A condensed-for-print version of this article was published in The Tribune’s Dec. 3, 2025 issue.
On the evening of Nov. 20, members of varsity and club teams under the McGill Athletics portfolio were informed via email that 25 of 44 varsity and club teams will not have a future at the university upon the conclusion of the 2025–2026 academic year.
Daniel Méthot, McGill Athletics’ Director of Sport Programs, stated in the announcement that the review was “guided by [McGill Athletics’] responsibility to ensure the long‑term sustainability and excellence of Athletics and Recreation at McGill,” and acknowledged that the review’s results “leave some feeling relieved and others disappointed.”
McGill Athletics has been the brunt of media backlash since their review announcement—and “disappointment” does not begin to capture how cut teams are feeling. By sitting down with many members of cancelled varsity and club programs, The Tribune has learned from athletes that, though a varsity review was announced over the summer, the scale and scope of McGill Athletics’ ultimate cuts were understated by such announcements. These cuts have unprecedented implications on the inclusivity, quality, and community that sports provide at McGill.
Women’s Lacrosse Club
McGill Athletics recently honoured Abigail Tannebaum-Sharon, who founded the university’s Women’s Lacrosse team in 1996, by inducting her into the McGill Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 24. Just a month later, McGill Athletics announced the club team was cut.
Co-captain Sarah Sinclair, U3 Arts, has been with the team for four years. In an interview with The Tribune, she expressed her frustration and disappointment over McGill’s sudden choice to axe the program.
“I was not initially super angry, but just really sad,” Sinclair explained. “The progress we have made since my first year here has been immense. We’ve been able to schedule so many more games, and have such a strong interest in the sport.”
McGill Athletics’ decision to cut the only university-level women’s lacrosse team in Quebec undermines opportunities for women players in the province, according to Sinclair.
“I think gender equity in sports is extremely important,” Sinclair emphasized. “It’s unfortunate to see how many women’s teams, like Women’s Rugby and Women’s Field Hockey, have had to fight for so long to earn their status.”
Known as the Creator’s Game, lacrosse was created by the Haudenosaunee. The Martlets honour the sport’s Indigenous roots by wearing orange shirts for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and learning about Indigenous heritages from their teammates.
“We work to support not only the Indigenous athletes on our team, but also the Indigenous roots of the sport,” Sinclair stated. “It is vital to acknowledge that both on and off the field.”
As for the future of women’s lacrosse at McGill, Sinclair remains hopeful amid uncertainty.
“It’s going to be difficult no matter what, but being part of a community of athletes facing the same challenges gives me some hope,” Sinclair explained. “This may help us develop an even deeper appreciation for the sport.”
Men’s and Women’s Varsity Track and Field
For Track and Field, the cuts end a 125-year-old program; the varsity team is not even relegated to club status. Co-captains Ashleigh Brown, U4 Arts, and Robert Gerstner, MSc, discussed the scale of the situation in an interview with The Tribune.
“[McGill Track and Field] has a long history. [The program being cut is] going to be like wiping a whole legacy clean,” Brown said.
Despite cutting the Track and Field team, McGill will continue to use its tracks for Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) events—without a McGill team competing, and despite the stadium bearing alumnus and Track and Field Olympian Percival Molson’s name.
“We’re hosting RSEQ this year, the provincial championships for Track and Field. Our track is one of [only three] banked tracks in Canada [and] is the only one in Quebec,” Brown explained. “That it’s just going to go to waste [after the cuts] [….] What else can you use it for? It’s a track. It’s for the track team.”
Gerstner discussed how this cut creates a national athletic problem beyond just McGill.
“As many Olympians [have] mentioned, university Track and Field is the bridge between recreational sports in high school and becoming a professional or Olympian. All of these athletes come through the university system [first],” he added. “So if McGill is setting [a] precedent that Track and Field [isn’t a priority], it could have broad implications across Canada.”
Brown cited how McGill Track and Field has garnered media support from many Canadian Track and Field Olympians, including Andre Degrasse, Bruny Surin, and Glenroy Gilbert, who all called on McGill to reverse its restructuring decision.
“It goes to show that it’s not just a McGill-isolated event, but it’s just something within the community that’s a concern,” Brown reflected. “If Track at McGill gets to the chopping block, then who’s to say what other [university] track teams won’t go?”
Brown, who is also the president of McGill’s Black Varsity Association, outlined the impact the cut has on athletes of colour at the university.
“The cutdown reduces a [significant] portion of athletes of colour who come to McGill for Track and Field. That’s quite a big concern to me,” she emphasized. “Also, many other sports require considerable money for equipment, [which] depending on your socioeconomic background, is not always accessible. Track and Field is one of the least expensive sports, so this cut sits at the intersection of race, equality, and inclusion.”
McGill Nordic Ski Club
Vice-President Competitive of the Nordic Ski Club Matthew Randall, U3 Science, manages the team’s racing and training schedules. In an interview with The Tribune, he expressed confusion about McGill Athletics’ decision to cut Nordic Ski, a completely student-funded and largely student-administered club.
“[After the cuts], there’s not really going to be any sort of a transitional model [provided by McGill Athletics],” Randall shared. “[They’re] like, ‘We’re hands off at this point.’ But for us, it’s felt like they’ve been hands off for four years, so it’s not really any different [….] I just can’t imagine how much [money] this is possibly saving [McGill Athletics] [….] I can’t imagine how much strain we could be putting on this system that they need to eliminate us.”
Randall shared that Nordic Ski has filed an access to information request, hoping to review the 2024 internal and the 2025 external KPMG audits that McGill Athletics cited as reasons for making cuts in their Nov. 20 announcement. He highlighted the important community McGill’s Nordic Ski team fosters, which varsity restructuring takes away.
“When you’re going away to university, it can be kind of daunting to be on your own. [It’s important] to find that club or that little niche where you’re able to fit in and have that community already sort of built for you,” he stated. “You just don’t want people to miss out on that.”
Men’s and Women’s Squash Club
The McGill Squash Club has over 100 years of history, and the Women’s Squash team has won two consecutive Jesters League Championships in the past two years. The team hoped at the start of this season that their winning record would help them gain varsity status. However, despite being one of the most historic and successful programs in the country, the team was cut.
Squash co-captain Sofia Llewellyn, U3 Management, described her first reaction after hearing the news during an online Zoom call in an interview with The Tribune.
“[They] started by saying how they love squash. Then, they were like, ‘That’s why it’s really hard for [us] to say that we cut the team.’ We were all very confused and shocked. Mouth agape,” she said. “We are winning. So why were we cut? No clear answers. Nothing.”
As a club team, Squash is not financially supported by McGill Athletics. Instead, the team pays for their coaches, transportation, and accommodations with funds they raise during McGill24.
“If it were my first year and the squash team were cut, I would consider transferring. If McGill didn’t have a team, I wouldn’t be here. It made my undergrad experience,” Llewellyn said. “[Someone] commented on our petition that [their] son was thinking of coming to McGill for the squash team, and now he’ll have to reconsider.”
Notably, McGill Women’s Squash was Canada’s first women’s university squash club—a legacy which McGill is now erasing.
“It’s ridiculous, especially for a school that prides itself on equity and receives funds for women in sports,” Llewellyn said. “The fact they’ve done this doesn’t make any sense, and it looks really poor on the school [….] It’s not like this decision sets us back a few steps. It sets us back all the way at the beginning.”
Men’s and Women’s Varsity Golf
The Men’s and Women’s Varsity Golf teams finished fourth and third, respectively, in the RSEQ and qualified for Nationals in the upcoming spring.
In an interview with The Tribune, team captains Astoria Yen, U1 Management, and Camden Purboo, U4 Arts, explained the shock they felt after McGill Athletics’ announcement, as they believed the Golf team aligned with McGill’s restructuring evaluation factors.
“With the criteria that they gave us, we thought that we were one of the teams that were safe,” Purboo said.
“We don’t practice much at McGill, and when we do practice, it is in the gym complex and not in the [Tomlinson] Fieldhouse. So we [aren’t] taking up any space,” Yen explained. “Not only are we part of [the] RSEQ, but we are thriving within it. We’re going to Nationals. It doesn’t make any sense.”
As a second-year student, Yen noted the unfairness of unexpectedly losing a part of her university experience.
“Playing university golf is a decision that you make. The fact that the ability to make this decision has been stripped from us is devastating,” she said. “My last tournament could have been in October, and I wouldn’t have known. I didn’t know that that was the last putt. I didn’t know that that was the last time I was going to step on the tee.”
Yen and Purboo also expressed their frustration about McGill Athletics’ lack of transparency regarding the announcement.
“If [McGill Athletics] had said, ‘Hey, we’re considering cutting your team because of x, y, and z, [but] if you’re able to fix these issues, we can keep you,’ we could’ve at least had a chance. We weren’t told what was ‘wrong’ with our team,” Yen shared.
“It’s really going to hurt McGill’s reputation because of how they treat their athletes,” Purboo emphasized. “It affects the entire McGill Athletics community.”
Women’s Varsity Rugby
McGill Women’s Rugby has struggled on the pitch the last few years, but the Martlets capped off their 2025 campaign with their first victory since August 2023. Captain Raurie Moffat, U4 Education, sat down with The Tribune along with her teammates vice-captain Catherine Murphy, U3 Science, and Sarah Van Heyst, MSc, to share that their team was notified in January 2025 that they must win at least half of their games in order to maintain their varsity status.
“[McGill Athletics] basically told us, ‘We will give you less [resources], […] you guys need to improve everything, otherwise you’re [at risk],’” Moffat said.
Murphy added context on how the team has felt throughout the last few years.
“[It] feels like they’ve been slowly cutting us. [The] entire time that I’ve played on the team here, our practices stopped right after our season ended, which is really valuable time to keep improving,” Murphy shared. “Even in the winter, before I was here, [the team] used to go play in the Concordia dome. But then that didn’t happen [for us].”
Van Heyst commented on the gender bias shown by the cuts.
“The decision they made favoured [men’s] athletics over women’s athletics, and that’s a really hard pill to swallow, especially because the university does have a strong message of [gender] equality and [supporting] women in sport and supporting all of us,” she said. “But at the end of the day, the statistics […] don’t actually match that message at all.”
The comments from the three teammates painted a picture of a squad that forged strong bonds on and off the field, but due to a lack of resources and support, was unable to improve to the level that they aspired to over the last few years.
Men’s Varsity Baseball
Since the Toronto Blue Jays captured the hearts of the nation during their run in the World Series this fall, baseball in Canada has surged in popularity—yet a new generation of players will not be able to continue their journeys at McGill.
In an interview with The Tribune, Agastya (Gus) Kushari, U3 Arts, starting pitcher for Redbirds Baseball and Baseball’s representative to the Varsity Council, described how the factors leading to his team being cut by McGill Athletics were unclear.
“To be completely frank, […] we are shocked that we were cut,” he emphasized. “We are financially sustainable. We don’t rely on funding from Athletics. We have a successful culture.”
Kushari described how the team received inconsistent communication from McGill Athletics on the steps they needed to take to ensure their varsity status would remain unchanged.
“Athletics told us that to remain varsity, we needed to establish a championship pathway […] [so] we created a National Championship [….] Suddenly, the focus quickly shifted to [us needing to create] an RSEQ baseball league with almost no notice.”
Kushari reiterated that this decision will hopefully not mark the end of baseball at McGill for next year.
“I think there’s no question on the team that we are going to try our absolute hardest to make sure that there is some form of McGill Baseball continuing in the future,” he affirmed.
Women’s Varsity Field Hockey
Martlets teams are left grappling with the gender disparity evident in McGill Athletics’ restructuring, which has cut over 100 women athletes from the varsity program: Inequity the vice captain of varsity Field Hockey Grace Hodges, U3 Arts, discussed in an interview with The Tribune.
“Throughout the [restructuring] process, we were reassured that there would be an equal number of men and women’s teams when there is, in fact, not,” Hodges emphasized. “Given McGill is a [university with] 60 per cent women to 40 per cent men, that overrepresentation feels like a glaring oversight […] [and] shows McGill Athletics prioritizes its [mens’] athletes over [women’s] athletes, again and again.”
Hodges also commented on the “mismanagement” evident in the restructuring process, sharing that McGill Athletics has not instated a clear transition plan to support cut varsity teams.
“[McGill Athletics’] inability to hire adequate staff, their inability to effectively run a home game, and just in general, [their] neglect [of] the field hockey team […] shows […] [the university] investing in what they consider to be flashy [programs], and not in teams that can really build themselves up,” she shared.
Hodges emphasized the strong community McGill’s Field Hockey team supports at the university and beyond, citing how the Martlets help train the Quebec provincial field hockey team, as well as run tournaments for recreational adult leagues.
“We help fill the gaps where [these programs] need,” she said. “McGill Field Hockey is a really important pillar of the sport in the province, and in taking this away, McGill Athletics has affected not only the students at this school, but also girls in sport in general.”
According to athletes, McGill’s varsity restructuring places women on the margins, penalizes clubs that have been self-managed and self-funded for years, interrupts decades-long legacies of success, and erases the communities of support and student life that teams foster.
Many cut teams are circulating petitions community members can sign and share in solidarity. Students’ Society of McGill University members can also vote in the non-binding Special Plebiscite Concerning Cut Varsity Teams and Competitive Clubs until 8:00 p.m. on Dec. 4, to indicate their support for a robust and inclusive McGill Athletics program.
Sports Editor Clara Smyrski and Sports Staff Writer Jenna Payette are members of the McGill Women’s Field Hockey team. Sports Staff Writer Lialah Mavani is co-captain of the McGill Women’s Squash Club. Smyrski, Payette, and Mavani were not involved in the writing, editing, or publication of this article.
