankfully the skill level was such that we welcomed each knock-on and took full advantage to find warmth in the ensuing scrum.
Anyway, I happened to get wind of a pub in Vancouver showing the AFL grand final that year. Since my club wasn’t involved, it became a rare opportunity to actually tongue wag with a number of other Aussie ex-pats who happened to be in town. One beer lead to another, and eventually talk started about having a couple of “scrimmage” / walk-up matches of footy. Why not?
So the next weekend, we naively met at a rugby field near UBC and started to play this bizarre sport called “footy”. We all invited a few of our Canuck friends and they got hooked, hence their coinage of the term “ice-hockey on grass”. Due to unexpected popularity, we met again the next week and lo-and-behold, the locals who turned up now brought a few of their own mates – we had interchanges! Undetered, we flappingly met again the week after and even though the weather was arctic that day, we got a decent enough turn-out.
After that weekend, I got a job to coach a rugby team in Quebec (I taught them Aussie Rules there too but they are a proud mob) and left town.
Bottom line, from personal experience, Aussie Rules has a high retention rate once exposed to playing the sport and the Canadian experience showed me that we have barely hit the second paragraph on page one in the Canadian footy story.
Watch this space, ey?
Eamonn said | May 10th 2009 @ 6:36am | Report comment
okay MC..where next on our World tour? And why couldn’t you convert a few of those Kiwi’s over the years…you’d think you could have spread the game over there in 150 years..maybe in another 150..whatderyerreckon?
And see yer AFL man O’Brien has been in the Congo recruiting Football players for the A-League. Nice work Henry! Great story in the SMH..hope you didn’t miss it.
Michael C said | May 10th 2009 @ 11:03am | Report comment
Eamonn -
you don’t have to read the article.
Thurston -
20 years and 26 clubs – - it ain’t huge and sure as heck ain’t getting mainstream regular coverage……..hmmm……must be a media bias and conspiracy!!!!
No – reality is, that in the last few years, they’ve managed to get more regular organisation and structures in place and are building a base. There IS reason to believe that there’s a place for the game (how big a niche, who knows).
From the perspective of most interested in Aust Footy overseas, the big thing of interest is that clubs that in the past would be purely social, 4 games a year against whomever could be organised as opposition, and end up with a few beers, a BBQ and the 80% expat Aussie crowd would head off until the next time – - well, now there’s pockets of fair dinkum footy leagues and clubs and it’s interesting to track the growth – in different parts of the world.
Thurston – Mike Pyke’s mate said to him after arriving in Australia and sampling footy that this was the game they would have played had it been available to them. Rugby is a proud and relatively global game – I’m sure it can cope, but, from our point of view, we just hope that here and there people can have sufficient access to our game that they could make the call a little earlier than Mike Pyke at age 24. We don’t need many, but, it’d be kinda nice to have a little foreign legion of players in the AFL who make it a little more ‘cosmopolitan’, develop some greater ‘real’ interest overseas and perhaps could form a ‘rest of the world’ team one day to take on either ‘QLD’, or ‘Vic’, or ‘Australia’……who knows.
or, it may just result in fitter Ice Hockey players!!
Redb said | May 11th 2009 @ 8:16am | Report comment
Eamonn,
Excellent article on Harry O’Brien – terrible homeland the Congo what a burden on the poor lad. Can’t stand him as a player, firstly he’s Collingwood but secondly he often illegally scrags and holds forwards when on the lead, after that article I’m a fan now
MC,
Watched a bit of Pyke against Geelong. He really looks a bit lost at times, his handball skills are understandably very very soft. He is in the team for rucking but he his needs to hold his own in the body work, got thrown to the ground or put off balance quite a few times against Geelong in rucking contests. No doubt a learning curve ahead he needs another 10-15 games under his belt to be anything other than a part time ruckmen off the interchange.
Redb