Weyburn's Chantal Vogel will be playing American football this summer for Team Canada in Vantaa, Finland, and she only just found out she made the team at the end of May.

She will be representing Canada at the highest level of womens' football. 

"I've been playing football since I was 11," shared Vogel. "I first found out that there was a women's league for football when I was 14, and then I found out that there was a new Team Canada in 2016, that's only been around since roughly about the time I started playing, so Team Canada for women has only existed for 11 years and I have wanted to be on the team since I found out about it six years ago."

Vogel will be playing on the defensive line.

"I'll likely doing a lot of interior, but I'm also able to play exterior D line if they need me due to injuries," she noted.

"I'm most looking forward to the level of competition and getting to see how people from other parts of the world play, because football is very much a sport where you have to think a lot, and you need to understand your opponents to be able to be successful, so just playing people who come from a different background of football, like for example we play closer to CFL and NCAA rules, but we'll be playing NFL rules in Finland, and just seeing how that changes the game, and also just playing against the best women in the world, and experiencing some of the best coaching in Canada, is going to be so great." 

While anyone who wants to keep up to date with Vogel's journey can follow her on social media, for now, she must come up with the funds to foot the bill in Finland. 

"It only takes place every four years, and it was supposed to happen two years ago, and they weren't sure if it was going to happen this year again because of COVID," she explained. So I only found out that I made the team at the end of May, and we leave on July 20th, and unfortunately, womens' football is fairly new and fairly underfunded, so all the costs for going to Finland for three weeks to play and train and compete and just live for three weeks falls to me and the cost is $4,000 and I have less than two months to make it up because of the short notice in finding out I made the team."

"So if anyone would like to donate I'd really appreciate that. I have a go fund me set up just to help with the costs so that this thing that I've wanted to do for so long, I can finally do it."

She added that the support from everyone has been, "absolutely insane and overwhelming". 

Find the GoFundMe HERE.

vogel