Monica Hayes was one of 30-40 women who showed up at Britannia Community Centre for the initial meeting for players interested in Women's Touch Football. The year was 1983 and the organizers of the league included Shirley Phillips, Nancy Thompson (worked for Man in Motion) and Lisa Maitland who worked for BCAFA.

That first year she volunteered to be the Women's Rep "out of love of football as a sport. I used to watch it with my dad," she says. And she was exicited about the chance to play and help with the organization.

The original 8 teams were from other sports, including basketball (Mardi Gras) and softball (Kaban) other team names were: DQ Blizzard, Altered States, Retreads.

When word got our that there was a woman's league, the number of teams swelled to 16. And recognizing that there were two levels needed, Monica was helped to set up a B Division.

In 1986 she took on a bigger role becoming President of Touch Football. Now she had to "prove her worth to 1,100 men."
Craig Lingaard who was on the board of directions says "Monica was a fantastic organizer... an excellent leader and a delight to work with." That board would stay together for 5 years.

The women's league had its ups and downs and soon it was suffering from a lack of players and contracted to 8 teams. "It was quite incesestuous, -- typical of any sport as players got better they were recruited to better teams."
It made for a few strong teams but the weaker teams with out stars were folding. "We needed to grow the league but with out taking from each other,"says Monica. "But we had no pool to draw from..."

In fact other sports were trying to claw back the women who were in touch football. SFU's women's coach banned the women on the basketball team from playing... as it couldn't afford for them to get hurt playing another sport.
And there are stories of 3 Kaban players being benched for a softball game with Alpha Sports because they had played touch football in the morning.

It was decided that they had to go out and recruit players and teach them the sport of touch football. Fliers were made and teaching clinics were organized. (It was at one of these clinics that the girls who would go on to form the Sharks first met.)
And Monica was thinking bigger than Vancouver, she realized that to grow the sport with young women they would need it to be played in other places. So she went to Vancouver Island and helped build a women's division there.
The Victoria teams would come over and play in the Vancouver Provincials thereby introducing more competition into the league.

In 1985 she was a part of the committee to bring the National Touch Bowl to Vancouver. And in 1986 the first National Championships played outside of Eastern Canada were brought to Vancouver. And a Vancouver team, Mardi Gras won the Women's National championship.

That win brought the women's league some legitmacy, and they were able to get better fields for the women.
"Before that the women were regulated to the worse of all fields. Some didn't have 10 yard end zones.... they weren't regulation fields," says Monica. After the win.. "we started getting parks that fit."

Other challenges she had to address included a growing tension between Rec and Top Flight men's divisions.
The feeling in Rec was that they were getting short changed and that their fees were being used to pay for the top flight league. Back then rec divisions had to ref themselves. So it was decided that rec would be given the same considerations as the top flight league.
And to help out Monica took up reffing of men's rec -- she had already been reffing in the women's league for two years.

Monica initially played for Dairy Queen Blizzards and later Kaban. On the field she was "a perennial brides-maid. Having played in half a dozen nationals but never won."

In her service to TFBC she was second to none. And was recognized with the Commissioners award the year she retired.

Commissioners Award Winner

I have 100% respect for what she did for the league. We budded heads but I repected her.

-Colin Farrell

"Monica was a fantastic organizer... an excellent leader and a delight to work with -- "

-Craig Lingaard

" I served on the TFBC board for 10 years in the capacity of Women's Representative and then President of the league, so that included all men's teams, Top Flite, Intermediate and Recreation divisions. It was a fun ride... I have wonderful memories ..."

-Monica Hayes