The country’s top soccer teams will meet at the 2024 League1 Canada Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship starting on Friday in Hamilton, Ont., with all four participants focused on being crowned the top Pro-Am side in the nation.
This year’s competition, the third iteration of the Championship, will include Ligue1 Québec representative CS Mont-Royal Outremont, League1 Ontario representative NDC Ontario, League1 Alberta representative Calgary Blizzard and League1 BC representative Whitecaps FC Girls Elite. As League1 Canada is the highest level of women’s soccer currently played in the country, the meeting of all four provincial champions will showcase of some of the best talent in the game from coast to coast.
The excitement begins on Friday, Aug. 9 with the semifinal round, which will see NDC Ontario host CS Mont-Royal Outrement at 5:30 p.m. ET/2:30 p.m. PT, followed by Whitecaps FC Girls Elite hosting Calgary Blizzard at 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT.
The winners of those two semifinal matchups will compete in the Championship Final on Sunday, Aug. 11 at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT, while the other two teams will contest a third-place match at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT that day. All four matches will be played at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton and will be broadcast on dedicated soccer channel OneSoccer.
With the countdown to kickoff now on, here are five storylines to watch at the 2024 League1 Canada Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship:
FIRST FORAYS
Seven teams participated in the Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship over the first two iterations of the competition, with Alliance United of League1 Ontario the only squad to compete in both 2022 and 2023. That trend continues in 2024. This time, Whitecaps FC Girls Elite is the only team returning to the Inter-Provincial Championship for a second straight year. NDC Ontario, Calgary Blizzard and CS Mont-Royal Outremont will all make Inter-Provincial Championship debuts this year, featuring a whole new group of players for fans to get to know.
NATURAL RIVALRIES
They may be meeting for the first time at the Inter-Provincial Championship, but there will likely be no love lost between these four teams in the semifinal round of play on Friday. When OneSoccer hosted a live draw to determine the first-round matchup on July 28, a first for the competition, a pair of natural rivalries were born as the competition’s two eastern teams, NDC Ontario and CS Mont-Royal Outremont, and the two westerly sides, Whitecaps FC Elite Girls and Calgary Blizzard, were pitted against each other. The squads don’t know each other inside and out but all Canadians know there are natural rivalries at play whenever it’s Ontario versus Québec or Alberta versus British Columbia.
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE
The Inter-Provincial Championships of 2022 and 2023 had one significant commonality: home winners. In the inaugural competition in 2022, played in Québec, AS Blainville took the title with a 3-0 win over provincial rivals AS Laval in the Championship Final. Last year, the Whitecaps were victorious near Vancouver, beating PEF Québec 5-0 in Langley, B.C in the final match. The pressure will be on NDC Ontario as Melissa Bigg’s side looks to continue the burgeoning tradition of the home team lift the trophy after the final day of play. It will be up to the hometown crowd to help get them there.
TITLE DEFENCE
Whitecaps FC Girls Elite enter this weekend’s competition riding a high. The squad finished the League1 BC season with an undefeated record of 10-2-0, a first for the league. On Sunday, the team beat Burnaby Football Club 2-1 to win the League1 BC playoffs for a third consecutive season. Later this month, the Whitecaps will represent Canada at the inaugural Concacaf W Champions Cup, a berth the team clinched by way of winning the 2023 Inter-Provincial Championship. Between the wave of momentum the team has been riding in recent years, and the experience the Whitecaps bring to this tournament as the defending champions and only returning team, their sights will be on nothing less than a title defence.
STARS OF THE FUTURE
League1 Canada plays a significant role in the development pathway for Canadian players. To date, almost 100 players from League1 Canada’s women’s divisions have gone on to sign professional contracts. Notable alumni include Canadian women’s national team players like Vanessa Gilles, Gabrielle Carle, Evelyne Viens and Olivia Smith, among many others. So when stepping out to watch the Inter-Provincial Championship this weekend, fans won’t just be catching today’s top Canadian talent; they’ll also be getting an early look at many of the future stars of the Canadian game.
Individual match tickets for the 2024 Women’s Inter-Provincial Championship are on sale here, starting at $20. Fans can also purchase a Weekend Ticket Pack starting at $35. Each Weekend Ticket Pack also grants the ticket holder access to the inaugural League1 Ontario Women’s League2 Division Final, which will be played at Tim Hortons Field on Saturday, Aug. 10 at 1 p.m. ET. The winner of the final will earn the divisional title and promotion to the L1ON Championship Division, the second tier of the League1 Ontario competition pyramid.