Christine O’Connor

Christine O’Connor... soccer family (wife Christine, sons Brad, Adam and Dylan)... married to husband Cavan (they raised children Brad, Adam and Dylan)... earned degree in Business/Commerce from the University of Salford in 1970... she was 22 years old when her family moved from Manchester to Winnipeg in 1974... her and her husband Cavan ran the Sweat Shack store in Winnipeg for 33 years...

honoured as a Manitoba Soccer Life Member... honoured by the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and the Manitoba Soccer Hall of Fame... named in her honour, the Christine O’Connor Award honoured Manitoba Soccer’s Outstanding Senior Female Player of the Year... her club Winnipeg Sweat Shack Spirit’s 1987 squad was honoured by the Manitoba Soccer Hall of Fame (she was team manager)...

as owners of the Sweat Shack store in Winnipeg, made Team Canada’s gear for the Opening Ceremonies of the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg... as Manitoba Soccer President after Canada Soccer earned the right to host the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, attended matches in Germany at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup...

her youngest son Dylan was a Canada Soccer National Championships winner in 2009 with Winnipeg Hellas SC (as a goalkeeper, he posted three clean sheets in five matches at the final tournament in Saskatoon)...

said O’Connor on 6 November 2010 when she was inducted to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame (incidentally the same day she became the first woman elected as Manitoba Soccer President), writer “Ashley Prest said to me ‘upon reflection how did it feel that I was instrumental in creating history,’ (but) I never considered having such a good time (in soccer) as creating history, but I suppose it was”... said O’Connor in 2012 to Ashley Prest in the Winnipeg Free Press, “we became a retail store where we sold our own products (at Sweat Shack) and it evolved into selling equipment. We evolved into being, probably, everyone always says this to us, one of the best soccer stores”.... also said O’Connor to Prest in 2012, “we are builders: we built a life, a store, a team, anything we can in soccer. That’s what we do”..

said O’Connor in 2010 to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, “soccer is our life, my family’s life, everyone lives and breathes it, doesn’t matter what level. It’s given me so much to me”....