In a few months, the inaugural 2025 season of the Northern Super League, a new professional women's soccer league in Canada, is set to kick off: Six clubs are lined up across the country. From east to west, those are: Halifax Tides FC, Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC, AFC Toronto, Calgary Wild FC, and Vancouver Rise FC. Some of the clubs have home stadiums arranged; for example, the Tides share the same home ground as the Canadian Premier League's Halifax Wanderers. However, two of them are still in search of a permanent home field. Also, there is a limit of seven foreign players per roster; AFC Toronto have the most signed up to date, with four officially announced thus far. The league recently signed an agreement with hummel to provide the teams' jerseys, though none of these have been presented quite just yet. Broadcast rights for the league in Canada are held by CBC/Radio Canada and by TSN. Not sure yet what, if any, qualification setup there is going to be from the NSL to the CONCACAF W Champions' Cup, however. Hopefully, this league shall be a success both on and off the pitch, and leads to more clubs joining the fray in future seasons!
Thanks for the info: in the past, I had always been puzzled by the fact that Canada didn't have a women's league, despite so many good internationals and a so relevant National Team. There were recurrent voices about adding some Canadian team to the US league, but, apart from any other consideration, it would have barely been an actual solution. So, my best wishes to Canadian league and let's hope it will be a successful one!
For anyone interested in keeping track on the "foreign" players booking flights to one of the NSL's host cities during the 2025 season, this page on Wikipedia might help. As noted over on the Japan boards, AFC Toronto has signed Kizaki Aoi from that country; they have also reportedly signed Hong Hye-ji from South Korea, though she's not yet listed on the club's official roster page. Since the NSL is a "spring-to-fall" league, I would not be surprised to see more players move to and from "fall-to-spring" leagues overseas in the summer months.
Rumour has it Saki Kumagai will leave Roma for an overseas club. NSL or NWSL is the most likely direction (beside returning to Japan). Considering her French is better than her English... a transfer to Montreal or Ottawa perhaps?
Couple of players have been announced as leaving the Arkema Premiere Ligue to play in the NSL: Latifah Abdu (Guingamp to Montreal), Eva Fremaux (Nantes to ?) alongside Charlotte Bilbault already announced to Montreal.
Eva Fremaux from Nantes to Halifax. The Calgary manager Lydia Bedford is a good coach that I have known for more than 10 years.
The 2025 season schedule has been posted. The first game of the season is to be held at Vancouver's BC Place, the home of Major League Soccer's Vancouver Whitecaps FC; the Rise are set to host the Wild on the 16th of April. A few days later, AFC Toronto are set to play their inaugural home game at BMO Field, the home of Toronto FC, on the 19th; they will face off against les Roses. Which still leaves plenty of time to choose a favourite club between now and then!
As noted earlier, all six teams' jerseys are being created by hummel. As of this time of typing, AFC Toronto have just posted their home jersey; while les Roses have posted their home and away jerseys. No doubt the other team jerseys - to include AFC Toronto's away kit - shall be posted in due course. Any thoughts on the jersey designs thus far?
Toronto went with safe choice... I guess, bright accents on neck line and sleeves are nice but I don't like white numbers and names. Montreal's shirt looks much bolder (though it reminds me of something from mens WC in the past)
And here are a few more jerseys; at least one per team! That's a home jersey each for the Rise, the Wild, and Rapid, plus both home and away jerseys for the Tides. Some are available now; others are to go on sale at a later date.
I phoned Genumark (which is the supplier to ask when you have any questions about ordering). Right now there's no option to 'customize' the uniform. TFC and York etc has an option of you adding a number on the back and the player's name (who may get traded away midseason) or choosing your own name and number. Maybe it will be available in the future but player's haven't chosen/been assigned numbers yet (well to us in the public anyway). Also with so many teams wearing red or blue there will have to be a secondary kit for each team. Maybe you will like the alternate better?
The Tides FC jerseys have personalization options already - both to choose players on the roster, or for custom names and numbers - as shown here, for example. In the case of AFC Toronto, it says here that customization is "coming soon". It remains to be seen whether or not it'll be the same kind of options as offered for the Tides.
For anyone in the United States who might be interested in watching an NSL game or few this season: the league recently signed a live streaming agreement with ESPN+.
More details have been posted as to which English and French networks and streaming services in Canada are set to cover which matches, as well as who the on-air hosts and commentators are going to be for each language broadcasts. Looks like TSN and CBC have a fairly broad coverage of the league overall, whereas RDS and Radio-Canada are focusing mostly on les Roses in particular. Only a few days to go now!
Vancouver Rise FC vs. Calgary Wild FC at 4:00 AM (GMT +1) here in Europe (link). Dunno if this link is geoblocked or not.
Just a few hours to go! According to this page, viewers outside of Canada or the U.S. can live stream games direct from the official NSL website. Although there is reportedly an effort to set up broadcasting and/or streaming agreements in different parts of the world.
The first NSL game is in the books: Not sure what the issue is with the audio in the highlight reel, though; the broadcast itself had no such problems. Hopefully there can be a re-upload in the near-to-mid future. Next up is the match between AFC Toronto and les Roses at BMO Field this Saturday!
Before the game between AFC Toronto and les Roses kicked off, it was announced that BMO Field would host around 14,500 fans for the occasion. But how did the match itself pan out? ----- Halifax and Ottawa won't join the fray until next weekend - but not against one another. Rather, the Tides shall host the Wild next Saturday; Rapid FC's home opener is against AFC Toronto next Sunday; while the Rise's first game this season at Swangard Stadium is against Montréal that same day.
Also, I noted earlier that the French language coverage on Radio-Canada and RDS is to be mostly focused on les Roses. In case anyone wants to follow along with this, it might be worth keeping tabs on the Radio-Canada Sports YouTube channel:
Most of the audio from the post game press conferences after the Apr 19/25 AFC Toronto vs Montreal Roses in the first Northern Super League game in Toronto. Montreal head coach Robert Rossitoiu, captain Megane Sauve, and goal scored Tanya Boychuk. AFC head coach Marko Milanovic and captain Emma Regan. Also a surprise halftime Q&A with CWNT head coach Casey Stoney and Canada Soccer CEO Kevin Blue http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports25/25afc035.htm
I love the Quebec accent, always nice to hear our Canadian cousin. I remember going to the 2015 WWC and thinking nice, I don't need to speak English while abroad, I can speak French. I really hope to see a game in Montreal soon.
Of course, francophones can be found in every province and territory of Canada. There are distinct flags used to highlight each French-speaking community across the country: for example, the Franco-Ontarian flag features both a fleur-de-lis (for the French community) and a trillium (for Ontario). Speaking of Ontario: Rapid FC also officially refer to themselves in French as le CF Rapide d'Ottawa, as part of their efforts to lean into ongoing bilingualism efforts in Canada's capital city. But, yes, you're more likely to hear Québec French than other varieties of Canadian French in the SRC and RDS broadcasts. Although, I suppose it would be interesting for the Tides to reach out to the local Acadian French-speaking communities someday...