WNBA is new in Toronto this season but women’s basketball has a long history in Canada

The WNBA, not surprisingly, chose Canada as the country to extend its footprint outside of the U.S. for the first time.

But while the league will have a new franchise in the country with the expansion Toronto Tempo making their debut this season, Canada has been sending a pipeline of players to the U.S. for more than three decades.

Kelly Boucher was the first Canadian player to compete in the league, playing a season with the Charlotte Sting in 1998. Stacey Dales was the highest draft pick of a Canadian, going third in 2002 to the Washington Mystics.

“I think back to when I was growing up the WNBA wasn’t even on TV in Canada when I was growing up,” said Portland’s Bridget Carleton, who is Canadian. “So to have a team in Toronto, in our country, is just surreal. The young kids are really excited for it, to have access to that and just women’s sports being more visible, so it’s exciting.”

It appeared to be only a matter of time. There were nearly 150 Canadians on Division I college rosters this past season, including South Carolina’s Agot Makeer — a breakout star in the NCAA Tournament.

Three Canadians were selected in the WNBA draft this year, second to the 2016 draft when four were chosen. This was the fourth consecutive year that a Canadian player was chosen in the draft.

Kia Nurse has seen what the NBA’s Toronto Raptors have done in the growth of men’s basketball in Canada and believes the Tempo can do the same on the women’s side.

“We can now field an Olympic men’s team with just NBA players and in the next 10-15 years of the Tempo being in Canada,” Nurse said, “we’ll be able to field a women’s national team in Canada with WNBA players.”

Nurse was one of three Canadian players in the league last year on teams’ final rosters and is the lone Canadian playing for the Tempo — about 45 minutes from where she grew up.

“The welcome I got from the fans was so amazing,” Nurse said in a phone interview Monday. “The first preseason game to see my parents and friends and a bunch of people in the basketball community here was really cool for me.”

Nurse scored the first basket in Tempo history, hitting a 3-pointer to start off the preseason game against the Connecticut Sun.

“It’s a fairytale to be here all together,” Nurse said, adding that with all the “ups and downs in my career, this feels right.”

Prior to this season, the WNBA has played three games in Canada, including a regular-season game between Seattle and Atlanta last year. The other two were exhibition games in 2024 (Los Angeles and Seattle) and 2023 (Chicago and Minnesota).

The Tempo will play two regular-season games in Montreal and two in Vancouver. They’ll also play three games at Scotiabank Arena, where the Raptors play. All Tempo games will air across Canada on TSN as part of a new multiyear Canadian media rights agreement announced Tuesday.

“The Tempo is Canada’s team, and it is incredibly important that as many people as possible are able to watch our games and feel part of the Tempo community,” Tempo team president Teresa Resch said. “Whether you’re a longtime sports fan or discovering the WNBA for the first time, Canadians should have the opportunity to experience the Tempo and our incredible players for themselves. This leaguewide agreement delivers consistent, high-quality coverage from one of the country’s biggest broadcasters, and it reflects the biggest broadcast deal the WNBA has ever had outside of the United States.”

While Canada was the first international expansion for the league, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said before the draft last month that she plans on teams playing games overseas next year.

“We’re heavily looking at that,” Engelbert said of playing either an exhibition or regular-season game overseas. “Obviously this year we have the FIBA World Cup. Next year we expect that we’ll do something outside of North America as a true global game.”

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Doug Feinberg, The Associated Press