WRITTEN AND EDITED BY PAUL SWANSON, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM JAMES (“JIM”) CALDER
Girls and Womens Lacrosse (“GWLAX”) has become a vibrant and popular sport in Toronto, strongly represented by the Toronto Beaches in Central Toronto, North York and Scarborough. Over the past two decades, Toronto teams have won a multitude of Provincial Medals and helped populate Team Ontario, Ontario Summer Games, Canada East Development and Team Canada.
Even more significantly, many players have gone on to play Canada’s National Summer Sport in university in both Canada and the USA. It is a story of success for the greatest sport in the world.
To properly understand the roots of Toronto Beaches GWLAX, tribute should be given to the trail blazers at the Toronto Stars and to the visionaries, builders and dedicated volunteers in those critical early days who helped the Toronto Beaches take flight.
Our story starts with a few daring girls playing on predominantly-boys box lacrosse teams for both the Toronto Beaches Lacrosse Club (“TBLC”) and Toronto Stars lacrosse clubs in the early 1970s, an era when female athletes often did not receive the respect that they deserved.
The Stars’ President Ron Parkinson created a girls box lacrosse program in the early 2000s playing out of Scarborough’s McGregor and Heron Park Arenas. It operated as a house league and eventually evolved to include a growing rep program.