23 influential Canadian women in sport to watch in 2023

As Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, chief executive of Canadian Women and Sport, puts it: “We need women in every room where decisions are being made and if they’re at the head of the table that’s even better.”

The women the Star highlighted on this day last year continue to rise, such as Hayley Wickenheiser who was promoted to assistant general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Marie-Philip Poulin, who became the first female hockey player to be recognized as Canada’s athlete of the year with the Northern Star Award. In this edition, we put the spotlight on primarily new figures.

International Women’s Day is just the occasion to celebrate some influential Canadian women in sport. It’s these women — and so many others — who do the work to move sport and society to a place where a day such as this won’t be needed.

Through her writing on issues in sports and her work with organizations that recognize and celebrate the athleticism of Muslim girls and women, Ahmed routinely shines a light on misogyny and racism in sports. She’s a co-creator and co-host of “Burn It All Down,” the first sports podcast that analyzes sports culture from a feminist lens.

She was a key voice in the fight to replace the leadership at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton last year and continues to advocate for athletes in the battle for safe sport and better governance in all sports. She was elected to the board of directors at AthletesCAN, the association of national team athletes — and the 32-year-old Toronto pilot still managed to win five World Cup medals in monobob this season.

As a psychiatrist, Bourque’s goal is nothing short of changing how society views mental illness by decreasing stigma and normalizing introspection. In her work with professional athletes, she focuses on an understanding of how things that happen off the ice influence what happens on the ice and vice versa to help athletes find the best version of themselves.

Calderon leads a global marketing strategy and retail operation for the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, their G League affiliate the Ontario Clippers and the team’s new arena opening next year. As chief marketing officer, a role she started last year, she also oversees community programming and content, including the team’s new direct-to-fans streaming platform.

In standing behind the bench in men’s hockey, the native of Rocanville, Sask., has broken through long-standing barriers for women. In July, she became the first female assistant coach in the American Hockey League at the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the top affiliate of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken. Before that she was an assistant coach for Germany at the 2022 men’s world championship, making her the first woman on the coaching staff of a men’s national team at that event.

She has long paved paths for women in hockey from captaining the Canadian women’s team to consecutive Olympic gold medals and being the first woman to provide colour commentary on Hockey Night in Canada. Now she’s a newly elected Hockey Canada board member at a crucial time when the organization needs to change to regain the trust of Canadians in the aftermath of its handling of sexual assault allegations.

Cline is a sport leader but not in the way that she would have hoped. The former gymnast, who walked away from sport at 13 because of “daily verbal, physical, psychological abuse,” became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed in May against Gymnastics Canada and six provincial bodies. Through Gymnastics for Change Canada she’s an influential voice in the battle to make sport, and gymnastics for young girls in particular, safe and hold perpetrators accountable.

Crooks took on the leadership role at Canada Soccer last week after the president stepped down. It’s a pivotal time to be president of the board as the organization needs to settle collective agreements with its national teams, and a particularly important moment for women who are fighting for pay equity and support in the leadup to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in July that’s equal to what the men received for their event last year.

The 20-year-old from Kingston, Ont., is the latest basketball player to put Canada on the map. She was a dominant force last season in NCAA basketball as a forward for the University of Connecticut Huskies, leading the team to the championship final where they lost to South Carolina. She was named the Big East’s most improved player, averaging a career-best 16.6 points and 9.2 rebounds to take No. 7 UConn to its 10th consecutive conference tournament title on Tuesday.

Gavel, a 2016 Paralympian in wheelchair basketball, was elected chair of the Canadian Paralympic Athletes’ Council in February. The native of Prince Albert, Sask., is also the athlete representative on the Canada Paralympic Committee board of directors, giving her a say in efforts to the improve the quality of sports for current and future para athletes.

She’s long been Canada’s winningest golfer on either the LPGA or PGA Tour and she just gets better. The 25-year-old from Smiths Falls, Ont., won two LPGA tournaments last year, including a major, and picked up another win this January, bringing her career total up to 13 titles. She finished in the top 10 in eight other tournaments and earned $1.4 million (U.S.) in prize money last year.

James has been blazing a trail in hockey since her playing days as the first and only Black woman to captain Canada’s national women’s team. She hasn’t stopped. Last year, she moved from assistant coach to GM and co-owner of the Toronto Six, one of the teams in the Professional Hockey Federation that is providing women a long awaited opportunity to earn a living on the ice.

With decades of broadcasting and sport experience under her belt, Lee now works to move women’s events to equal prominence on the Olympic schedule. As the adviser to the IOC on gender equality she works with sport federations and organizing committees to get women’s events an equal share of prime-time slots. It’s work that makes it possible for girls to see their role models on TV as often as boys do.

Canadian women have won three Olympic soccer medals but have never had a professional league they can earning a living in at home. Matheson, a retired midfielder from Oakville, got tired of waiting and took the job on herself. In December, she announced plans for an eight-team league to launch in 2025, with a vision that includes developing the sport for players and opportunities for women from the coaching bench to the owner’s box.

She was the first woman to referee in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and one of the first female refs in the AHL. The 31-year-old Longueuil, Que., native worked up from officiating youth games to the women’s international level before becoming one of a handful of women working on the ice in professional men’s hockey. Her wish: “That it gets normal.”

Nothing helps inspire young people to believe they can be whatever they want more than seeing a teenager take on the world’s best and come out on top. Last year, the 16-year-old Toronto swimmer won four medals at the world championships, including two golds making her the youngest world champion in decades, six medals at the Commonwealth Games and set multiple Canadian and world junior records.

Mussell Savage, the chief of the Skwah First Nation, led community engagement on the Indigenous-led proposal for a 2030 Olympic and Paralympic bid in B.C. The provincial government did not back the proposal to host the Games but the Indigenous-led partnership of Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations was groundbreaking and presented a compelling vision to create legacy by demonstrating reconciliation with First Nations.

Roos has a dramatic and multiplying effect on sport in this country, and female athletes in particular. Her not-for-profit organization raises and distributes millions in aid annually to Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Of the 22 influential women in sport the Star highlighted for International Women’s Day last year, 10 of them had been financially supported by CAN Fund. Now in its 20th year, and with a record number of athletes applying, Roos has increased the aid to help athletes achieve their dreams.

It might have seemed that Sinclair, who’s been a standout on Canada’s national women’s team for more than two decades and is the all-time leading goal-scorer in international soccer (no, it’s not Cristiano Ronaldo), could do no more for soccer in this country. But the 39-year-old from Burnaby, B.C., is a leader in the battle with Canada Soccer for pay equity and equal treatment for the women’s team, the outcome of which will affect the future of the sport in Canada.

After a legendary 15-year playing career with the Canadian women’s national baseball team, Stephenson turned to coaching. Last year, she was the first woman to manage Canada’s women’s national team and this season she continued trail-blazing by coaching on a men’s team. The Mississauga native is the position coach for the Toronto Blue Jays affiliate in Vancouver, just the second female coach in the history of the MLB franchise.

St-Onge has been the minister of sport at a tumultuous time with a steady stream of athletes reporting abuse and maltreatment, and problematic governance at national sport organizations. She froze funding to several federations to force some change and is requiring federally-funded bodies join an independent sport complaint system. Still on her plate: aligning sport policies and athlete protections across jurisdictions, better funding and a renewed vision of what Canadians want from the sport system at the grassroots level to the elites.

Torraville believes there’s a place for women in football, whether that’s playing or working. She joined the Elks in May as part of the CFL’s Women in Football Program and was made director of football operations ahead of the 2023 season. The Rocky Mountain House, Alta., native continues to serve as director of female football for the Calgary Bantam Football Association where she launched an under-18 all-girls tackle football league.

Wodak demolished the Canadian women’s marathon record, running two hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds in September. That record-breaking run in Berlin came just a few months shy of her 41st birthday making her not only fast but an inspiration to women who face ageism in sport — and society. Her new Canadian record also places the Surrey, B.C., runner into the top ranks of marathon times for women over 40 globally.