Vancouver Rise FC have their first player, Canadian international defender Shannon Woeller.
Woeller, 34, was born in Vancouver and began her career with the Vancouver Whitecaps in the now-defunct USL W-League. After the Whitecaps women’s team ceased operations in 2012, Woeller went on to an extensive European career, playing in the United States, Norway, Iceland, Germany, Sweden and Spain.
Capped 21 times by the Canadian women’s national team, Woeller was a part of the FIFA Women’s World Cup squad in 2019. She has won two medals with Canada: a gold medal at the Pan Am Games in 2011 and a silver medal at the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2012.
Woeller said joining the Rise “was a pretty easy decision for me.”
“It’s a big honour for me, and I’m really excited to be here,” Woeller said.
She said coming back home and being a part of professional women’s soccer in her birth country was, for a long time, not something she thought would have been possible.
“Honestly, it means everything to me. It’s so special. This is so special for me to come home, be with my friends and family and also have the opportunity to help grow Canadian women’s football.”
The creation of the Northern Super League has had Canadian players across the globe talking, Woeller said. Players, once needing to go elsewhere to ply their trade, now have the chance to build a professional career at home.
“There’s been a lot of chatter with a lot of girls I know,” she said. “Everyone’s super interested in it. I think everyone’s really excited about it and wants to help in whatever way they can. I think it’ll be exciting what kind of players the league will draw back over time.”
And for those players, like Woeller, who have gone away, it is the opportunity to come back and be a part of something from the ground floor.
Woeller referred to her history with Rise sporting director, Stephanie Labbe, and said discussions of coming to play for the team “happened early on.”
Coming full circle
Woeller began her playing career with the Whitecaps in 2008. She was with the club in their final season in 2012 and witnessed the loss of that club.
“Obviously, that was really sad. It was semi-professional, but that was the last women’s football we had in Vancouver. So, it’s been a really long time coming, and I think there were a lot of years where I didn’t think this was ever going to happen.”
Woeller said playing overseas can be daunting for Canadians. Life has to be put on hold, your suitcase becomes your home and there is a real possibility that it may not work out.
“Playing overseas is an incredible opportunity, but it’s also not easy,” she said. “You see a lot of Canadian girls that try to do it, but it doesn’t quite work out. It was hard to be over there for so long. And you see girls there, they got families. They’ve got lives. And it’s hard not to be a little bit jealous of that. It just opens the door for so many more players to play longer when they can make the choice, you know, if they want a family, if they have other things in their life and they want to be in Canada. That fact that that’s now something you can do, that’s amazing.”
As an experienced leader on the Rise squad, Woeller said for new players coming up, playing in Canada will give them a better foundation for when other opportunities present themselves.
The first of many
Rise president, Sinead King, said there are more announcements to be expected in the coming weeks.
“The focus of this week is player signings,” she said. “People are being really patient, waiting to see what we’ve been doing behind the work in terms of building our roster.”
A new player is set to be announced each day this week.
“It’s our advent calendar,” King joked.
King said there have been a lot of discussions with prospective players, both Canadian and international.
“We’ve been speaking to players from so many different countries and markets and leagues. And people are really, really curious, and the agents are really excited. I think it doesn’t matter if you’re from Vancouver or somewhere in Asia, people want to know about the country that’s a top-10 FIFA-ranked team finally building a league.”
“We’d rather take our time and get it right than rush things because we think that we have to,” King said.
