By Ottawa Sports Pages, for Nepean Hotspurs
There’s a new Saturday afternoon hang-out for girls in Nepean.
At Hotspurs For Her, you’ll certainly see some soccer balls, but it’s not meant to be an intense training session. It’s a welcoming community where girls and women can play, laugh, learn and grow together.
“It’s not super structured soccer. There’s music playing and we’re doing all kinds of different games,” explains Nepean Hotspurs General Manager Shannon Holder. “What we’re hearing from research about what girls want from soccer, and sport in general, is a fun, social experience, and they want to be able to do it with their friends.
“And so the hope is that we can foster some new friendships with what we’re doing, and attract girls to the game who maybe haven’t played before.”
Hockey players were among those who turned out for the first Hotspurs For Her kickoff event, along with some Hotspurs competitive players who enjoyed the chance to connect without a focus on performance.
“They just come and have some fun and kick around and laugh and dance and have a good time,” highlights Holder, part of the all-female cast leading the program.
The free Hotspurs For Her sessions will be held on a monthly basis throughout the year. Spurred from the club’s priority to increase female involvement across the board, the program offers a gateway for girls and women to step confidently into soccer, whether as players, coaches or leaders.
Skill-building and mentorship are cornerstones of the program, which also promises giveaways, not the least of which is a healthy dose of girl power.
For Holder, who’s played soccer since age six and coached for Nepean for close to 20 years, it’s been exciting to see the recent rise of women’s soccer. 2025 was particularly encouraging, with the Northern Super League completing a successful first season, the Canadian government investing in women’s soccer facilities, and FIFA getting behind Kadeisha Buchanan’s new program to help players from single-mom families get into soccer.
While the Hotspurs are very proud to point to success stars like Nepean’s Charmaine Hooper, one of Canada’s all-time greats, Holder says it’s also “incredibly important” for young players to have role models to look up to at the community level.
“When these young players come out and see women in coaching roles, women in officiating roles, women in administrator and executive roles, it provides them with that real-life example of what they can achieve within this sport, or any sport,” signals the Queen’s University and Algonquin College grad.
“I was incredibly lucky growing up that when I started getting into sport, I had amazing female coaches. When I started working in sport, I had a lot of mentors who were female. I grew up in an environment where it was very clear that there was a path, but I know that that’s not always the case.”
Married into Hotspurs For Her is the TELUS She CAN Coach Program, a national initiative that seeks to recruit, develop and inspire female coaches, while providing funding and support to obtain their coaching certifications.
It’s the second year the Hotspurs are part of She CAN Coach, eight having completed the program last season. There are 11 participating this time around, and Hotspurs For Her now offers the perfect platform for their efforts.
“They’ve got such great enthusiasm and dedication,” Holder says of the coaching group. “They really want this. They’re here because they love the sport and they love to see women and girls succeed.”
Hotspurs Technical Lead Kim O’Rourke heads She CAN Coach and the Hotspurs For Her sessions. Holder calls her “a fantastic role model,” noting O’Rourke plays for the Nepean women’s team as well as the Canadian Armed Forces, while also training for her national ‘B’ coaching licence to further build on her experience.
“That’s a big part of what we’ll be doing too – bringing those leaders to the forefront and telling those stories, so that the young up-and-coming girls within the club can see that that can be their story too,” adds Holder.
Algonquin Wolves women’s soccer Head Coach Basil Phillips spoke to the girls at the outset of the first session and highlighted the many potential pathways now available in the sport, including opportunities to play college, university or pro soccer in town.
But even at those higher levels, Phillips maintained, the girls still love hanging out together on Saturday afternoons just the same.
“What he hears from his players is the most important thing to them is their team – their teammates and that sense of community,” recounts Holder, extending an open invitation to the next Hotspurs For Her on Jan. 10 from 4-6 p.m. at Knoxdale Public School.
“That’s really what we’re building here too,” she adds. “Everybody can come and join – women and girls of all ages. It’s totally free. Just bring your sneakers, bring a friend if you like. You don’t have to already be a Hotspur.
“We just want you to come and experience what we do here, and maybe fall in love with the game of soccer.”
Learn more about Hotspurs For Her here, the Telus She CAN Coach program here, and the Nepean Hotspurs Soccer Club here.
