Gillian Florence
Canadian rugby union player
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gillian Florence (born 30 April 1975) is a former Canadian rugby union player who has participated in five Rugby World Cups (1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010). Starting out as a prop on the national team, she became one of Canada's top flankers.
John Abbott College
| Born | 30 April 1975 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School | Hudson High John Abbott College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| University | McGill University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Technical writer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby career
Florence first started playing rugby in high school (1987–1992) in Grade ten[1] and John Abbott College (1992–1994).[2] She made her international debut at the 1994 Women's Rugby World Cup in Scotland, at the age of 18, and retired in 2011.[3] She represented Quebec for eighteen years and played for Ste. Anne de Bellevue for twenty-two years.
Having played one season with McGill University in 1995–1996, her national schedule conflicted with the university team's schedule.[4]
She was a member of the World XV that played against the New Zealand Black Ferns in 2003.[3]
Florence became an assistant coach for the McGill Marlets in 2008, a decade after graduating.[2]
In 2011, Florence, along with Brooke Hilditch and Megan Gibbs protested Canada's "pay-to-play" system for women in non-World Cup years by refusing to pay the $2,900 to play in the 2011 Nations Cup.[5] After retiring, she coached her club, Ste Anne de Bellevue, in 2012 and 2013.[1] She is now on the Monty Heald Fund committee which aims to eliminate the "pay to play" experience.[6]
She returned to the rugby pitch in 2017 and suited up for the Nova Scotia Keltics.[7]
Honours
- 1995 CIS All-Conference honours
- 1998 named one of McGill's top 20 athletes of all time (McGill Tribune)[8]
- 1994 World Cup game MVP at her test debut[9]
- 2003 All World team[9]
- 2017 Rugby Canada Hall of Fame inductee (first woman in the hall of fame)
- 2018 John Abbott College Hall of Fame inductee[10]
An annual Rugby Canada award is named in her honour and is given to a "player who best represents the qualities of Canadian rugby as voted by her teammates."[3] Recipients include Andrea Burk (2014),[11] Barbara Mervin (2015),[12] Julianne Zussman (2016),[13] Kelly Russell (2017),[14] Laura Russell (2018)[15] and Olivia DeMerchant (2019).[16]
Personal life
In 1998, she graduated from McGill University with a bachelor's degree in Education. In Montreal she worked for Caterpillar, for Ultra Electronics in Nova Scotia, and now Kinduct in Halifax.[4] She moved to rural Nova Scotia when she was eight months pregnant. She lives with her partner, firefighter Aaron Graham, is mother of two children.[1]