VANCOUVER — Brittney Griner still remembers attending her first WNBA game.
She was still in middle school when she went to see the now-defunct Houston Comets.
“It was dope. It was amazing,” said the six-foot-nine centre. “I was just like, ‘OK, here’s a model, here’s something that I can do. I can aspire to be one of them.”’
Become one of them she did.
Griner’s now in her 11th WNBA season and has become one of the league’s most recognizable names.
She blazed another trail with her Atlanta Dream teammates on Friday when they faced the Seattle Storm in Vancouver, marking the first time the league has held a regular-season game outside of the United States.
“Hopefully tonight we got some future WNBA stars coming up,” Griner said of the young fans at Rogers Arena.
A sellout crowd of 15,892 people took in the game. Players from both the B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps sat along the sidelines. Signs in the crowd read “Canada loves the WNBA,” “Everyone watches women’s sports” and “We miss the NBA in Vancouver.”
Dream guard Rhyne Howard was sure to reward the crowd before the game, taking time to sign autographs and pose for photos.
“A lot of those fans is their first WNBA game,” she explained. “They took time to come see us, so just make sure we’re paying that back.”
Seattle jumped out to a 15-point lead midway through the third quarter, but Atlanta refused to relent.
The Dream charged back and took a 71-69 lead with less than five minutes to go in the fourth and the two sides traded chances through the final minutes.
Big cheers emanated from the crowd when Storm forward Gabby Williams swiped the ball away from Howard and got it to Brittney Sykes, who sunk an uncontested shot to put Seattle up 79-76 with 55.6 seconds left on the clock.
Ezi Magbegor then sunk a free throw with 8.7 seconds to go to seal Seattle’s 80-78 win.
The atmosphere was “amazing,” said Storm guard Skylar Diggins.
“We talked about it in the locker room, it feeling like a playoff game, almost,” she said. “But we definitely felt them rally behind us. This was a great opportunity for us to, you know, be here and continue to show the WNBA international reach, and they love it out here. They showed us a lot of love.”
The Vancouver game comes during a time of explosive growth for women’s sports.
Canada’s first women’s professional soccer league, the Northern Super League, launched in April and this fall will see the Professional Women’s Hockey League expand to eight teams with new franchises in Vancouver and Seattle.
The WNBA is growing, too, with the addition of the Toronto Tempo next season.
Having a Canadian team will help grow Canadian talent, said Storm head coach Noelle Quinn.
“The exposure that a team like Toronto can give to the youth, and what that can do for inspiring that segment of young individuals who want to play, and then keeping them local, and developing the talent there. … I think to me, it’s more the exposure than anything that can really, I guess, expedite that process, but also make them a lot better,” she said.
Tempo president Teresa Resch and general manager Monica Wright Rogers were at the game in Vancouver on Friday and had a special announcement for the crowd: the new team will play in Vancouver twice during their inaugural season.
Quinn hopes kids who come out to WNBA games in Vancouver leave continuing to “hope and dream big.”
“Obviously, professional basketball is coming to Canada. There are a lot of opportunities, more opportunities, for young girls to be able to not only see but participate, walk away with, a vibe and a good feel that the W is in a good place,” she said.
“And from the talent to sponsorship to the viewership and all those things, it is a good time to be a fan and hopefully continue to inspire the dreams of the youth.”
Toronto is one of five cities getting a WNBA team over the next five years. The Portland Fire will also start play in 2026, followed by Cleveland in 2028, Detroit in 2029 and Philadelphia in 2030. Nine other cities bidded for expansion franchises.
It’s a big change from the WNBA Nneka Ogwumike entered back in 2012.
“The conversations around the health of the league were not incredibly inspiring when I was drafted. It was kind of impressed upon us that we should make our money elsewhere and just focus on your individual accolades,” said the Storm forward.
“But now we’re at a point where we’re playing more games, almost twice as many as we did then, several years ago. And we’re able to play in different cities, we’re able to expand to different cities. I never really imagined being in the league while all this was happening, but I’m very grateful to be a part of it and to continue to be a part of it.”
There’s still ample work to be done, including on a new collective bargaining agreement.
Players expressed their dissatisfaction with the current deal — which expires in October — at last month’s all-star game, wearing warmup shirts that said “Pay us what you owe us.”
Overall, though, the league is in a good place right now, Griner said.
“Countless, countless hours of time have been put in by everybody — players from our organizations, the league — on trying to build this up and be sustainable to be here for the younger girls that are coming in,'” she said.
“And I’m just grateful and so happy that I’m here to be a part of this. Because this is something that we always wanted, but we’re actually seeing it happen.”
