The Northern Super League (NSL), Canada's inaugural professional women's soccer league, is set to begin its first season on April 16, 2025. Six teams will compete in the league, including the Vancouver Rise, Calgary Wild, AFC Toronto, Ottawa Rapid, Montreal Roses, and Halifax Tide. The league is still ironing out logistical details, including home venue announcements for Vancouver and Montreal. Diana Matheson, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of the NSL, spoke with TSN about the league's progress, player signings, and the upcoming schedule release.
Jan 09, 2025 at 09:45 AM ETKickoff for the Northern Super League , the first professional women’s soccer league in Canada , is just three months away, with this past Monday marking the start of the 100-day countdown to the opening game on Apr. 16.
TSN spoke to Diana Matheson, co-founder of the NSL, regarding what announcements fans can expect in the coming weeks. The schedule announcement comes out likely beginning of February, which I know everyone is eagerly waiting for. We can share where our opening game is and championship game. There are not enough places to play, so we have to play in stadiums that are shared, venues that are wrong size. We then become second or third tenant in those venues. We then have to wait for other sport leagues and broadcasters to set their schedule.
And I think that's the most important thing, right? Canadians getting to know the players that are going to be playing in this league, whether it's a name they know from the national team, or maybe it's a younger name they've been following that's going to be a future star for Canada, or maybe it's an international player that's coming to this country that they hadn't heard of that is going to be a star in this league too.
And I obviously shared there's going to be playing opportunities here, and it's going to be important we get a few women's national team players that fans know the name of that are coming to this league to help build it. And that was always the goal from the beginning – to try and have kind of a recognizable name per team, and I think we're close to hitting that target.
And then learned a lot about having the right size venue, having those stadiums be downtown, having the right ownership group that doesn't just have the capital, but they believe in the growth and the purpose and the commercial opportunity that exists in women's sport, and just treat it like the investment opportunity and the business that it is.
It was important the league existed in the U.S. to have jobs and to grow the game in that respect. But I think where I cared about building the game, that was closer to my heart, was on the athlete’s side or in Canada.
WOMEN's SOCCER CANADA NORTHERN SUPER LEAGUE NSL PROFESSIONAL SPORTS ATHLETES
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