Northern Super League founder Diana Matheson said over the past few days, everyone has been asking her what she’s feeling.
And why not? For more than three years, Matheson has been working tirelessly to launch the professional women’s soccer league in Canada, the first of its kind in the country, and that all comes to fruition with the first match tomorrow at BC Place.
“I don’t have a good answer to that. It feels like matchday-minus-1,” Matheson said about what she feels, to the amusement of reporters at today’s press conference.
“I think I feel grateful that we got to play at a time where, you know, this wasn’t an opportunity for us yet. [When] we made the national team, maybe two players played pro at that time. It was a part-time job. It wasn’t professional.”
Yet tomorrow, the women’s teams of Vancouver Rise FC and Calgary Wild FC will take to the pitch in the first fully professional domestic women’s match this country has seen.
That will be followed by four other teams across Canada—Halifax Tides FC, Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC, and AFC Toronto—in a season spanning April to October.
“There was just an obvious gap in the Canadian market at a time where owners were ready to invest in women’s sport like a business for the first time, sponsors were ready to invest, fans were ready for it,” Matheson said. “And the timing just happened to be right.”
Canadian soccer legend and part-owner of the Rise, Christine Sinclair, mirrored Matheson’s inability to articulate her feelings.
“I don’t know how I feel. I feel like I’m a little bit more emotional than I thought I was going to be,” she said. “[Matheson] and I grew up with different possibilities than the young Canadians have today. I’m a firm believer that kids need to see it to believe it. And as [Matheson] mentioned with the national team, young kids have been able to tune in every four years, every two years if there’s a World Cup and an Olympics, and that’s pretty much been about it.”
Sinclair said that when the first match takes place tomorrow, the scope of possibility will be expanded exponentially.
NSL president Christina Litz said, “This is a dream come true for people in women’s sports, for people in women’s soccer here in Canada.”
“We’re walking in with what you can see is incredible talent in coaching and playing,” Litz said. “And I think we’ve really, with some incredible talent at the league and team front offices, have the foundations in place to be successful.”
Time to play
With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the inaugural match set to be played tomorrow, as well as the three-plus years it has taken to get to this point, it can be easy to forget that the players and coaches have been busy preparing over an 11-week preseason.
And for the two teams set to go head-to-head at BC Place, they cannot wait for that ball to be kicked.
Vancouver Rise defender Shannon Woeller, the first player signed by the West Coast club, called the moment “incredibly special.”
“It’s obviously a moment that you can only dream of, and I’m just so grateful for this opportunity to be here. I think of all the players that came before us that helped push football forward in Canada, and this is for everyone that’s been involved in that,” she said.
Christie Gray, forward for Calgary Wild, said, “It’s an honour.”
“Ten years ago, I was a flag girl at the Women’s World Cup in [BC Place], so it’s a pretty surreal full-circle moment,” Gray said. “And I think to have the chance to do it with my group, with Lydia leading our charge, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, no other dressing room.”
In terms of playing styles, Rise head coach Anja Heiner-Møller offered some gentle ribbing to her Calgary counterpart, Lydia Bedford.
“We would like to be on the ball, Lydia,” Heiner-Møller said wryly. “We want to be an attacking team. We want to be dominant with and without the ball. We want to be competitive first and foremost. And we also have entertainment in there, and entertainment is many things. For some, it could be that sliding tackle, that heading moment in the box, 1v1 offensive. It comes in so many versions. We just want to get out there and show that we love to play.
Bedford riposted to Heiner-Møller’s comments, saying, “We’ll fight you for it.”
“We want to put on a style of football that is enjoyable to watch. And our players come with a lot of grit, and whether they’re in or out of possession, they’re going to work super hard for each other and stay together as a group,” the Calgary head coach added.
The match tomorrow between the Rise and the Wild is at 7 p.m. at BC Place.
