![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788082824_358_default.jpg\")
Despite losing to her Australian team, Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello is confident ‘Canada is going to be fine.\u2019 (Michael Chisholm\/Getty Images)Canada wins pre-qualifying tournament<\/p>\nIt was a cruel twist of fate.<\/p>\n
Just three days before the WNBA and its players landed on a new collective bargaining agreement \u2014 one that would officialize Canada\u2019s first WNBA team\u2019s inaugural season \u2014 the country\u2019s national team was dealt a blow.<\/p>\n
It was eliminated from World Cup contention. And by Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello\u2019s Australian team, no less.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like, they\u2019re going to kick me out now. And in the end I had to remember what hat I\u2019m wearing and what name I have across the front of my chest,\u201d Brondello said, citing a bit of awkwardness at her conflicting roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a hard-fought game. I feel sorry for Canada. I think they\u2019re a really strong team and they\u2019ve got some great young players coming through, so they\u2019re gonna be strong for years and sometimes you need a little reset to get back up. We did the same thing after Tokyo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada\u2019s going to be fine. I know they\u2019ve got the Swords [sisters] and got some great players from the college system and they get their hands on them and add to that, I think they\u2019re going to be in a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, the WNBA will break for two-and-a-half weeks to allow its players to compete at the World Cup, which begins in Berlin Sept. 4. Canada, thanks to that 82-76 loss to an already-qualified Australian squad in March, won\u2019t be there, even despite a fourth-place finish at the 2022 edition of the event.<\/p>\n
Despite losing to her Australian team, Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello is confident ‘Canada is going to be fine.\u2019 (Michael Chisholm\/Getty Images)Canada wins pre-qualifying tournament<\/p>\n
Some better news arrived Sunday, when Canada crushed Mexico 83-53 to complete a 5-0 pre-qualifying tournament in Guadalajara and book its spot in a 2028 Olympic qualifier set for that February.<\/p>\n
Syla Swords, the 20-year-old mentioned by Brondello as one of Canada\u2019s bright young stars alongside sister Savvy, won tournament MVP after averaging 14.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.2 assists and one steal per game.<\/p>\n
It sets Canada up with a relatively low-stakes next 17 months and a prime opportunity to build chemistry, lay groundwork and allow next-generation players like Swords to continue maturing and evolving as basketball players.<\/p>\n
The team that ran through Mexico was made up of six veterans (think Kayla Alexander, Sami Hill) and six younger players, including NCAAers Syla Swords (Michigan), Agot Makeer (South Carolina), Delaney Gibb (BYU) and others. Head coach Nell Fortner called it a perfect mix \u2014 and was especially impressed by the latter contingent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re built a little differently. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but their commitment is so strong to the sport of basketball and to their country,\u201d Fortner said.<\/p>\n
Swords, especially, continued to show that she could be Canada\u2019s next basketball star.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe played fearless. I tell you what, she showed us all and anybody watching what an extraordinary shooter she is, from her quick release to her accuracy to her consistency. And she’s just already a pro, she carries herself like a pro and it was really fun to coach her,\u201d Fortner said.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s no denying that giving Swords and her peers the World Cup stage to grow on would have been ideal. Canada, now ranked seventh by FIBA and with its WNBA players on board, lost three of five games in the March tournament in a pool with just one team ranked higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I wish we were at the World Cup? Heck yeah,\u201d Fortner said. \u201cBut we did the next best thing. And that was important for us to do that. We committed to it. Everybody dug into it, from players to coaching staff. And we accomplished it. And that’s very encouraging moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group of six young NCAAers also featured Avery Howell (Washington), Cearah Parchment (Illinois) and Jasmine Bascoe (Villanova). Meanwhile, Michigan\u2019s Mila Holloway was in camp with the team but missed the tournament due to injury, per Fortner. Duke star Toby Fournier was not with the team during the summer, per Fortner, who added that \u201cwe surely would have loved to have had her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Canadian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788082825_483_default.jpg\")
While disappointed Canada won’t be competing at the World Cup, head coach Nell Fortner, centre, believes winning the pre-qualification tournament is the next best thing, (Burak Basturk\/Middle East Images\/AFP via Getty Images)Canadian talent at NCAA level<\/p>\n
It is hard, if not impossible, to recall a time when there has been this much Canadian talent at the NCAA level \u2014\u00a0in line with the explosion of the sport during this decade.<\/p>\n
Fortner, the 67-year-old from Jackson, Miss., watched a similar thing happen in her home country as head coach and general manager of the expansion Indiana Fever in 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden, you’re looking at players, little girls growing up, knowing that they want to be a professional basketball player. Oh my gosh, that’s phenomenal.\u00a0 And the number of young women playing basketball, it’ll explode very soon in Canada, and that’s exciting,\u201d Fortner said.<\/p>\n
In an interview with select media just before the Tempo tipped off their regular season, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert also mused on how impactful the Tempo could be for the national program.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially on the grassroots. For young girls to be able to come into Toronto no matter where they’re from in Canada \u2014 obviously we’re doing a couple games in Montreal and Vancouver \u2014 and see professional basketball players, I think it’ll inspire a bunch of girls, as I said, to pick up a basketball who probably wouldn’t have otherwise picked up a basketball, especially if they see someone who looks like them, plays like them, is like them,\u201d Engelbert said.<\/p>\n
For now, Canada has those 17 months to prepare for its one shot to compete at the Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n
Fortner said she hopes to gather the team, including its WNBAers, for a training camp next February. Canada\u2019s biggest tournament ahead of the Olympic qualifier will be the FIBA AmeriCup next July in El Salvador.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re not learning something new every time they come to a training camp. We’re just building, continuing to grow what we do offensively and defensively,\u201d Fortner said.<\/p>\n
After Brondello\u2019s Team Australia \u201creset\u201d in the wake of an eighth-place finish at Tokyo 2020, it went on to beat Canada for bronze at the 2022 World Cup before claiming another third-place finish at the 2024 Olympics.<\/p>\n
Success may not be quite so swift for the Canadians, but the building blocks appear in place to turn the World Cup step backward into two forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a cruel twist of fate. Just three days before the WNBA and its players landed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-876873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}