Everybody is aware of the wrestle of maintaining together with your long-distance mates. Making an attempt to maintain up together with your long-distance Olympic teammates could even be extra of a battle in case you play skilled girls’s basketball.
Such girls usually play all yr spherical, everywhere in the world. From the WNBA in the US, to leagues in Europe, Asia and Australia, to the other season schedules of the WNBA and NCAA school basketball, girls’s basketball has change into an all-year sport. However for the Canadian Ladies’s Nationwide workforce, who’re hoping to make a return to each the 2026 World Cup in Germany in addition to the 2028 Summer time Olympics in Los Angeles, staying related is of utmost significance.
The Canadian Program appears particularly unfold out globally — Kia Nurse, Bridget Carleton, Aaliyah Edwards, Laeticia Amihere and now Yvonne Ejim are presently in WNBA coaching camps throughout the US. Amihere and Carleton spent their offseason enjoying in Europe, whereas Nurse was between Toronto, working as a broadcaster, and Nashville, enjoying in Athletes Limitless. Edwards stayed within the US however headed all the way down to Miami to take part within the Unequalled 3×3 league. Younger stars in Syla Swords, Avery Howell, Cass Prosper and Toby Fournier simply completed their school seasons. Sami Hill, Kayla Alexander, and Shay Colley are all wrapping up their seasons in Europe. You may see the way it could also be tough to get everybody collectively for a sport of pick-up.
However the workforce’s busy schedules don’t cease them from connecting, as Aaliyah Edwards identified at Washington Mystics media day. All of them have the identical objective — getting onto the rostrum — whether or not it’s on the World Cup subsequent fall in Germany or on the subsequent Olympic Video games in 2028. That want to show themselves as a workforce and to point out the World the potential of Canada Basketball as a program retains all of them centered regardless of the place they’re.
“We have now a (WhatsApp) chat,” mentioned Edwards, who’s gearing up for her second season within the WNBA.
“All of us present up and we at all times test in, we’ve got ‘Would You Moderately’ Wednesday,” she added with fun.
A lot of the workforce will come collectively for the Ladies’s FIBA Americup in June/July 2025, other than the WNBA gamers who will probably be enjoying of their season. Canada has been drawn into Group A together with the Dominican Republic, Argentina, El Salvador and Brazil. From there, they are going to head into qualifying tournaments for the 2026 World Cup, hoping to comply with up on their 4th place end on the 2022 World Cup in Australia.
The workforce had a disappointing displaying on the Paris Olympics in 2024, the place they went 0-3 and didn’t make it out of their group. Leaving that event, this system goes by lots of modifications, parting methods with their teaching employees from this previous cycle. Staff captain and veteran Natalie Achonwa additionally introduced her retirement.
This subsequent worldwide cycle will welcome a brand new era of expertise to this system, most notably younger stars like Syla Swords. Swords made a number of all-conference groups at Michigan this previous yr, after changing into the youngest individual in Canadian historical past to symbolize the nation in Olympic Basketball.
With all of this alteration occurring, the workforce has managed to remain related. Edwards notes how “refreshing” it’s when she will get to see her teammates on the street in the course of the WNBA season. Whereas Edwards performs with the Mystics, Carleton is with the Minnesota Lynx, Nurse is in Chicago with the Sky, and Amihere will probably be enjoying in Golden State with the Valkyries. Yvonne Ejim was drafted by the Indiana Fever and will probably be vying for a roster spot forward of opening day.
Even when they’re aside, the Canadians are one another’s greatest hype girls. When Edwards made it to the Finals of the Unequalled 1-on-1 event earlier this yr, her Canada teammates had been throughout social media hyping her up.
So far as preserving that chemistry alive as they put together for an additional cycle of worldwide competitors, Edwards says it’s “by no means a problem.” She’s at all times thrilled to test in along with her teammates on-line and may’t wait to hit the ground for Staff Canada once more quickly.
