Heading into last season, Queen's Women's Rugby star Sophie de Goede was coming off a 2019 season where she was named the OUA MVP and a First Team U SPORTS All-Star. Then the 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and there was no opportunity to continue playing competitively with the Gaels.

With no OUA season and a year of remote learning ahead of her, de Goede jumped at a unique opportunity to continue playing rugby in 2020, joining professional side Saracens Women in England for a year.

Saracens Women's coach, Alex Austerberry, who first met de Goede when she was playing for Canada's U18 National team, reached out to see if she'd be interested in joining the club for the year.

"The coach and I had chatted previously after I played with the U18 national team in 2016. He asked me about the opportunity of coming to Saracens, and I told him that I wanted to go to university first and he said, 'That's alright, just keep me on your radar.'

"And then when COVID-19 hit, the league that Saracens play in was one of the only leagues running for women's rugby, given that they were bubbled. There was an opportunity to go over there with school being online and our Queen's seasons being cancelled.

"He got in touch again just because he'd been messaging our Rugby Canada coaches about any potential players that could come over. And they asked me if I'd be interested and after thinking it through, I thought this would be the best opportunity to keep developing throughout the year."

Saracens Women are based in London, England and play in the Premier 15s, the top tier of English women's rugby's league system. de Goede helped them finish second in the 2020-21 season, and was named Player of the Match in the team's semifinal win over the Loughborough Lightning. She has spent a lot of time with Rugby Canada's programs, but said it was an interesting experience to spend a whole season with a professional team.

"I've been on a couple tours with our senior National team but normally it's a short tour so there's a bunch flying at you all at once because you're only there for a couple weeks to a month. But to be there for a full season and go through the daily rigors, with your lifting schedule and speed and practice, schedule and film and all that throughout the course of the season, was something that I hadn't done yet.

"I think I was pretty well prepared coming from Queen's and our National team program for that type of environment, so it didn't hit me too hard. But it was definitely more time spent watching film and breaking down my own small technical skills and then putting them into a larger tactical context. That sort of aspect of drilling into the details was really helpful for coming back here and trying to keep up those habits."

de Goede returned to Queen's ahead of this season and has been enjoying another strong year with the Gaels. The Victoria, B.C. native finished the regular season with four tries and 16 conversions for 52 points. She currently sits second all-time in scoring for Queen's Women's Rugby with 208 points, 11 points behind Lauren McEwen's 219.

She said she feels she's brought back to Queen's some valuable lessons from her time playing professionally overseas.

"I think English rugby is a bit more of an attritional style, more physical up front. And I'm used to the wider, faster, more North American style of play. One, it was great exposure for me to play in that sort of environment, because it's one that we come up against a lot with our national team. And two, it was good to see how I can learn the value of that style and a balance of both.

"And also, it's always good to have different coaches analyzing your game and always brings a new perspective and something that maybe you hadn't thought of before or hadn't heard of before.

"And then the last thing I'd say is just playing in that league, there are so many international players in that league. On my team alone we had seven England Internationals. Getting to play with them day in and day out, seeing the lines they took, how they were thinking through the game, how they were thinking a couple steps ahead. That was really helpful for me in terms of developing my broader game management knowledge."

de Goede, who joined Queen's in 2017, is in her final year with the Gaels. She said her year spent with Saracens will benefit her future goals.

"It was definitely helpful for my development and kind of opened up the opportunities for going back professionally down the line.

"The goal is to win a World Cup with Canada and I hope that I get to go through a few four-year cycles of that and perhaps play professionally again after graduating. I just want to be one of the best ever players in the world. And I want Canada to be the best rugby playing nation in the world for women."

But before all that, de Goede will finish out her season with the Gaels. Queen's will host the U SPORTS Women's Rugby Championship at Nixon Field from Nov. 10-14. de Goede said she will be excited to finish the year at home with a chance to win the Molinex Trophy.

"It's such a privilege to have the opportunity to host on home soil, and I know that we're all extremely excited too. To perform in front of so many of our friends, teammates, professors, staff and family, of course who follow us everywhere, but to be able to hopefully win a national championship and celebrate with everyone that we love so close by is pretty special and once in a lifetime.

"I'm really looking forward to having that chance and also the familiarity of knowing the circumstances going in, I think is definitely an advantage when we talk about the little one per cent that can get us from being a contender to being a national champion.

"Not only does it give us an advantage, but it's also a special opportunity for the team as a whole to do it on home soil."