Jennifer "Jen" Kish (born July 7, 1988) is a Canadian former

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player. She was a member of Canada's women's sevens team that were runners-up at the

2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens The 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens was the sixth edition of the Rugby World Cup Sevens. The tournament was held at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. New Zealand won the tournament, defeating England 33–0 in the final. Attendance for the tourname ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Kish captained the sevens squad from 2012-2016 until she left the centralized program and while still player, she was replaced by

Ghislaine Landry Ghislaine Landry (born April 27, 1988) is a Canadian rugby union player. She won a gold medal at the Rugby sevens at the 2015 Pan American Games – Women's tournament, 2015 Pan American Games as a member of the Canadian women's rugby sevens team ...

. She is known for her aerial skills and defence (and her ink). Kish was awarded the ''Most Influential Athlete'' of the CAAWS Most Influential Women List of 2016.

Rugby 15s

Kish's dream of being an elite athlete started at an early age and in Grade 2, she put down "professional athlete" as her future profession Kish started rugby in Grade 10 at W. P. Wagner High School in Edmonton because her football coach was a rugby player and suggested she should try the sport. Kish typically played flanker and occasionally 8-man. Playing for the province of Alberta at 16, her skills were recognized and she joined the U-19 Team Canada roster. Six months later, at 17, before joining the senior women's team, Kish tattooed the

Rugby Canada Rugby Canada is the national Sport governing body, governing body for the sport of rugby union in Canada. Rugby Canada was incorporated in 1974, and stems from the Canadian Rugby Football Union, a body established in 1884 that now governs amate ...

logo on her right calf. She would go on to play in three Nations Cups and the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup.

Rugby 7s

Kish tried out for the sevens team in 2007, but she was cut after her first tryout . After the 2010 World Cup, John Tait invited Kish to a sevens camp. In 2013, Kish captained Canada to silver at the 2013 Women's Rugby World Cup. Her stellar performance was awarded when she was named the 2013 Sevens Player of the Year, for the second year in a row. Kish won a gold medal at the

2015 Pan American Games The 2015 Pan American Games (), officially the XVII Pan American Games () and commonly known as the Toronto 2015 Pan-Am Games (Toronto 2015), were a major international multi-sport event celebrated in the tradition of the Pan American Games, ...

as a member of the Canadian women's

rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

team. In 2016, she was named to Canada's first ever women's rugby sevens Olympic team, which won the bronze medal at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

in Rio de Janeiro. Her favourite pre-match tune is "Watch Me Rise" by

Mikky Ekko John Stephen Sudduth, known professionally as Mikky Ekko, is an American singer and songwriter from Nashville. He co-wrote and was featured on Rihanna's 2013 single "Stay (Rihanna song), Stay", which charted in multiple countries, becoming his fir ...

. Her pregame rituals consist of eating mustard before every game and writing what's important to her on her wrists, particularly "#ruckcancer", in honour of her father Steve, a cancer survivor. Kish announced her retirement on April 30, 2018, due to injuries that forced her to miss the

2018 Commonwealth Games The 2018 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and also known as Gold Coast 2018, were an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth that was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, bet ...

in Gold Coast, Australia and recent Canadian appearances on the Sevens world circuit. Upon the end of her sevens career, Kish played in 134 matches and scored 170 points (34 tries). In 2019, Kish was on the World Rugby Men's Sevens Player of the Year award and the World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year award voting panels.

Personal life

Kish is openly

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

. During May 2018, Kish was part of a group of four female athletes, including

Cassie Campbell Cassie Dawin Campbell-Pascall (born November 22, 1973) is a former Canadian ice hockey player and a broadcaster for ESPN/ ABC, and formerly Sportsnet. Born in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Campbell grew up in Brampton, Ontario, playing for the Brampto ...

Fran Rider Fran Rider CM OOnt is a Canadian ice hockey executive, and former player. She began playing ice hockey in 1967, with the Brampton Canadettes, the predecessor to the Brampton Thunder. Rider is one of the founders of the Ontario Women's Hockey ...

and

Kerrin Lee-Gartner Kerrin Anne Lee-Gartner (born September 21, 1966) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medallist from Canada. Born in Trail, British Columbia, she grew up in Rossland and raced as a youngster at Red Mountain. Lee-Gartner ...

to publicly pledge their brain to a Canadian research centre. The posthumous donation shall be made to Toronto Western Hospital's Canadian Concussion Centre to further research on the effect of trauma on women's brains. Kish married

two-spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people (Kanien’kehá:ka), an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language (Kanien’kéha), the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a ...

(

Six Nations of The Grand River Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of whom live on the reserve. The six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy ...

) musician

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

in 2021. They were married in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

by former Premier

Rachel Notley Rachel Anne Notley (born April 17, 1964) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who was the 17th premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2014 to 2024. Notley was the member of the Le ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kish, Jen 1988 births Living people Canadian female rugby union players Canada women's international rugby union players Rugby union players from Ottawa Rugby union players from Edmonton Rugby sevens players at the 2015 Pan American Games Pan American Games gold medalists for Canada Rugby sevens players at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic rugby sevens players for Canada Canada international rugby sevens players Olympic bronze medalists for Canada Olympic medalists in rugby sevens Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Canadian lesbian sportswomen Canadian LGBTQ rugby union players Pan American Games gold medalists in rugby sevens Medalists at the 2015 Pan American Games Canada international women's rugby sevens players 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people 21st-century Canadian sportswomen