A professional women’s soccer club is coming to Halifax next year, and will offer an in-country option for professional players beyond the university level.
The club is one of four debuting in Canada over the next couple of years as part of Project 8, a national women’s soccer league pilot project. The other clubs are located in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.
Atlantic Women’s Football Club CEO Courtney Sherlock says this league is something Canada should have had a long time ago.
“Of the 20 of the 32 countries that participate in the FIFA World Cup for women’s soccer, two of those countries do not have the national league: Canada and Haiti. So it’s crazy how far behind we are in Canada and we have so many talented players,” Sherlock says.
Chelsea Foote played university soccer for three years but found once she graduated, she had nowhere to go to continue her career. She agrees this Canadian league is a long time coming.
“I think it’s about time that we get some high-level women’s soccer here,” Foote says. “For the longest time, it’s just been Triple-A, which is usually university players, ex-university players. But, yeah, it’s about time that we get something like that.”
There are a lot of big plans for the Halifax club.
“We’re going to set up an academy program,” Sherlock says.
The program will be in place to support young women on their path forward after university.
Rebecca Mackenzie-Hopkins is a Senior A soccer player and describes herself as a “modern soccer mom.” She says this academy program is exciting because it could open up opportunities for her daughter if she decides to pursue soccer professionally.
“She watches me play. I’m obviously not at that calibre, but she’s really interested in the sport too and wants to play,” Mackenzie-Hopkins says. “Who knows, at a certain level she could be somebody who might have the opportunity to play on a team like this.”
Mackenzie-Hopkins also says there’s a growing thirst for women’s sports and people want to see women play.
“We’ve shown when we have the women’s national team here, that we can fill the (Halifax) Wanderers’ grounds.”
Even though the enthusiasm is here for women’s soccer, there is still a lot of work to do before Halifax is introduced to its team. Sherlock says the team name and brand will be announced in a couple of months. After that, events, early ticket sales and more will roll out throughout the summer and fall.
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