"This is a mad thing to them."
That's how Claire Doyle explained the reaction in Ireland to news a Gaelic football match at the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex was cancelled last week after two "lively" bears wandered onto the pitch.
On June 20, Vancouver Éire Óg GAA and St. Finnian’s Vancouver GAA were locked in a close contest, according to Doyle, who plays for St. Finnian's.
It was an intense match because both teams are battling for a spot in the final of the four-team league, she said.
"This was probably the most competitive game of the season," Doyle said. "Both teams were really hoping to win."
But, with about three minutes to go and Éire Óg GAA up by three points (just one goal in Gaelic football), the game was cancelled when two bears that had been spotted at a distance earlier got a little too close for comfort.
For most players on the pitch, 90 per cent of whom have come to Canada from Ireland, it was their first time seeing a bear.
"People were freaking out," Doyle said.
A post on the St. Finnian's Facebook page described the bears as "lively looking," and a video posted on Reddit shows them standing on their hind legs and wrestling with each other.
Unusual Pitch Invasion
byu/FoggyShrew inGAA
"They were having a great time," Doyle said.
Once the game was cancelled, she said the women ran off the pitch and into the clubhouse, and the bears eventually meandered all the way across the field and to the clubhouse as well.
"There was a lot of commotion," Doyle said.
News of bears frolicking on a football pitch in Canada has "really taken off" in Ireland, according to Doyle.
Stories have been posted online by multiple Irish media outlets.
Doyle said a lot of people in Ireland have family living abroad and are interested in what's going on with them.
"Also, most Irish people have never seen a bear," Doyle said. "The idea that there could be a bear on a football pitch is just unimaginable. We would be used to, maybe, a sheep on the field, but that would still be quite rare."
Despite the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex being a "hub" of Gaelic football – an Irish national sport that Doyle describes as a mix of soccer and rugby – she said no one on her team had encountered a bear there before.
Éire Óg and St. Finnian’s are still waiting to hear from their league's governing body to find out whether the cancelled game will be replayed.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on X/Twitter @CorNaylor
Email [email protected]
