Alex Lamontagne: From pick-up to World Cup

It is our sincerest pleasure to welcome the newest member of our OpenSports team: Alex Lamontagne

“I have even been able to play soccer at the highest level and represent my country with the Canadian Women’s National team for youth and senior team levels now which has taught me so much and is my motivation to continue to push myself and be better everyday.”

It’s 11:05am, James, Alicia and I were sitting at one of the high tables in our office having my first official meeting. I was super nervous on what they were going to have me do especially because I just spent two hours waiting for a GO Train and ended up being a bit tardy to my first day of work because all of the ones going westbound had engine problems. During the meeting we were talking about very fun and exciting projects we have coming up and daily tasks that I’m going to be in charge of. I know Alicia loves blogging and she is super good at it so I never thought that I would have to blog until I heard the words “ we want you to write a blog about yourself and allow for people to get to know you” my heart dropped, but I kept a smile (as you always should when you hear news you weren’t ready for) and put on my brave face and decided to get out of my comfort zone and tell you all a little bit about myself.

If you didn’t know me you would think I’m such a shy and quiet person, but if you were to ask my friends about me they would probably use words such as, loud, fun, annoying, social, funny, always laughing which are total opposites. It takes me a while to warm up to people, but once I do I feel very comfortable and begin to open up. My name is Alexandria Lamontagne and I am an intern at OpenSports for the spring.

I come from a long line of athletes in my family and I am obsessed with sports. Sports are my passion and I find myself trying new sports, but my one true love is soccer. I started playing soccer when I was about three years old and haven’t stopped since then. I actually played on a boys team until I was about nine because my dad wanted me to have some competition and get tough. Trust me, it was hard at first, but once the boys started to rough me around you bet I did the same back!! I always played multiple sports, but knew the only one for me was soccer. I played it throughout my childhood years and youths days and even worked hard enough to get a scholarship to go to Syracuse University.

Syracuse was one of the best experiences I could have ever gone through. From learning how to do my own laundry and cook for myself, to creating a bond with 22 girls and coaches who I will never forget. That type of bond is one of the reasons why I love sports. The friendships that you create through sports based upon a mutual love of something is a bond that cannot be broken. Soccer has taken me all over the world from Canada to the US to Portugal, Honduras, Mexico, Australia and many more places and for that I will be forever grateful. I have even been able to play soccer at the highest level and represent my country with the Canadian Women’s National team for youth and senior team levels now, which has taught me so much and is my motivation to continue to push myself and be better everyday.

My time at Syracuse was coming to an end and it was very bitter sweet. I never want to stop playing soccer and it was hitting me hard that my college career was over. Luckily, I do enjoy school and was very excited for the opportunities to come. I am a Sport Management student and in every student’s final year they need to complete a Capstone or Internship in order to graduate. Of course I went to my advisor and said, “Can I just play soccer for my capstone, that can work right?” and she chuckled, but shut me down very quickly. That’s how I ended up here, at OpenSports. I was searching for internships that related to sports, but also provided something meaningful for the community and nothing was really sticking out to me until I found the opening for an internship here. I submitted my resume and waited patiently to hopefully get an email back.

Within a week I was having a group phone call with everyone at OpenSports and knew this was the place for me. Everyone was so nice and goofy and showed personality traits that I had and I knew I would connect with and instantly I wanted this job. It took about two weeks but by the end of it, Alicia and James called me and said I got the job. “WOOHOOO!!” (obviously I played it cool on the phone). I ran straight into my roommates room and jumped on her bed with such excitement because I was about to start another journey In my life ( and obviously she wasn’t too impressed that I was being loud and crazy but hey I was happy). Which leads me back to where it all started, soccer has lead me to so many amazing opportunities and places that this is where it led me to next. I am still trying to continue with soccer and hopefully play in Europe one day, but for now I’m going to love what I do everyday and hopefully play in a few pick up games every month and get to know everyone in the community.

If you want to shout out to Alex to welcome her to the Toronto pickup sports fam, email her at alex@opensports.ca :)😊😊

A special thank you to Alex Nathan from Under the Cosh Blog/Podcast for helping with the witty title to this post!