{"id":37961,"date":"2026-05-09T01:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/37961\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T01:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:18:14","slug":"toronto-tempos-historic-first-game-ushers-in-new-era-for-canadian-womens-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/37961\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Tempo\u2019s historic first game ushers in new era for Canadian women\u2019s sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto Tempo guard Kia Nurse, one of the WNBA’s top Canadian players, speaks to the Coca-Cola Coliseum crowd before the first game in team history.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A sellout crowd showed up Friday night in Toronto to witness a watershed moment for women\u2019s professional sports in Canada \u2013 the inaugural game for the country\u2019s first WNBA expansion team.<\/p>\n

The 8,000-seat Coca-Cola Coliseum<\/a> was awash in white as every fan was gifted a white souvenir Toronto Tempo opening-night T-shirt. <\/p>\n

Team owners Larry and Judy Tanenbaum sat courtside, both decked out in Tempo leather jackets. There were plenty of dignitaries in the house, from WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.<\/p>\n

A poet laureate opened the night with verse. The team\u2019s sole Canadian, Kia Nurse, took the mic to welcome the crowd, challenging them to make Toronto the loudest venue in the league, to prove why Canada has long deserved a WNBA club.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like to be with a team in a new place, not knowing how it will be embraced, not knowing what the future holds? Toronto\u2019s new head coach, Sandy Brondello, didn\u2019t hesitate when asked that before the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the future is bright. I already know what it is,\u201d said Brondello, who is embarking on her 27th WNBA season, adding together her years as a player and coach. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you see the evolution of the WNBA over the last 30 years, it\u2019s quite remarkable. \u2026 The players are getting paid the right way, and the amount of people that love watching the WNBA. It is a real movement. Sponsors, everyone\u2019s getting behind us. \u2026 It may be even bigger in Canada, because we are Canada\u2019s team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brondello chose a starting lineup of veteran WNBA talent to usher in the new club as it tipped off against the Washington Mystics \u2013 Julie Allemand, Marina Mabrey, Brittney Sykes, Nyara Sabally and Temi Fagbenle. <\/p>\n

It was Sykes, better known simply as \u201cSlim,\u201d who dropped the first bucket in Tempo regular-season history \u2013 a 16-foot pull-up jumper. The crowd boomed.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Brittney Sykes drives to the hoop on Friday in the Tempo’s debut game. She scored the first points in franchise history.Michael Chisholm\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s \u201cFirst Lady of Basketball,\u201d Sylvia Sweeney, attended Friday\u2019s game 50 years after she captained Canada in the Olympic debut of women\u2019s basketball in Montreal, another massive moment for the female game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really the time and the ability to bring women from the college level into a consciousness that they deserved more,\u201d said Sweeney of that era for women\u2019s hoops. \u201cWith that consciousness, you get a groundswell of \u2018why nots?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweeney was among a group of Canadian female basketball trailblazers from across the eras whom CIBC brought to Friday\u2019s game to honour their contributions to women\u2019s hoops in this country. A group took the floor in the first quarter to a standing ovation from the crowd.<\/p>\n

Sweeney had been part of the group that helped bring the NBA\u2019s Toronto Raptors to the city in 1995. She\u2019d been approached in the past to help get a WNBA team, but the time wasn\u2019t right. She believes now that the present is the right time.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Tempo president] Teresa Resch, Larry Tanenbaum, they\u2019ve got the acumen, and the business savvy, the vision,\u201d said Sweeney, a Canadian Basketball Hall of Famer. \u201cI\u2019m proud of them. I\u2019m proud that they\u2019ve had the temerity to write the cheque.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get to know the Toronto Tempo: A fan guide<\/a><\/p>\n

Monica Wright Rogers feels uniquely qualified to lead expansion Tempo<\/a><\/p>\n

She hoped the team thinks about the legacy it leaves. It echoes something Nurse said repeatedly during training camp.<\/p>\n

The Hamilton, Ont., native reminded everyone that Canada\u2019s Olympic team on the men\u2019s side is made up entirely of NBA players, but the women\u2019s team consists of just a few WNBA players at this point, and they\u2019re all kids who idolized Vince Carter and the Raptors growing up. She said a new era for the women\u2019s game is about to take shape. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn 10 to 15 years, you\u2019re going to see all these young women on the national team, and when you have a conversation with them about where their love for basketball came from, they\u2019ll be Tempo kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s second game will be Wednesday, at home again, against the Seattle Storm.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Tempo and Mystics tip off at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Friday, initiating a new era for Canadian women’s sports.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Toronto Tempo guard Kia Nurse, one of the WNBA’s top Canadian players, speaks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,224,238,214,212,239,17,211,230,231,227,213,210,235,171,234,143,222,249,215,216,229,225,226,219,240,220,244,245,247,242,246,94,243,217,142,233,113,232,241,223,236,48,237,228,221,218,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-37961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-northwest-territories","38":"tag-nova-scotia","39":"tag-nunavut","40":"tag-ontario","41":"tag-pei","42":"tag-photos","43":"tag-political-news","44":"tag-political-opinion","45":"tag-politics","46":"tag-politics-news","47":"tag-quebec","48":"tag-sports-news","49":"tag-technology","50":"tag-toronto","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}