Vancouver games show Tempo’s Canada-wide reach

Teresa Resch is preparing herself for a full-circle moment.

It’s been a year since the Toronto Tempo president stood at centre court before a WNBA game in Vancouver and announced the team would play home games in the West Coast locale.

That tilt between the Seattle Storm and Atlanta Dream drew a sold-out crowd of 15,892 – and helped fuel the people working to build Toronto’s expansion squad.

“We were in the thick of getting the team going,” Resch said. “And being able to see that game in person, knowing that neither those teams were representing Canada or any city in Canada or anything connected to the country, seeing that, it just got me so excited about what was possible.”

Now Resch is returning to Vancouver, this time with the full Tempo team.

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Toronto will host the Portland Fire on Friday and the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday at Rogers Arena. On Saturday, the team will host a fan festival with a 3×3 tournament, with player appearances and more.

“I’m just really excited to come out there. It’s been a long time coming,” Resch said. “This is part of the initial plan of being Canada’s team, playing from coast to coast … So really excited to bring the team out there.”

The Tempo (10-25) have struggled on the court this season and head into Vancouver on a 12-game losing skid. They were eliminated from playoff contention with Wednesday’s 93-82 road loss to the Washington Mystics.

From a business perspective, Resch says Toronto’s inaugural season has been a success. Every one of the Tempo’s home games at Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum has been a sell out, and she feels like the brand is being recognized across the country.

The team felt the countrywide passion in July when they played a pair of home games at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

The first matchup, a 108-95 loss to the Dallas Wings drew a crowd of 20,996, setting an attendance record for a WNBA regular-season game.

“It was pretty incredible,” Resch said. “And it’s not just that people are there; people are engaged.”

Resch has experience making a basketball team a national entity, having spent 13 years working for the Toronto Raptors.

After the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001, it took time for the Raptors to build countrywide support, with the team holding training camps and preseason games across Canada to help grow the fan base.

Visiting Montreal and Vancouver is just the beginning, she said, and creating fans across the country won’t happen in a single season.

“We look forward to learning more about our fans. That will then dictate a little bit where we go next,” she said. “And maybe Vancouver will show us such a great time that we’ll have to make sure we come back and make sure that they’re on this schedule for next year.”

Hosting games across Canada is a treat for players, too.

Many of the WNBA’s athletes are experiencing the country for the first time this season, Resch noted, whether in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.

“Canada in the summertime is incredible, and there’s no better place,” she said. “So it’s also been great just to start to put Canada on the map of women’s elite-level basketball because it hasn’t really been here before.”