With WNBA expansion into Toronto unlikely, Canadian women's national team remains only game in town

As professional women's sports in Canada continue to grow — just look at the Professional Women's Hockey League, or Project Eight's incoming soccer league — basketball has hit a snag.

Despite some proof of concept with a sell-out crowd for a WNBA exhibition game in May in Toronto, the Toronto Star reported last month that MLSE pulled back on bidding for a franchise.

"Obviously disappointed," Minnesota Lynx forward Bridget Carleton, the lone Canadian to play in the exhibition game, told CBC Sports on Wednesday from the MLSE Launchpad in Toronto, where the senior women's national team marked its continued partnership with the Toronto Raptors by holding a girls basketball clinic.

The WNBA announced in October it is adding a 13th team in the Bay Area in 2025. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the hope is for one more franchise to join at the same time.

But with that second team now unlikely to come to Canada, there remains just one game in town — the women's national team, which placed fourth at the World Cup a year ago and begins its Olympic qualifying journey with a tournament starting Thursday in Colombia.

The senior men's team punched its ticket while also winning a bronze medal at the World Cup in September. If the women also get in, it would be the first time both teams are at the Olympics together since 2000.

"I think it would mean the world," said Kia Nurse, a two-time Olympian and guard with the Seattle Storm. "That's way more exposure for basketball in Canada because the Olympics, as crazy as it is, you train four years for two weeks and that is the most high-pressure situation that you can be in."

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If Canada's men's and women's 3x3