Canada’s Bridget Carleton thriving as leader of WNBA’s other expansion team

The Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire insist they aren’t paying special attention to each other.

But as expansion sisters, they will be inextricably linked and compared to each other forever — whether they like it or not.

Through seven games, each team is hovering around .500 with the Tempo at 3-4 and the Fire at 4-3.

On Saturday, the Fire came to Toronto, providing an opportune time to compare the WNBA’s newest teams.

Judging by those 40 minutes, the Fire — who won 99-80 — have the early edge. But early is the operative word there, and the way each roster was built would suggest Toronto has more immediate success.

Still, over in Portland, there is at least one player who will admit to keeping half an eye on the Tempo: Canadian national team star and Chatham, Ont., native Bridget Carleton.

“To have a real game here, it hasn’t really sunk in,” Carleton said. “Just really, really cool that it’s real. Like, Toronto had a team, Canada has a team, it’s pretty awesome.”

Bridget Carleton helps Portland Fire defeat Toronto Tempo

Carleton only requested 20 tickets for the game, but she estimated over 50 friends and family showed up — and that’s excluding youth basketball groups from her hometown who were also there to cheer her on.

And while Carleton reminded multiple times that she is not from Toronto — “I’m a tourist too” — she did take her Fire teammates for dinner at the Thai restaurant Pai, which had Megan Gustafson impressed.

“I think that’s a big part of expansion too is wanting to build chemistry because you kind of get thrown to the fire with completely new teammates," Carleton said. "But our coaches really prioritized getting to know each other, building connections on and off the court."

In Toronto, similar team-building