Following a down-to-the-wire season with the UBC Thunderbirds, Wynn Brown ’24 is preparing for one of the biggest competitions of her under-21 career. Brown has been named to Team Canada’s roster for the 2025 Junior Women’s World Cup, which runs Dec. 1-13 in Santiago, Chile.
The selection caps a busy year for the Brown sisters. In August, Wynn and her younger sister, Grade 12 student Mackenna Brown, competed at the Junior Pan American Games in Paraguay. They were joined by Rebecca Stone ’23, who captained that Canadian squad. Stone was also named to the Junior World Cup roster but chose to step back to focus on her studies at UVic after the Vikes’ strong fall season, which included a Canada West conference gold and U SPORTS national silver.
“It is an opportunity that I am incredibly grateful and excited for,” Wynn said. “We spend years preparing for international competitions, so I feel extremely fortunate to experience the World Cup alongside longtime teammates.”
The Junior World Cup falls in the middle of UBC’s exam period, creating a significant challenge for a second-year student balancing coursework with national-team duties. Brown said her time as a SMUS boarder helped her build the skills she now relies on.
“The time management and organizational skills I gained as a boarder at SMUS gave me all the tools I needed to make sure the conflict does not hold me back, while still achieving my academic goals as a Neuroscience student,” the Winslow House grad said.
Over her three years at SMUS, Wynn also juggled experiences with Canadian Youth National Team tours including an Under-16 series against the USA in Grade 10, an Under-18 tour against France in Grade 11 and an Under-18 tour in Scotland and Wales in Grade 12. Wynn was a key contributor to SMUS teams that won AA provincial banners in both field hockey and soccer in the 2022-23 school year and was a captain on both teams in her Grade 12 season.
In her graduating year Wynn was awarded the Nancy Mollenhauer Cup as the top player for the Senior Girls Field Hockey Team, the Field Hockey Team award as voted by her teammates, the Carol Lobb Award that combines athletic and academic achievement and the Athletic Director's Merit Award for her international achievements.
The Brown sisters also follow their mother and SMUS alumna Joanna Muir ’87, who recently represented Canada at the 2024 World Masters Cup in New Zealand.
“This will be my second major international tournament and I am most excited to play the best teams in the world,” Brown said. “Challenges like these fuel my love for sport. With only five junior international caps so far, I am looking forward to taking each game minute by minute and growing as much as I can.”
The 24-team Junior World Cup opens Dec. 1. Canada is grouped with Australia, Scotland and Spain and faces Australia on Dec. 2.
