PORTLAND — On a clear, cool night in Rose City, a legend’s legacy was forever immortalized as Christine Sinclair was inducted into the Portland Thorns Hall of Fame and had her No. 12 jersey retired before the club took on Bay FC. Similar to her final regular-season appearance at Providence Park, the Thorns perfectly honored the club legend with their on-field performance. 

Though the visiting Bay FC scored first in the 36th minute through Taylor Huff, Portland turned things around in the second half. Passing the torch to the next generation of Thorns stars, midfielder Olivia Moultrie scored the first brace of her career and became the youngest player in Thorns history to score twice in a single match to win the game. 

“We’re delighted to get the result for Sinc on this special night,” Thorns head coach Rob Gale said. “Being down 1-0 at home on a big occasion, it’s about character and about quality from that moment onward.”

The team is currently navigating the inaugural season of the Northern Super League. Led by Rise FC coach Anja Heiner-Møller, Vancouver is currently in the fourth and final playoff spot in the six team league. 

An eighth-match unbeaten streak during the summer has helped Rise FC to a 9W-7L-5D record and 32 points, but there’s still plenty of work to do in the final month of the campaign.  

Rise FC have been out scored 10-0 in their previous two matches. A 7-0 away loss to AFC Toronto on September 13, and a 3-0 home defeat to Ottawa Rapid FC at Swangard Stadium on September 20, have the team searching for answers at both ends of the pitch. 

“I think that we had a really long run of games where we were winning a lot,” Rise FC’s Nikki Stanton told reporters following training in Vancouver earlier this week. “I think it’s easy to forget some things going into certain games. Toronto obviously had something to prove to us after (we) beat them (1-0) at BMO (Field) (in August).” 

The scoring opportunities that Vancouver created during their 6-0-2 run of form from July 19 to September 6 have still been there during their losing streak, but the high quality scoring chances in the final third is where Heiner-Møller would like to see more improvement. 

“I do think that we want to get closer to the goal to have the finishes,” Heiner-Møller said. “That’s also part of our training to make sure our positions, when we’re finishing, are closer to goal.”

The former Danish international and her staff are not overly concerned with the offensive drought. As the team travels east to play Halifax Tides FC on Saturday in Nova Scotia, Vancouver, is hoping to replicate some of the success the team has had earlier in the season against Halifax.

Rise FC are 3-0-1 against the Maritime club, out scoring them 9-1. 

A Rise FC win or draw, against Halifax, or a Calgary Wild FC loss on Saturday against Montreal Roses FC will lock Vancouver into a playoff spot. Vancouver could potentially clinch a playoff spot before they kickoff on Saturday afternoon at Wanderers Ground.

Vancouver will be without the services of center back Kennedy Faulknor. The 26 year-old did not travel with Rise FC this week. A clear timeline for Faulknor’s return to the pitch is unknown.

Rise FC’s back line has been hit hard by injuries. Captain Shannon Woeller is out for the season with a torn ACL. Ariel Young and Sara Lilja are also out for the season with torn ACL injuries.  

“I think our back line has had a lot of changes throughout the year,” Stanton said. “It’s kind of like we’re ready for it. We’ve all been learning the principles of those positions. I think it’s just important to make sure we’re fine tuning all of those going into our game against Halifax.”

Stanton’s versatility and leadership is a big reason why Heiner-Møller is comfortable moving Stanton from the midfield to an area with a greater need. The 34 year-old is a candidate to anchor the back line against Halifax and as long as Faulknor remains sidelined. 

“Having Nikki down there is giving us some confidence on the ball when we put a midfielder down at center back,” Heiner-Møller said. “There’s more experience and also confidence in terms of playing under pressure compared to normal center backs, so that comes with different options.”

Rise FC’s final four matches of the season will be on the road. The team would like to build some momentum before the playoffs begin in November. The task at hand is securing a playoff berth and then potentially home pitch advantage in the NSL playoffs. 

“Yeah that would be amazing,” Stanton said. “We just want to win the rest of our games, but also make sure that we are at our very very best when it comes to playoffs.”  

Vancouver can finish as high as the top spot in the NSL, but surging past Toronto’s 42 points could be a challenge. Ottawa is second with 36 points, and Montreal third with 35 points. The numbers have been crunched and Heiner-Møller is well aware of what’s within reach. 

“We look at it every single week,” Heiner-Møller said. “We’ve done that almost from the beginning because the goals are clear, we want to be in the playoffs and as high in the standings. We look at that every single matchday minus one and (we’re) doing the math.”

The top four teams in the NSL will play a two-leg semifinals during the first two weekends in November. The NSL Championship will be played on November 15, at BMO Field in Toronto. 

“The fact that we were where we wanted to be in year one put us in a really strong position to start planning for [expansion] and hit the gas on it,” Diana Matheson, former Canadian national team player and the NSL’s founder and Chief Growth Officer, told the The Equalizer.

Winnipeg, Edmonton, Victoria and Saskatoon are the most likely markets for the expansion side, Matheson said. The league is prioritizing adding a team in central or western Canada because it’s underrepresented there and would like to build player pathways in those regions. Matheson noted that the league pays attention to — and values — what fans say on social media.

She added that the league plans to announce the new club sometime before the summer transfer window in 2026. This year, the summer transfer window opened on July 20.

“We’re looking to finish the season probably already in the top five of leagues around the world when it comes to average attendance,” Matheson said.

Attendance, television viewership, and revenues are some of the league’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), or target metrics, for its inaugural year. The numbers were developed in reference to other leagues around the world, and they’ve been met this season. This summer, once the season was off and running and it was clear that the KPIs had been hit, the league started laying the groundwork for expansion.

Expansion goals, near and far

Adding clubs has always been a priority for the league. In 2022, Matheson and league co-founder Thomas Gilbert dubbed their initial dream for a Canadian league — “Project 8” — in the hopes of launching a league with eight teams. The NSL ended up beginning with six, but this move toward a seven-team league is one step closer to that magic number.

Matheson said that, for now, the NSL is happy with how a seven-team season looks, as it evens out home and away games for each team — a schedule that’s impossible with a six- or eight-team league. But when the day does come to expand yet again into an eight-team league, it’ll be meaningful for Matheson. “That one might hold a special place in my heart,” she said. 

Long-term, Matheson said that her original dream was to have 12 teams in the league in the next 10 years, and she still thinks that the number would allow a nice geographic spread while keeping the league manageable. But she’s not getting ahead of herself. “We’ll be making decisions year by year,” she said.

The NSL’s biggest challenge in creating new clubs is the soccer infrastructure gap in Canada. “There’s nowhere for us to play,” Matheson said. She thinks that 6,000-10,000 seat stadiums are ideal for young teams. “That’s the type of stadium in Canada that essentially doesn’t exist,” she added. “Or if it does exist, it’s got four or five tenants.” Thus, the league has to find workable short-term solutions in markets that have the potential for medium- and long-term investment. 

“We want to go to the markets that are going to help us invest in infrastructure and training facilities and stadiums,” she said, adding that the league has already started conversations with some markets.

In this first season, the league has learned a lot about what kinds of stadiums work. Matheson said that if the stadium is too big for the amount of fans attending, it doesn’t feel like a great atmosphere. Other pains that come with not controlling stadiums have been difficult, too. For example, not controlling revenues, game days, kickoff times and broadcast times.

“The attendance and the viewership is affected if we don’t have these right-size stadiums, so it just impacts everything,” she said.

But the league has a creative stadium success story in the Montreal Roses, who added over 5,000 seats to the Complexe Sportif Bois-de-Boulogne in Laval, Québec, to create Stade Boréale, where they play home games. “We learned a lot from what Montreal Roses did with their temporary stadium,” Matheson said.

The league’s announcement that it’s beginning the expansion process is a callout for interested parties to initiate conversations. Matheson said that potential owners have been reaching out to the NSL for a while, but that serious discussions are only starting now. She said Whitecap Sports Group (WSG), a sports investment and advisory firm that is helping the NSL with the expansion process, has advised the league to “build out a defined process where everyone’s at the start line at the same time.” 

NSL President Christina Litz, board chair Mark Cohon, representatives from the league’s ownership group, the WSG and Matheson are all part of the expansion process. The league considered multiple advisory groups to bring on, and chose WSG because it has previously worked with AFC Toronto, the National Women’s Soccer League and the USL W-League. 

More than a specific number of serious bids the NSL and WSG are looking to receive, they care more about the quality of those bids. “It’s about just finding … the people that share the values and the vision of what we’re building here,” Matheson said, “but also have the financial means and the business acumen to make it happen.”

Nuts and bolts for expansion teams

WSG has helped the league work out a franchise fee, required access to capital and other criteria for interested ownership groups. They’re not making those numbers public at this time. 

Once an ownership group is chosen, it’ll be up to the club to build out their roster. All drafts were precluded in the league’s standard player agreement, so the expansion side will have to go about recruiting new players just like the initial six clubs did. Matheson acknowledged that building a roster from scratch is difficult, and said the league is considering if there will be any help, financial or otherwise, given to expansion sides as they do so.

Before the introduction of a new team in 2027, and before that team is even announced in 2026, the 2025 NSL season is well underway and speeding towards playoffs. Matheson called the championship game, which will take place at BMO Field in Toronto on November 15, “a huge opportunity in Canadian women’s sports.” She hopes it will become the “women’s pro sport version of the Grey Cup, a Canadian institution that’s been around well over 100 years now.”

The Grey Cup is the Canadian Football League’s championship game. The NSL sees this opportunity because the NSL final is the only women’s professional sports final that will always happen in Canada; the Professional Women’s Hockey League and Women’s National Basketball Association have teams based in the United States.

Ultimately, Matheson thinks that Canada has the potential to be the second-best country in the world for women’s professional sports.

“We watch women’s sport at world class levels, and we’ve been doing so a decade longer than the rest of the world. I would say us and the U.S. are ahead on that,” Matheson said.

Plus, Canada has relatively high participation in girls’ and women’s sports. With the incoming Toronto Tempo of the WNBA, Canada have three professional leagues with teams in the country. 

“I hope Canadians know we are world class at this, and it’s only gonna keep growing,” Matheson said. “This is gonna be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year in this country because of these industries.”

However, Matheson said that without government funding and women’s sports-specific institutions, there are lots of barriers facing that growing momentum. “There’s still very much the feeling of always swimming upstream,” she said. 

There is something fans of the NSL can do to help: make themselves known.

“Make sure your fandom can be tracked in some way, because it matters,” Matheson said. “All of that matters for us to be able to continually show the data that this market is out there.” 

The Northern Super League is set to kick off tonight when Vancouver Rise FC host Calgary Wild FC in Vancouver. The highly anticipated inaugural season of the NSL features six professional clubs across Canada and also includes franchises, AFC Toronto, Ottawa Rapid FC, Montreal Roses FC, and Halifax Tides FC.

Former Canadian international midfielder Diana Matheson is the Founder and Chief Growth Officer of the NSL. It was Matheson’s vision and dedication that paved the way and helped build a much needed women’s soccer league in Canada. The NSL will run from April 16 to October 18. All teams will play 25 regular season matches. The top four teams will qualify for the playoffs. The NSL championship match will be played on November 15.

Canada has outscored their opponents 13-2 under Stoney. The competition hasn’t exactly been the stiffest, but given the morale around the program in the wake of last year’s drone scandal, you take the victories where you can get them.

The former San Diego Wave head coach has brought a refreshing no-nonsense approach to Canada. Players know where they stand with Stoney. There aren’t any mixed messages.

“She’s a straight shooter for sure,” Racing Louisville and Canada forward Janine Sonis (née Beckie) told The Equalizer in Vancouver. “She’s super professional, incredibly talented and very knowledgeable. I think it’s helpful when you have a coach that’s played at the same level that you’re playing at.

“She was a great player and had a very successful career. When you hear her speak and you listen to her teach you know that’s coming from experience. She makes the game really easy to understand which is a very special skill as a coach and one that I don’t think a lot of coaches have. We’re incredibly lucky to have her.”

Having a fresh set of eyes at the national team level and putting the drone scandal from the 2024 Paris Olympics in the rearview mirror is something Canada needed to do. Trust has been rebuilt. Players aren’t afraid to take chances, or make mistakes on the pitch. They are encouraged to play with the aggressiveness that Stoney wants to see and not be worried that a turnover is going to cost them playing time.

Canada is not playing on eggshells with Stoney at the helm.

“She’s very professional,” Portland Thorns and Canada midfielder Jessie Fleming told reporters in Vancouver following training earlier this month. “Very diligent, very clear in what she expects from us on the pitch and off the pitch. Straight forward.

“You respect her pretty quickly just by the career that she’s had as a player. The way that she talks to the group. The way that she works in the environment. She’ll tell us how it is, tell us straight, but it’s in a way that’s done with respect. You want to listen to her.” 

Canada’s tactics have shifted with Stoney implementing more of an aggressive, attack-minded approach. Canada historically sat back, played strong defense and capitalized on scoring opportunities when opposition turned the ball over. This has significantly changed. 

The Canadians want to dictate the match and play on the front foot by holding possession, attacking on the flanks with speed and using their height advantage to score off of set pieces. Canada was able to do that in the first half against Argentina in Vancouver. A Vanessa Gilles header off a set-piece led to Jade Rose pouncing on a rebound to score her first career goal. Adriana Leon helped make it two-nil in the first half on Friday when she attacked down the flank, took on pair of defenders and set up Nichelle Prince for a goal.

“We’re incredibly versatile in the way that we can play,” Sonis said. “We’ve played in literally every single formation possible. The core of our team is really used to playing in different structures. [Stoney has] come in and I think she’s chosen a structure that suits the skills of our players and allows for things on this team that people are really good at to shine.” 

When Canada is playing to the best of their abilities they can compete with anyone. Defense has always been a source of strength for Canada. In Stoney’s first five matches with Canada, the team has conceded two goals.

At the other end of the pitch, scoring continues to be hit or miss. Canada’s conversion rate in the final third is inconsistent. On Tuesday night in Langford, British Columbia, Canada’s finishing against Argentina eluded them. Chance after chance was squandered as Canada was shutout at home. Tactically, Stoney knows there’s a lot more Canada can do to improve finishing their scoring chances. 

“I think we had chances one on one that we did take,” Stoney said following the match. “I think it’s about being calm in those moments. Sometimes we’re getting into areas we can cross earlier and there’s space to attack rather than trying to get to the by-line and pick people out. Obviously it’s about getting the right numbers in and around the box. We’ve got to work on combination play and make sure that we can continue to do that in different areas. We’ve got to be able to change speed and tempo in the final third. When there’s less space, more bodies. It’s just a continuation of the work we need to do.”

Canada will potentially return to the pitch in the next international window which runs May 26 through June 3. Canada has yet to announce a match in that window. Canada will renew pleasantries with U.S. Soccer when the North American rivals meet on July 2 at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. 

The Pinatar Cup has a new champion after Canada dismantled Chinese Taipei 7-0 to hoist the trophy in Casey Stoney’s first international window as Canada’s new head coach. 

Canada went 2-0-1 in a tournament where they opened with a 1-1 draw against China, before earning a 2-0 win over Mexico. Canada dominated play by outscoring the opposition by a 10-1 margin.

Returning home to play in Canada was a lifelong dream for the native of Ontario. After six seasons in the National Women’s Soccer League with Seattle Reign, the launch of the NSL presented a chance to play on home soil in a city that Quinn loves. 

“I love the Pacific Northwest,” Quinn told reporters at their introductory press conference on Friday in Vancouver. “I think living in Seattle really made me fall in love with this coast, sorry to the east coast… It’s the place I wanted to be and it’s the place I wanted to be when I was older. This is just an amazing step to settling down in Vancouver. Being able to play for the team here is so exciting, it’s honestly been a dream since I was little.”

An Olympic gold medalist, Quinn has over 100 appearances for the Canadian national team. They have featured on the Canadian squad for the past three Olympic Games (2016, 2021, 2024) and two Women’s World Cups (2019, 2023).

This offseason Quinn was a free agent after opting to not re-sign with Seattle Reign. Quinn played the last six National Women’s Soccer League seasons with the Reign, helping the team win the NWSL Shield in 2022 and reach the Championship in 2023. In 65 matches played Quinn scored one goal and provided three assists but was a key defensive midfielder for the squad.

Quinn will join former Reign teammate Nikki Stanton in the Vancouver Rise midfield but the total roster remains thin. Only seven players have so far signed contracts with the side.

Anja Heiner-Møller will lead the team having most recently served as the head coach of Denmark’s U-19 team. She also spent some time as the head coach of Danish league side Ballerup-Skovlunde Fodbold.

Rise FC’s home matches will be played at Swangard Stadium. The 2025 NSL schedule features 25 regular-season games per team to take place from April to November, followed by a National Championship in the fall.

It’s a new era for Canadian soccer as former England captain Casey Stoney was officially unveiled as the new head coach of the Canada women’s national team on Monday. The 42 year-old Stoney joins Canada after being dismissed by the San Diego Wave in June and spending her entire coaching career at club level.

A year after signing Bev Priestman to a multi-year contract extension, Canada Soccer unexpectedly needed to hire a new coach in the wake of the drone scandal that overtook the news cycle during the Olympics group stage last summer. Canada Soccer officially fired Priestman in November after FIFA served her and assistant coach Jasmine Mander one-year suspensions for their roles in the drone scandal.

Stoney takes over as head coach after being fired from her post as San Diego Wave head coach in June. Canada had been without a head coach since the removal of Bev Priestman on the eve of the 2024 Olympics due to a drone spying scandal. An investigation led to the ousting of Priestman in November and evidence of long-term, widespread cheating.

“Canada has a proud tradition in women’s football, and I am excited to work with such a talented group of players,” Stoney said in a statement. “Together with the federation’s new leadership, we will strive to build on past successes and continue to grow the sport in Canada on and off the field. I look forward to the journey ahead and to engaging with the incredible passion of Canadian soccer fans.”

Canada Soccer has publicly endured financial struggles in recent years. Per the federation’s press release, “Stoney’s appointment is supported by philanthropic contributions to Canada Soccer, and she is the first beneficiary of a new fund established specifically to support women in elite coaching.”

The federation utilized a similar setup to secure men’s national team head coach Jesse Marsch. The three Canadian MLS teams helped fund Marsch’s salary. Canada Soccer did not immediately provide details on the nature of the fund supporting Stoney’s hire.

According to the federation, several women’s national team alumnae were involved in advisory role of the hiring of Stoney, including Stephanie Labbé, Diana Matheson, Erin McLeod, and Melissa Tancredi.

Agnus McNab, who consulted Canada on the hiring of Marsch, coordinated the search that led to the hiring of Stoney. McNab was recently announced as a strategic consultant for the Portland Thorns.

Stoney’s first games in charge of Canada will be a three-match series in Spain in February. Opponents for that tournament have not yet been announced.

She coached the Wave to the NWSL playoffs in 2022, marking the first time in NWSL history that an expansion team qualified for the postseason. Stoney was named NWSL Coach of the Year in 2022.

The Wave won the NWSL Shield the following year and Stoney signed a long-term contract extension, but she was fired a few months later as San Diego struggled through the 2024 season.

Prior to coaching San Diego, Stoney – a former England international defender with 130 caps – coached Manchester United, leading the team to promotion in its first season and finishing fourth in her two seasons in charge in the top flight.