In April 2025, Halifax Tides FC will make their way onto the Garrison Grounds pitch as the first face of women’s professional soccer on the East Coast of Canada.
Despite an Olympic Gold Medal and a sixth-placed FIFA international ranking to the Canada women’s national soccer team’s repertoire, Canada remains without a professional women’s soccer league. This is until the Northern Super League kick-off in front of six soccer-hungry stadiums across the country. Those six clubs will be Calgary Wild FC, Halifax Tides FC, Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC, AFC Toronto and Vancouver Rise FC.
The regular season will consist of a 25-game slate for each club, who will fight for a top-four seed to move on to the playoffs. There, the teams will go through a knockout stage where the semifinal winners will move on to the final. The victors will be crowned NSL Champions. Starting in 2026 they will move on to compete in the CONCACAF Women’s Champions Cup.
Halifax Tides FC
The success of the Canada women’s national soccer team and the void of a women’s professional soccer league caught the eye of Courtney Sherlock. She joined Halifax Tides FC as the CEO because she felt “it was the right thing to do.”
“I didn’t know that,” Sherlock said, referring to the lack of a professional women’s Canadian soccer league. “And I’m astounded by that.”
Sherlock is an entrepreneur and veterinarian from Fall River, N.S. who never played soccer but was introduced to the sport by her children. Sherlock found out about a domestic league in Canada through a mutual friend and felt if they were going to have a league throughout the country they better include the East Coast.
“How do we call ourselves a national league, if we’re not representing coast to coast,” Sherlock said.
After countless meetings, discussions and research, Sherlock signed the letter of intent to own and Halifax Tides FC was born. The Tides will share the same home as the Halifax Wanderers in the Canadian Premier League at the Garrison Grounds.
The badge of Halifax emphasizes the club’s Atlantic Ocean roots by being a naval ship shape and donning cyan to match the water.
“We’ve integrated a lot of concepts into our name and logo that will reflect where we are,” Sherlock said.
“An incredible opportunity”
Sherlock said one of the reasons why she entered the Halifax Tides FC project was because of the exponential rise of women’s sports and the growth of women’s soccer.
2023’s FIFA Women’s World Cup’s attendance grew 29 per cent compared to the 2019 tournament, while Canada’s neighbours, the United States broke the record for the most watched women’s World Cupgame in United history when they played the Netherlands. Other sports such as women’s basketball and hockey have sprung to new heights as well.
The Halifax Tides FC are looking to continue to grow women’s soccer in Canada as they set their vision on inspiring future generations and giving a platform for women’s soccer players to stay on the East Coast.
Sherlock said if you’re a women’s soccer player in Canada you are forced to go to one of three National Development Centres in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver; then if you make it professionally you have to move out of the country.
“It’s going to allow there to be an opportunity for girls all across the country, especially Atlantic Canada where there’s been no opportunity,” Sherlock said. “For those who play, it’s going to be an opportunity for them to grow their skills. And for those who are younger, they can see others ahead of them.”
Sherlock said the Tides plan to introduce an academy for youth in the community and said there is a lack of infrastructure in Nova Scotia for soccer which the group plans to work on.
“We have a serious lack of indoor fields, we can’t play outside in the later months of the year,” Sherlock said.
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