McGill’s Women in Sports (WiS) program kicked off the fall semester at the Sept. 7 Martlets soccer home opener. Hosted twice a year, WiS Days like these are social events that welcome McGill Athletics’ women’s players to attend the home game of a fellow Martlet team. The fall WiS Day event brought these Martlets into the stands of Percival Molson Stadium to watch the soccer team snag a win against Université Laval’s Rouge et Or. Here, the athletes were offered McGill-branded clappers to help cheer on their peers throughout the afternoon, and were encouraged to mingle with other onlooking teams during a halftime corn boil and pizza party. 

The WiS program operates through McGill Athletics and began in 2018 with a $3.5 million CAD donation from McGill varsity hockey alumni Sheryl and David Kerr. The program received a second $1.25 million CAD donation in June 2025 from Monica Leitham and Mark Hantho dedicated to women’s athletics at McGill in collaboration with the Faculty of Education—of which Leitham is a graduate. 

One of the only programs of its kind in Canada, WiS looks to support women varsity athletes at McGill by improving women’s representation at the varsity leadership level and offering stronger support services to Martlets. For instance, WiS aims to increase the number of women coaches at the university, with McGill more than doubling its proportion of women athletics staff to 38.1 per cent in the first five years of the program. WiS also provides some of its members with mental performance services, nutritional advice, and career preparation.

2025 marks the sixth year of WiS days. Roxanne Carrière, manager of the WiS program, explained how the recurrence of these events are important to the stream’s continued growth in an interview with The Tribune.

“It’s just promoting the advancement of women in sport, and so [in] bringing women together to support one another, […] we’re really looking forward to increasing the visibility of our program and increasing engagement,” Carrière said. “And if there’s good followership, it makes our job a lot easier, because it becomes self-sustaining.”

For Martlets basketball guard Emma-Jane Scotten, the WiS Day event was a great way to socialize with other Martlets and helped motivate her and her team to attend more Martlet sporting events.

“I think it’s good exposure for the program [and] just shows us the community that we do have here with other athletes,” she said, in an interview with The Tribune. “I think [Martlets basketball tries to] make more of an effort to go support the other women’s teams, and I think a lot of that has been through the program.”

This fall’s WiS Day was planned and carried out through collaboration between WiS staff like Carrière, McGill Athletics, and the 10-person WiS student-athlete council. This council was initiated by Carrière in 2024, and is being brought back to action for the 2025-2026 sporting season. The committee is composed of Martlets student-athlete leaders like Scotten, who expressed that the council’s first meeting back this September was a positive opportunity for its student-athletes to provide input on the WiS event’s structure. Centre for Martlets basketball, Kristy Awikeh, affirmed in an interview with //The Tribune// that the WiS council—of which she is also a member—has helped her connect more with other women athletes at McGill. 

While the Martlets in the stands were cheering, eating, and socializing, the Martlets on the field were fighting to improve their season record to 2–1, after their loss to Université de Montréal’s Carabins on Sept. 5. The WiS home opener saw strong passing plays from the McGill women’s soccer team from the outset of the game. The Martlets kept the ball in the Rouge et Or’s defensive zone, with forward Alexandra Hughes-Goyette even ‘scoring’ by the game’s third minute—though the goal was declared a hand ball and thus disallowed. 

But this no-goal call only galvanized the Martlets, who continued powerfully pushing on offence to force corner kicks for their team. Amidst the cheers of the robust WiS contingent and the couple hundred viewers in the regular crowd, forward Arianne Lavoie fired a header into Laval’s net in the game’s fourteenth minute, off of a commanding corner kick from midfielder Chloe Renaud. This dynamic play once again reminded the crowd why Renaud is frequently recognized by the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec and McGill Athletics for her offensive talents.

Laval’s quick plays and attacking press throughout the game’s second half forced the Martlets to take a defensive stance to protect their lead, resulting in some choppy back-and-forth play that kept the ball largely out of both teams’ goal areas. The rest of the match saw McGill defend their advantage, with Martlets goalkeeper Ann Stephanie Fortin shutting out every shot Laval hoped to land: Including a series of tense free kicks for Laval in the last five minutes of the game. 

Though the Martlets struggled with multiple offside calls, and rough, physical play that led to Renaud and Martlets forward/midfielder Poppy Honeybone needing to substitute out for injuries, McGill managed to keep the game’s final score at 1-0. The win was a testament to the Martlets’ resilience in protecting their net even as the Rouge Et Or outshot them, reflecting the momentum from the three consecutive wins Laval was riding into the match.

Martlets Head Coach Jose-Luis Valdes emphasized in an interview with The Tribune the high level of vigilance his players had to assume to keep the Rouge et Or from taking command of the pitch.

“Laval is a very good team, and […] they can control the game when it’s fit,” he shared. “We had to readjust and change what we were doing to make sure we were defending and keeping it clean in the back.”

While the WiS Day cheering section may have initially surprised the Martlets soccer bench when it first appeared at one of their home games three years ago, Valdes explains that today, his team is thankful for the support. 

“Having all the varsity on the women’s side, present together, is great,” Valdes said. 

Situated off of the endline, the WiS crowd also left a mark on Martlets rookie midfielder Georgia Baldwin, who told The Tribune in a post-match interview that she enjoyed seeing her fellow Martlets behind the goal.

“[Percival Molson is] a really big stadium, and sometimes it can feel pretty empty, but having all that cheering and stuff in the stands and behind the net, […] it meant a lot to look up and see all that,” Baldwin described. “And, yeah, I feel like it really shows that we’re all here for each other. And I want to go to those other sports games and cheer for them.”

Carrière shared that the next WiS Day is planned to take place in January at a Martlets basketball game, providing an exciting opportunity for McGill’s women athletes to come together once again and celebrate the winter season. Scotten and Awikeh report looking forward to this event as a great chance to keep engaging with the WiS program.

The Martlets next play on Sept. 12 at Percival Molson Stadium, where they will face off against the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Citadins, whose last game against Bishop’s University’s Gaiters ended in a tie.