Fergus lacrosse legend leading women's equality efforts in sport

When Dana Dobbie was a teenager, the opportunities to grow as a women's lacrosse player just weren't there like they were for her family.

The Fergus native said she took that personally, and used that drive to become one of the most influential women's lacrosse figures in the world.

Her fingerprints are all over the growth of the game in the last two decades, whether it's as a player and longtime captain of the Canadian women's national team, or her relentless advocacy working behind the scenes fighting for women’s equality in the game.

She was a big part in getting the first-ever women’s World Box Lacrosse Championship up and running in Utica, New York last month, the culmination of a 21-year fight for women to get its own world championships alongside the men.

“The biggest win for all of us (women) was getting to be there and getting to have 10 national teams represented and really just playing some awesome box lacrosse,” said Dobbie, who was the vice-chair of the World Lacrosse Athletes Commission between 2019 and 2022.

Dobbie stepped back on the floor as captain Canada in that tournament, potting nine goals and 27 points in seven games, winning a silver medal.

The 39-year-old admits it was the hardest team to make in her 21 years with Team Canada, noting the growth and direction of the women’s game since she began her career.

“When we first started on the junior national team, we pretty much knew everybody who was playing, or anybody who was good kind of around the country,” she said.

“Just a massive growth from there to where we are now. Half of my box team I just played with, I met them for the first time at our box tryouts.”

Just days after competing, she went right back to Loyola University of Maryland to begin her 16th year as an assistant coach with the women’s field lacrosse team.

To say she lives and breathes lacrosse would be an understatement.

Her dad Garry coached her from a young age and she was able to gain opportunities to grow in the game.

But she began to notice in her teenage years, opportunities for her male family members – namely her brother Jason and her second cousin, NLL veteran Dane Dobbie – weren’t there for her because she was a girl’s lacrosse player.

“I think for me, I just took that really personally,” Dana said.

“(I) wanted to make sure that a few years down the road, other female and girls and women’s lacrosse players wouldn’t feel limited in the way that I was when I hit those teenage years.

“For me, that’s where this world championship just meant so much more than gold or silver or bronze. It meant being able to live out your dream, and knowing that no women’s lacrosse player was ever going to be limited just based off of their gender anymore.”

Dobbie has become the focal point of women’s lacrosse in Canada, leading by example after building quite the resume.

The Fergus Thistle alum was the captain of Canada’s under 19 team that won a bronze medal at the 2003 World Championships.

On top of the most recent silver, Dobbie has won four medals at the Women’s Field Lacrosse Championship, and was selected to the All-World team in each of those instances in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2022. She was captain of Canada’s entries in 2013, 2017 and 2022.

She also competed at the first World Games Sixes in 2022, winning a gold medal for Canada, a lacrosse discipline she helped to create as a member of the Blue Skies Working Group.

She has competed professionally at the club level in Baltimore. Of note, she played in the inaugural season of the short lived United Women’s Lacrosse League for the Baltimore Ride in 2016, where she was a captain and league all-star.

She also won a Women’s Professional Lacrosse League title in 2019 in Baltimore.

Collegiately, she was a two-time All-American, a two-time finalist for the women’s Tewaarton Award and set NCAA Division I records for draw controls.

In addition to the world box championships, she helped fight for the inclusion of lacrosse sixes as an Olympic sport for 2028 in Los Angeles.

Dobbie said the Olympic dream has always been there for her, but didn’t commit one way or another to trying out for the sixes team in four years.

She did say she’d be interested in coaching.

In the midst of everything, she has become a role model for women in sport and continues to teach the next generation of women’s lacrosse players at the collegiate level.

She said it’s something she will appreciate later on in life, when she looks back on her body of work.

“I’m just like, in the moment, you don’t necessarily know anything else besides competing and representing. I think that’s something that when I’m able to process it a little bit down the road, I’ll really appreciate that,” Dobbie said.

“I’m just so excited that we don’t really need any more pioneers of the sport. We’ve finally achieved equality in every aspect of lacrosse, whether it’s field, box or sixes and for the first time, female lacrosse players can medal in all three disciplines, just like the men’s side has been able to do.”