The Vancouver ladies have a long history with the Seattle Gaels and enjoy several match weekends throughout the year.  Each year, we also travel to one of Calgary, Edmonton or Red Deer and host all teams here in Vancouver for one weekend every year.  This year we also had a successful trip to San Francisco and were grateful for the opportunity to play some different teams.

2009 was an exciting year for the ladies, kicking off with the ISSC’s annual mixed Sevens Tournament  (3rd successful season of this unique tournament), which was sponsored by the Black Frog in 2009.  The 5 week tournament was a good taste for the new ladies that played for the first time during the tournament, and have become important players for the Harps.

June was round one of the Western Canadian Championships.  Vancouver hosted a two day event combining a tournament with the championships, which brought Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary for the championship and Seattle to join in the tournament.  For a second year, the Vancouver ladies were able to field enough numbers to split into two teams and form the Harps and the Celts for the tournament.  The Celts came away with the victory of the tournament, with the Harps as close contenders for second.  Helen Keohane of the Celts was awarded MVP.  The Vancouver ladies Harps also had a clean sweep of the weekend in the Championship portion, placing us in a good position for the finals in Edmonton.

Maybe the biggest highlight for the year was the trip to Edmonton for a two day tournament and the final games of the Western Canadian Championships.  The Vancouver ladies Harps team was successful not only in the tournament, but at the end of the weekend, we brought the Tommy Gibbons cup home to Vancouver for the third year in a row!

Finally, Elan Park, Marie Dowling, Alaina Bleker, Rita Burke, Stacey Lewis-Jaklin, Angela Oldknow, Helen Keohane, and Tara Philips from the Vancouver Harps were named as the 2009 Western Canadian GAA All Stars.  The ISSC is very proud of the Vancouver ladies and the great accomplishment that 8 of the 11 spots on the All Stars were awarded to the Vancouver Harps.

I looking forward to seeing you all again in 2010 with Ronan Matthews and Helen Keohane and look forward to meeting all the newcomers!  Details of training nights and some new events with be forthcoming shortly.

To be added to our mailing list, please email me at ladiesfootball@isscvancouver.com.

Mel Fisher

Vancouver Ladies Harps Representative

Click here for a link to the pitch.

Also a reminder to please let me know if you are joining us in Seattle on
June 6. Should be a great weekend, Seattle has a great location set up
for the day.

Thursday trainings will continue at Trout Lake.

Any questions, feel free to call or email.

Mel Fisher
Ladies Football Representative
Cell: 778 318 5479

Here is a map of Queen’s Park.

Driving Directions to Queen’s Park.

Until further notice, Friday night training will continue at Capilano Rugby pitch in North Vancouver, until our downtown Thursday night location becomes available.

In other exciting news, Ronan Matthews has agreed to take on the role of coaching the ladies this year. Ronan has various experiences in coaching at various levels (which I will let Ronan expand on himself) so it is very exciting to have him on board. Thanks Ronan. Also, Vinny Crowley will be returning on Monday nights to assist Ronan.  Ronan will be at training both tonight and Monday night, could I please ask as many of you as possible to try your best to attend training on either (or both) of these nights. Ronan would like to meet and talk to everyone.

If anyone has friends, family, work colleagues, acquantances etc who may be interested in becoming part of our team, please bring them along, everyone is welcome and we can never have too many people.

Any questions or queries relating to the ladies team can be directed to Mel Fisher at ladiesfootball@isscvancouver.com

Click here for a detailed outline on the game of Gaelic Football.