Canada's first-ever WNBA game will kick off in Toronto today. Could a franchise expansion be next?
CTV
A sold-out pre-season match between the Lynx and Chicago Sky at the Scotiabank Arena this afternoon will mark the WNBA’s first-ever game on Canadian soil.
Micaella Riche remembers her first exposure to the WNBA like it was yesterday.
Riche was a freshman at the University of Minnesota in 2010 when then Minnesota Lynx point guard Lindsay Whalen came to one of her practices.
Growing up in the Ottawa area, Riche had never seen professional women’s basketball up close and said that she barely even knew of the WNBA’s existence back then.
What she saw on the court, changed the way she viewed the game and her place in it.
Now ahead of the WNBA’s first ever game on Canadian soil – a sold out pre-season match between the Lynx and Chicago Sky at the Scotiabank Arena this afternoon - Riche is hoping other young girls with big dreams won’t have to wait as long to see world-class women’s basketball up close.
“The pace at which she (Whalen) played and how much she elevated our practice was incredible and I remember just thinking like this is a whole other level of basketball that I've never seen before. It was like ‘Whoa, there's a whole lot more to this’ you know,” Riche told CP24.com this week, recalling the practice. “It has changed now with social media but to see it (the WNBA) in real life, in front of your eyes, is absolutely a different experience. Not only does it make it more attainable but it also just makes it more tangible.”
Toronto has long been rumoured as a potential home for a WNBA expansion franchise and today’s game, which sold out in less than 24 hours, will likely only contribute to those rumours.