Sarah Taylor, the Conquerall Mills, N.S., soccer midfielder who played professionally in Israel’s Ligat HaAl premier league until she injured her knee a couple of years ago, knows all about endings. But it’s the sense of a new beginning that’s got her thinking, and talking, today by phone from Calgary, where she coaches under-10 girls teams. “I always wanted to play at the highest level, and I still have that dream. I’m 28. I’m at the point where if I want to do it again, I have to do it now.”
She may have that chance if Diana Matheson, one of Canada’s soccer superstars, who scored the bronze-medal winning goal against France in the 2012 Olympics and who now operates out of Toronto, and Courtney Sherlock, a Halifax businesswoman, have anything to say about the future of the sport in this country. They and a few handfuls others are doing what would have seemed unlikely to most soccer pundits only a few years ago: While Matheson leads the launch of Canada’s first professional women’s league, Sherlock is fielding the Halifax team, one of six from across the country, that will compete.
“The fact that Canadians have had to leave their country to play professionally has always been mind-boggling to me,” says Taylor. “It’s so amazing that, finally, a pro league is coming to Canada and there’s an opportunity in my own province. So ... yeah, my goal is to play for the Tides starting in April.”
That’s Halifax Tides FC. And the ball does indeed drop on April 1, 2025. Or that’s the plan, which has a lot riding on it. “I’ve put together my foundation team of employees,” Tides’ CEO Sherlock says. “I have my president, chief business officer, business development manager, marketing manager, and sporting director,” plus countless talented young players around the world looking for the same chance Taylor is: To finally get paid to play at home. Adds Sherlock: “It’s a calculated risk. But I’m good with that.”
Ottawa, Montreal, and Vancouver have all announced clubs for the new Northern Super League, as have AFC Toronto and Calgary Wild FC. Then there’s the league’s founding CEO Matheson herself, whom people tend to describe as a force of nature. It was she, more than anyone, who seemed to erupt like a dormant volcano in the fall of 2022, demanding a solution to the long-infuriating question: Why did Canada, virtually alone in the soccer world, not have a professional women’s league of its own, despite fans clamouring for one? “What’s the point,” she asked in a CBC interview in 2020, “if we’re not aiming high?”
The message seemed to hit the goal this time, and by June of this year she had enough investors to turn a mere project into a working reality. “We are thrilled that after years without a professional women’s domestic soccer league, the Northern Super League will fill a significant void in Canada,” she said in a press release. “We are proud to launch with a name that will instill pride in all those who play and love the game.”
For Sherlock, who still calls herself “just a soccer mom,” watching Matheson in action was eye-opening and galvanizing. “I don’t play but my daughters do, and it was just staggering for me to learn that of the 32 women’s teams that play in the FIFA World Cup, Canada and Haiti the only two countries that don’t have a league.” She reached out to Halifax entrepreneur Miriam Zitner, who also has a daughter who plays soccer. Zitner and others were looking for investors to get a Halifax team off the ground for the new league.
That was last November, before the national league had even settled on a name. “There were five other teams that were committed to the league but nothing east of Montreal, so I just thought, ‘How can it be a national league if Halifax or Atlantic Canada is not represented?’” says Sherlock. “That was just more fuel to our fire, and I realized we really needed somebody here to actually take it on, to take on the responsibility. So, I said, ‘Why not me?’”
She may not have been a football pro, but she knew how to run a business, having owned and operated Eastern Passage Vet Hospital for more than a decade. That kind of savvy came in handy in June when, before a crowd of municipal dignitaries and well-wishers at Casino Nova Scotia on the Halifax waterfront, she unveiled the team’s name and logo, a rendering of crashing waves against four stripes representing the pre-amalgamation municipalities of Halifax, Dartmouth, Beford, and Halifax County.
All of which drew smiles from Matheson.
“Courtney knows fully what she’s getting into,” she told CBC. “She doesn’t come from soccer, but from strong business fundamentals. She’s excited about bringing women’s pro soccer to Halifax and what that means for the community, for women in sport, and women in business … It’s her home market.”
Dartmouth born-and-raised Mary Beth Bowie, a former midfielder for Canada’s national women’s soccer team, an early organizer of The Tides, and currently a girls’ soccer coach in Halifax, concurs. “Courtney has really put everything into action, and we are grateful for that.” At 45, she says, “This league would have been absolutely perfect for somebody like me eight years ago when there were very few opportunities to play (professionally).”
Now, in the run-up to game day, Sherlock says, “We are actively trying to get our name out there, making sure that we have brand recognition, and that people know about us. There are a lot of opportunities for sponsorships and we’re really looking for the business community in Atlantic Canada to step up and help.”
Her sporting directors and coaches have had their hands full scouting for the all-important players who will fill the pitch. “At the professional level, soccer is a small community. Who are the qualified Canadian players who can’t play professionally right now in Canada? There’s 150 of them spread out all over the place.”
Players like Taylor. Even before injury sidelined her in 2022, she knew Israel really wasn’t where she wanted to be. Growing up on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, a talented player, it always seemed she had to go away to get anywhere. And so, she played at Boise State University in Idaho, competed at the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, and won Nova Scotia Female Athlete of the Year award in 2017 for her far-flung achievements. She was 25 when she scored the Ligat HaAl slot, her first professional gig.
“I’ve been recovering and I’m kind of just returning back to the field,” she says of her knee. “And with the pro league coming, I’ve decided I want to play again ... I mean, Halifax is the perfect city for this, because people love soccer there. But more than this, think of all the little girls who will be able to see all these professional players in their own backyard and thinking, ‘You know, I can be just like that right here one day.’”
This story was originally published in December 2024.