WGLSC | 5/6/2026 1:00:00 PM

York Athletics & Recreation proudly hosted its seventh annual Women & Girls Leadership and Sport Conference, empowered by this year's lead sponsor, ONLY. Held on Friday, May 1, 2026 the event took place at the Schulich Executive Dining Hall inside the prestigious Seymour Schulich Building, home to York's Schulich School of Business. 

The conference is a key pillar for York Athletics & Recreation as it leads the way in advancing gender equity in sport while empowering women to feel seen, heard and valued on and off the field of play.

"The Conference is a demonstration of York's commitment to advancing Decolonization, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion," said Executive Director, Athletics & Recreation Steven Chuang.  "As a department, we play a pivotal role in contributing to the dialogue around systemic barriers faced by women in sports in Canada.  As the second largest university in the province, we are raising the bar by demonstrating leadership in the power of storytelling by bringing together experts, coaches and athletes with diverse lived experiences.  We are very proud to empower the next generation of women in sports."

This year's theme of Her Game, Her Story was centered around storytelling and the avenues available for student-athletes after their playing careers.

The conference was highlighted by the keynote address from Natalie Achonwa, a Toronto native who went to four final fours while at Notre Dame and was drafted fifth overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2014 WNBA Draft despite tearing her ACL only months earlier ahead of the NCAA tournament.

Achnowa touched on her upbringing in Toronto and her journey in basketball which has spanned nearly three decades. The daughter of Nigerian parents, Achonwa was the middle of three children and began playing basketball at a young age. She reminisced about her first time shooting a basketball, which she fired high over the backboard, a moment that sparked her competitive spirit and has seen her carve out a career both on and off the court, as she now serves as an assistant coach with the WNBA's Seattle Storm. The most common theme of Achonwa's address: work ethic, exhibited by the arduous nature of her ACL recovery and training for the 2024 Paris Olympics while pregnant with her son.

"Don't expect to get far without putting in the work," she said. "Show up every day looking to be better than you were yesterday. Be the competitor everyone needs on their team."

Kicking off the festivities was Toronto Varsity Blues women's volleyball assistant coach Dr. Alix Krahn, who hosted the first of two Fireside Chats on the day, Invisible and Undervalued. Her research focuses on the areas of women in coaching, at the U SPORTS level. While there has been an overall improvement in the number of women working in high performance sport, Krahn's research shows only 16% of U SPORTS women's teams are coached by women, while less than 1% of women coach U SPORTS men's programs. Her research into female U SPORTS coaches showed themes of burnout, time precarity, emotional labour and identity negotiation. Those studied were overworked, undervalued and facing double standards surrounding job expectations and their identities as female coaches. 

The second Fireside Chat, Courage and Confidence, featured longtime hockey coach and executive Melody Davidson, who was recently announced Commissioner of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League. She grew up in the small southern Alberta town of Oyen – home to under 1,000 people – and began coaching her sister's soccer team as a teenager and has been a coach and builder in sport and recreation her entire professional life. Davidson's message, and career, was synonymous with the courage and confidence needed to be a woman in sports.  She earned a bachelor's degree in sports administration from the University of Alberta and was the recreation manager for another tiny town, Castor, Alta., before, at the behest of a colleague, taking a leap of faith to enrol in the University of Calgary's National Coaching Institute (NCI). That courageous step led her to coach the 2006 and 2010 Canadian women's Olympic teams to gold, while winning two other golds as an assistant coach and director for the 2002 and 2014 teams, respectively. Davidson was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame in 2024.

The Powerhouse Panel, She Plays On, consisted of five significant women in the Canadian sports scene, Sam Eyles-Frayne, Manager of Sports Medicine for the Laurier Golden Hawks; Erin McAleenan, Head Coach of the UNB REDS women's basketball team and former York women's basketball head coach (2016-21); Sarah Gates, former McMaster Marauder women's basketball star and current Founder and CEO of She's the Moment; Sydney Payne, Canadian Olympic gold medal rower; and Frankie Billingsley, Softball Canada National Director of Umpires, 2020 Tokyo Olympic softball umpire, and York's  Associate Registrar & Director, Student Records and Scheduling. The panel tackled each member's story in their careers in sports, including Eyles-Frayne's as the first female head strength and conditioning coach in U SPORTS and Gates as one of U SPORTS top players during her five-year career who has had to overcome two separate ACL tears in her first year of pro basketball. They also discussed many of the issues women in sports face including impostor syndrome, feelings of self-doubt while navigating a male-dominated industry and overcoming being put in difficult positions by those in positions of power.

After shifting to a focus on current events over the last two years, the conference returned to its roots as a source of inspiration for women and girls as they foster their lives in sports.

"We wanted to get back to the heart of our 'why,' which is storytelling and community building," said WGLSC Co-Chair and York women's volleyball head coach Jen Neilson. "We wanted to showcase the many roles that women play that aren't visible, to show that women in sports are incredible, and that to be a great woman in sport, you have to balance a lot."

A common theme of this year's conference was the word, 'village,' which serves as a strong and important metaphor for the community that athletes, and women at large, need to feel supported through their journeys in sports.

"There are so many ways we can inspire connection that (go beyond) what we do in our enviornment," Neilson said. Yes, we're their coaches, but we're their allies as well, and my hope for the future of our women (in sports) that days like today can help showcase that (they) have people in (their) corner who will support (their rise)."  

York Athletics & Recreation and the conference planning committee would like to thank all those who supported and attended this year's conference, and look forward to bringing together women and allies from across the sporting landscape at the 2027 Women & Girls Leadership and Sport Conference.

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