Ignite Co-Owner going to Summer
Games as flag football DC
By Darren
Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex
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| Joel Lipinski hugs Marc-Antoine Dequoy (#24). |
On August 16 at the International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Flag World Championships in Dusseldorf, Germany, Lipinski served as the Defensive Coordinator for Team Canada, who were taking part in the bronze medal game against Mexico. Canada claimed a 34-26 victory in overtime, where the win was sealed by an interception from defensive back Guillaume Beland. Canada claimed the bronze medal and locked up a berth at the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will run July 14 to 30 of that year in Los Angeles, Calif.
Flag
football will make its debut as a sport at the 2028 Olympics. For Lipinski, he
still has moments where he can’t believe going to the Olympics will be an
actual thing for him.
“I still
don’t know if it feels completely real,” said Lipinski, who is a Co-owner and
Head Strength and Conditioning Coach of Ignite Athletics located on the Gordie Howe Sports Complex grounds. “For so long, the
Olympics were this massive thing you watched every few years and you saw
athletes representing Canada on the biggest sporting stage in the world.
“I never
really pictured myself being part of that. Now, there’s actually an Olympic
Games on the calendar that we are preparing for. We qualified. Canada is going.
“I’m going
to have the opportunity to represent our country there as a coach. When I
actually stop and think about it that way, it’s pretty wild. I think there will
probably be a few moments over the next two years where it becomes more and
more real.”
Long before
becoming a coach in strength and conditioning, Lipinski had played football as
a defensive back. In the tackle side of the game, he suited up for Regina’s
Campbell Collegiate Tartans, the University of Regina Rams and Saint Mary’s
University Huskies in U Sports, the Vancouver Island Raiders in the CJFL, the
Saskatchewan Roughriders and Edmonton Elks in the CFL and Football Canada’s
Men’s National Team in both tackle and flag. During those years, Lipinski never
thought about going to the Olympics as football was not part of that
multi-sport event and celebration.
In his
childhood days growing up in Regina, Lipinski admitted he did have dreams of
being part of the Olympics when either the Summer Games or Winter Games were on
TV.
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| Joel Lipinski, centre, offers tips at an Ignite Athletics training session. |
“I just never imagined football would eventually be the sport that gave me that opportunity. That’s probably what makes this whole thing even more special.”
While
Lipinski is best known for his work as a strength and conditioning coach, the 41-year-old has worked as a football coach over numerous years in his life and has been a
head coach at the high school level and has coached defensive backs at the
university level. He has been involved with Team Canada on the flag football
side for over a decade.
When Football Canada hired famed CFL coach Paul LaPolice to be the head coach of the National Men’s Flag Team on May 8, 2025, he interviewed Lipinski for the Defensive Coordinator position.
Lipinski was officially brought on as the
team’s Defensive Coordinator on May 20, 2025. He has enjoyed working with
LaPolice.
“It’s been
awesome,” said Lipinski. “Paul has coached football at an incredibly high level
for a long time, and I would be lying if I said I haven’t tried to absorb as
much as I possibly can from being around him.
“One thing
I really appreciate about Paul is that he allows his coaches to coach. He
challenges you, asks questions and makes you defend what you believe, but he
also gives you ownership. That has made me a better coach.”
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| Joel Lipinski enjoys coaching with Football Canada. |
“That might
be one of the greatest moments I’ve ever experienced in football,” said
Lipinski, who stands 5-foot-10 and weighed 195 pounds in his playing days. “There is so much that goes into preparing for those moments that
nobody sees (in) the meetings, film, conversations, adjustments and all the
reps with the players.
“Then you
get into overtime against an unbelievable Mexico team, with an Olympic berth
and a World Championship medal essentially hanging in the balance and Guillaume
makes the play. On a team full of great players, he was our defensive captain
and was completely selfless in any game play that we put together. He is
someone I have leaned on throughout the years I have known him for his IQ and
pulse of the team, and I could not be happier for him that he was the one to
make that play.
“The second
he caught it, I think every emotion from the entire tournament came out at once.”
After
Beland made his interception, Lipinski took part in the celebrations making a
mad dash down the field with Beland and a host of Canadian players that
finished with a group hug in an end zone. At that moment, you wouldn’t have known
Lipinski was still recovering from tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)
in one of his knees.
“That is
probably the most impressive athletic performance of my entire World
Championship,” said Lipinski with a chuckle. “I was five months out from ACL
surgery and apparently completely forgot that for about 30 seconds.
“I saw
Guillaume pick the ball off and all rehab protocols immediately went out the
window. Looking back at the video, there were definitely a couple of moments
where I thought, “That probably wasn’t in the return-to-sport plan.” Luckily,
the knee survived.”
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| Joel Lipinski, left, is pictured with Canadian players at Worlds. |
“Now, the real work starts,” said Lipinski, who has received congratulations pretty much everywhere he has gone in Saskatoon since returning home. “Qualifying was obviously a massive accomplishment, but we’re not going to spend two years celebrating the fact that we qualified.
“The question becomes: how good can we become between now and Los Angeles? We have two years to evaluate our systems, evaluate ourselves as coaches, continue developing players, identify new players and keep learning where international flag football is going. The sport is evolving incredibly quickly.
“For me
personally, I want to look back two years from now and know that I used every
opportunity between Worlds and the Olympics to become a better defensive
coordinator. There are probably 100 things we can do better, and now we have
two years to go find them.”
He added
the belief is high that Canada can win a medal at the Olympics in 2028.
“We
absolutely want to win a medal, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
saying that,” said Lipinski. “Canada just finished third in the world.
“We know
how good the best teams in the world are, we know how small the margins are
between winning and losing at that level, and we also know that we can compete
with them. At the same time, nobody is giving us anything, because we won a
bronze medal at Worlds. There are two years of work between now and Los
Angeles.
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| Joel Lipinski and Team Canada pose for a team photo. |
For more information about Ignite Athletics, feel free to check out Ignite’s website at igniteathletics.com. All photos of Joel Lipinski with Football Canada are courtesy of Joel Lipinski.
