What proportion of Canadian women who participated in the last Olympic Games in hockey and soccer studied in the United States? Come on, try your luck.
20%? 30% 50%?
No.
Almost all. In soccer, 20 out of 22. In hockey, 22 out of 23. The exception? Melody Daoust. Add the runners. The swimmers. The basketball players. The polo players. Tennis players. Hundreds of Quebec women go on to pursue their athletic careers at an American university each year. Many will stay there after their studies. It is an unknown side of the brain drain.
Why this attraction for the United States?
Because a regulation, Title IX, adopted in 1972, prohibits any discrimination based on sex in educational programs. Universities must therefore offer similar opportunities for men and women. Women’s teams are therefore better funded than those of our universities. Then the equation is simple.
Money attracts talent.
Talent attracts money.
The wheel, well oiled, turns very, very well.
Historically, what have we done in Quebec to curb this exodus?
Almost nothing. Our universities have created women’s sports teams. There are about twenty of them, all sports combined. Except that these trainings are often endowed with starving budgets. The sale of donuts, to finance the activities, still exists.
Even the biggest teams, like the hockey ones, get by thanks to “enthusiasts” who perform “little miracles,” explains the director general of the Université de Montréal women’s hockey team, Danièle Sauvageau.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Danièle Sauvageau, general manager of the Carabins women’s hockey team
However, for a few months, we feel that things are happening. Let the tectonic plates move. No big shakes, yet. Rather “small movements”, illustrates the director general of sports excellence at the University of Montreal, Manon Simard.
It’s not systemic. These are individual initiatives, based on values held by [donateurs]. We try to stop the exodus of our talents.
Manon Simard, Director General of Sports Excellence at the University of Montreal
Three major gifts have recently caught the eye. Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois donated $75,000 to the Carabins women’s hockey program. Host Kevin Raphaël will donate $25,000 over five years to Concordia University’s women’s hockey team. As for Power Corporation, the company made an exceptional donation of 1.3 million to the four Concordia women’s teams. These initiatives follow that of the Molson Foundation, which donated $2 million to all Carabins programs in 2015.
If we compare these amounts to the salaries of professional hockey players, it may seem next to nothing. But in college sports, you can go very, very far with a donation of 1.3 million. The donation from Power Corporation, for example, will provide prizes to players, as well as improve the resources available to them. “It will help us in our recruitment,” explained basketball player Serena Tchida, when the donation was given. “Women who choose a program will look at our program and see how supported the athletes are. »
Julien BriseBois’ donation allowed the Carabins to hire a full-time coach for five seasons. A big plus for a university organization. “I want players to have more options if they want to do their education in French,” he explained to my colleague Guillaume Lefrançois 18 months ago. “In women’s hockey, you have the different national programs, as well as a few professional leagues. The pipeline for these teams is university hockey, among other Canadian ones, which has nothing to envy to American hockey. »
Moreover, the Carabins beat formations of the NCAA, last fall, during a trip to the United States. And playing in an American program will not increase the chances of being recruited to the national team, argues Danièle Sauvageau. “Yes, Marie-Philip Poulin studied in Boston. But she could have studied at Saint-Tite, the Canadian team would have taken her anyway. “I remind you that all the teams are at the forefront of talent.
The Carabins’ great rivals, the Stingers, can count since this year on the financial support of host Kevin Raphaël, who also owns a professional hockey team, La Force de Montréal.
“No, I am not rich! “, he specifies.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Kevin Raphaël, animator and owner of the women’s club La Force de Montréal
But he makes a better living than the female students. A regulation prevents universities from offering scholarships to all athletes. Depending on the sport, the proportion can vary from 10% to 80%, explains Manon Simard.
“When you are at university, says Kevin Raphaël, you have four training sessions a week. You play twice a week. There is not much time left to work. What I wanted to do was help financially one or two athletes a year who want to pursue a career in business or communications. I want to take the financial burden off them of playing and studying at the same time. »
“I trust that [les entraîneuses] Julie Chiu and Caroline Ouellette will invest the money in the right place, he adds. They are there to make the sport grow. They want to keep Quebec women here as much as possible. Maybe try to convince French and Swiss women to come here, to create a large market for university women’s hockey in Quebec. »
Retain our best players. Attract some from elsewhere. Is it a utopia?
“We retain more and more,” says Danièle Sauvageau. She compiled statistics. In 2014, there were approximately 400 Canadian female hockey players in the NCAA. In 2021, 293. Unfortunately, overall, women’s hockey is stagnating in Quebec. There are eight times more female players in Ontario than here.
To retain even more student-athletes, it will take more money. Not just from universities or government, which have other priorities. It might have to go through private donations.
The University of Montreal has just created the circle of former Carabins athletes. In the long term, she hopes the alumni will support the teams financially. This is done a lot in the United States and English Canada. In the short term, however, there is a challenge. As the Carabins program ceased to exist between 1972 and 1989, most alumni are now in their thirties. This is an age where we are financially tighter.
Danièle Sauvageau, she wants people’s view of women’s university sport to change.
“I invite corporate citizens to recognize that a student-athlete should have the same resources [que ses confrères]. Should we be talking about a Canadian Title IX? We should be smarter. What are we waiting for before recognizing that our operational structures must be supported?
“Our operating budget ten years ago is practically the same as today. Except that the buses are more expensive. Referees too. Everything increases. We need corporate citizens. »