The response to Part 1 made one thing clear: there are a lot more women shaping Canadian sport worth talking about.
Not only athletes. Broadcasters. Coaches. Executives. Artists. Women moving from competing in the game to changing what happens around it.
Here are fourteen more.
Brandie Wilkerson is making history and widening the path
Brandie Wilkerson moved to Canada from Switzerland at seven without speaking English. Nearly two decades later, she and Melissa Humana-Paredes won silver at Paris 2024, earning Canada its first Olympic medal in women's beach volleyball.
But the medal is only part of the story. Through Project Worthy, Wilkerson has also worked to create more opportunities for young women and BIPOC athletes in sport. She reached a milestone that had never existed for Canada, then started making the path wider for whoever comes next.
Jennifer Jones made winning look inevitable
Jennifer Jones did not just win Olympic gold. At Sochi 2014, she skipped Canada to an undefeated 11-0 record, becoming the first Canadian women's curling team to go undefeated at an Olympic Games.
Now a curling broadcaster with Sportsnet, Jones has taken decades of experience inside the game and brought it to the other side of the camera. The gold medal made history. The undefeated run made it almost impossible to repeat.
Kaylyn Kyle found another way to use the game
More than 100 national-team appearances. Two FIFA Women's World Cups. An Olympic bronze medal at London 2012. Retirement could have been the ending.
Instead, Kaylyn Kyle moved into broadcasting, becoming a recognizable voice across MLS, OneSoccer, and the Northern Super League. Her career changed. Her knowledge of the game didn't.
Melissa Humana-Paredes kept building toward the medal
Melissa Humana-Paredes was already a world champion before Paris. She won the 2019 World Championship, then rebuilt her partnership around Brandie Wilkerson and went after something Canada had never achieved.
At Paris 2024, they won silver and delivered Canada's first Olympic medal in women's beach volleyball. After years of Olympic quarterfinal near-misses, Humana-Paredes finally reached the podium. Sometimes the breakthrough is years of work finally becoming visible.
Jayna Hefford moved into the room where decisions get made
Four Olympic gold medals and a Hockey Hall of Fame induction would be enough of a legacy for most careers. Jayna Hefford kept going.
As the PWHL's Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations, she moved from building a legacy inside hockey to helping build the infrastructure around it. The job changed. So did the scale of her impact. Winning the game is one thing. Helping shape the league is another.
Jessica Campbell built the path before the NHL opened the door
Before Jessica Campbell had an NHL coaching job, she had already created one for herself. She built a power-skating business, worked through international hockey and the AHL, and in 2024 became the first full-time female assistant coach in NHL history.
She did not arrive because the traditional path suddenly became easy. She built a path of her own until the league had to expand its idea of who belonged behind the bench.
Kia Nurse built two careers at once
Kia Nurse is a decorated WNBA veteran, now playing for the Toronto Tempo, the league's first Canadian franchise. But playing has never been her only lane. Nurse has also built a career in broadcasting and analysis, bringing the perspective of an active professional athlete into conversations about the game. She knows what it takes to compete at the highest level. Now she helps audiences understand it too.
Julie Stewart-Binks kept finding the next room
FOX Sports. ESPN. Barstool Sports. Rinkside with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Julie Stewart-Binks has built a broadcasting career by refusing to assume one version of success had to be permanent. The Toronto-born broadcaster covered seven Canadian cities during the 2015 Women's World Cup before her career took her south. Thirteen years inside one network could have been the whole story. She decided it wasn't.
Carling Jackson turned the end of one career into the beginning of another
A 
career-ending soccer injury at 22 could have taken Carling Jackson out of sport entirely. Instead, she found another way in.
Jackson built a career as a sports artist, creating more than 200 commissioned pieces across 18 leagues and 22 countries. She also became the first sports artist to paint live at a FIFA World Cup semifinal and final. The injury ended one career. It did not end the ambition behind it.
Claire Hanna took the athlete mindset into broadcasting
Before Claire Hanna was TSN's Ottawa Bureau Chief, she was a three-time national volleyball champion at UBC.
She took the discipline that helped build a championship program and turned it into a national broadcasting career covering the CFL and NHL while also working Olympic play-by-play. Different arena. Same ability to perform when the moment gets big.
Sarah Nurse made representation part of the record
At Beijing 2022, Sarah Nurse scored 18 points, setting the record for most points in a single Olympic women's hockey tournament. She also became the first Black woman to win Olympic gold in ice hockey.
But numbers only explain part of her impact. Nurse has become one of the most visible Black women in hockey, giving another generation of players something that matters long before the medals arrive: someone to see themselves in.
Joanne Courtney built a career around staying power
Not every great career has one defining breakthrough. Joanne Courtney's is a reminder of what longevity looks like.
She spent more than a decade competing at the highest levels of Canadian women's curling, winning world and Grand Slam titles and representing Canada at the Olympics before moving into analysis with TSN. Her value was not defined by one moment. It was how often she was still there when the biggest moments arrived.
Kate McKenna made motherhood part of the conversation
Kate McKenna went from being a Queen's soccer goaltender to building a national broadcasting career. Then, alongside that career, she created Momlife Crisis, a Webby-nominated digital series exploring the realities of modern motherhood.
She did not treat motherhood as something that needed to exist separately from professional ambition. She made it part of the conversation.
Annie Larouche knew what to do when the opportunity arrived
Annie Larouche started as a Montreal Alouettes cheerleader at 24 and eventually became the youngest person named head of cheerleading in CFL history.
After 25 years inside the organization, she became part of the conversation that turned a pandemic-era idea into the Alliance de Montréal. The decision may have taken 20 minutes. Building the team required years of experience, relationships and execution. Sometimes finding the opportunity isn't the hard part. Knowing what to do with it is.
The BFT Take
These are the women breaking records and building what comes next.
Playing the game. Calling it. Coaching it. Running it. Creating opportunities that weren't there before.
Different sports. Different careers. Same instinct: don't wait for the industry to decide where you belong. Make more room.
That's the new era of Canadian sport.
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