Greatness can come in all shapes and sizes, but for many Canadians of a sporting persuasion, it has frequently taken the form of a hockey player, most often with the No. 99 on the jersey.
Not so for Sophie de Goede, who learned the legend of former All Black rugby captain Richie McCaw long before Wayne Gretzky skated his way on to her radar.
But then few Canadians grew up in an environment quite like the 24-year-old. Instead of hockey sticks outside the back door, or a basketball hoop in the driveway, the doormat in front of her parents’ house on Vancouver Island offers a more pertinent clue as to the true passion of the inhabitants: ‘This is a rugby family.’
Not just any rugby family, mind. Her parents not only played international rugby union, but captained each of their respective squads to the World Cup. Her father, Hans, led Canada into the inaugural men’s tournament in 1987, while her mother, Stephanie White, did the same for the women’s team in 1991 and 1994. And both her older brothers, Thyssen and Jake, also forged careers in the game, the former playing for the men’s national team.
So it seemed only a matter of time until the youngest de Goede not only pulled on the red shirt of Canada, but did so as the team’s captain, an honour she will carry out for the 12th time on Saturday when she leads Canada to play the world champion New Zealand Black Ferns in Ottawa in the Pacific Four series.
“My parents definitely didn’t put it on me in terms of like ‘You need to do this, you need to do that.’ But [rugby] was always on in the house,” she says. “We were always going to games on the weekend, getting to go watch my brothers play or going to watch club games or internationals and so I think it would have been hard to escape.”
Not that she didn’t try. Sophie played seven sports at Victoria’s Oak Bay Secondary School, before whittling that number down to rugby and basketball, playing both to varsity level at Queen’s University, a school she picked partly because it was willing to let her play both sports.
As much as the demands of two varsity sports, in addition to her studies toward a degree in commerce, occupied much of her time, she found a good synergy between basketball and rugby.
“I think just mentally, any time things weren’t going well in rugby, I just wanted to go shoot hoops and let off steam and any time things weren’t going well with basketball, I just wanted to go hit someone,” she says. “I think the two really complemented each other in terms of getting a break from the other.”
On the pitch, de Goede led Queen’s University to unprecedented heights, leading the Gaels to their first national rugby championship in 2021-22, her final year in Kingston, in which she was also chosen U Sports athlete of the year.
Gaels women’s rugby coach Dan Valley’s first impressions of de Goede had actually been formed a couple of years before she joined Queen’s, when both were part of the Canadian under-18 program. She had joined the program as a fly half, a position traditionally geared toward on-field leadership and tactical awareness. But given that she was, as Valley called her, “an absolute menace on the pitch,” de Goede was eventually moved to No. 8, the position at the base of the scrum that she still plays today having grown into her six-foot frame.
But her cerebral approach to the sport has never left her.
“There is something to that, the sort of fly-half mindset in that No. 8 body,” Valley says. “Her understanding is on a whole other level and so she is able to take the game plan, execute it and then adjust it on the fly like no one I’ve ever seen.”
The legend of Sophie de Goede is something of a burgeoning concern, both in Canada and further afield.
World Rugby Hall of Famer Gareth Rees – who went to the first men’s World Cup as a teammate of Sophie’s father – remembers seeing some of her formative steps to the top. With both having connections to Victoria’s Castaway Wanderers – Rees’s former rugby club and de Goede’s current team – Rees recalls seeing a young Sophie riding her bike down to the team’s home field.
“I have distinct memories of her being on a 10-speed bike, probably 13, 14 or 15 at this stage, with one rugby ball under her arm riding down from her house to Windsor Park,” Rees says. “And you just know she’s going to kick balls and she’s just practising on her own, and again, it’s something I used to do. You just go down rain or shine and you hit balls and you just practise.”
That’s not the only thing the two have in common, however. Aside from sharing a birthday – June 30 – the two both took their talents to Britain in a quest to improve their skills and test themselves against better competition. In the midst of the pandemic – and with no university rugby being played in Canada – de Goede spent a year playing for Saracens Women in England’s Premier XVs in 2020-21, eventually finishing as runners-up to Harlequins.
Rees understands some of the sacrifices de Goede would have had to make to test herself at a higher level in a sport that can sometimes be more than a little insular.
“I know how hard it is,” he says. “People don’t see all the, ‘You’ve got the wrong accent, you’ve got the wrong everything’ in rugby, and so I dealt with a lot of that.”
But all these experiences – for better and for worse – have only forged a stronger player and leader, one that was a finalist for World Rugby player of the year last November. De Goede leads with a calm authority that has her international teammates frequently forgetting that she just turned 24, and has played just 22 times for her country.
“She speaks with the wisdom of someone much much older than her,” says Paige Farries, who will start on the wing against New Zealand. “And it’s embarrassing because I am much much older than her and sometimes she says stuff and I’m like, I really need to look up to this woman.
“Honestly I think she is just so eloquent and so calm. And I think [the captaincy] has been a role that she’s been kind of destined for her whole life.”
She certainly stepped into the role with aplomb, leading Canada to within a whisker of upsetting England in last year’s World Cup semi-final. With emotions still raw following a heartbreaking loss, de Goede said her sport was at “a crossroads,” and calmly used that moment to implore for more investment in the women’s game.
Eight months on from that World Cup, de Goede is worried that women’s rugby hasn’t fully capitalized.
“There was momentum coming out of the World Cup and a lot of public and community momentum and people getting behind us and supporting us, which has been great,” she says. “But in terms of financial support from companies, sponsorships and stuff and really bringing our sport to a greater audience within Canada, I think we’re still missing that piece of it.”
On a personal legacy level, de Goede sees the lifelong friendships that her parents made through the sport of rugby, and aims to do the same. But as far as her on-pitch goals, it’s clear – she wants to win the World Cup with Canada. So doing would earn her a degree of separation from her parents’ achievements in the game, if she hasn’t done so already.
“One maxim that I’ve always tried to live by is your goals dictate your actions, and there are plenty of goals that I haven’t achieved yet,” she says. “I’d love to win a World Cup for Canada, with Canada. And that would be the first time that a Canadian national team has done that.”
From inspiring her teammates to inspiring the next generation of players – Rugby Canada has donated $120,000 worth of rugby balls to Ottawa youth in the run-up to Saturday’s game – de Goede has worn her heart on her sleeve at times, and is passionate about the sport that both her – and her family – love dearly.
In a crowded Canadian sports landscape, every sport needs a champion, and for those who have been there, done that, you couldn’t ask for many better than Sophie de Goede.
“You don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself,” Rees says. “But you see Christine Sinclair in soccer, you see other dominant females, and there’s no reason why Sophie can’t do that and bring rugby along with her for the ride because she’s got those kinds of characteristics.”
Paul Attfield