Girl breaks plane, makes gridiron history in Ile Bizard

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI



It was a play designed by the Ile Bizard Vikings mosquito football coaching staff aimed to rally the team together while rewarding one player in particular for a season’s worth of hard work.

It ended up being nothing less than history in the

making.

With time running out and the Vikings nursing a sizeable lead during their Oct. 14 North Shore Football League Founders Cup semifinal game against the Western Patriots at Eugène Dostie Park in Ile Bizard, Vikings head coach André Laberge decided to insert one of his offensive linemen into the backfield at the fullback position. An unusual move in itself most pigskin observers might have surmised, since it is not too often one will see a member of that unheralded and often overlooked group carry the ball. What made it even more special though, was the fact the player was 11-year-old Gabrielle Fortin, the only girl on the Vikings.

Several times Fortin tried to punch it in, and finally on her final attempt, she managed to cross the goal line from the two-yard-line. By doing so, she became the first player of female persuasion in Vikings history to score a touchdown.

“The coaching staff told the offensive linemen to push, push and push on the play,� said Fortin, who is in her first year of playing organized football. “They told me afterwards I was the first girl in Ile Bizard history to score a touchdown, and it felt great.�

Laberge said one of the reasons he and his colleagues decided to play Fortin on the offensive line coming out of training camp was not because of her size, but because of her keen ability to soak up plays.

“She’s a very intelligent player,� said Laberge, who led the mosquito Vikings to a provincial championship in 2005. “She understands instructions so well. But you know, her teammates were so happy for her after the play. They really rallied around her.�

Laberge went on to say nobody on the expansion Patriots coaching staff took the play in the wrong manner.

“We had no intention of rubbing it in their faces by inserting Gabrielle in the fullback position,� Laberge said. “Even though we had a sizeable lead at the time. In fact, we had played all our substitutes during the game and scored far less points against them in the game than most teams had during the regular season.�

The Vikings won the game 34-14.