The chill of the evening air was no match for the electric atmosphere at Langford's Starlight Stadium, where a sell-out crowd of 5,611 fans had gathered to watch the Canadian national women's soccer team take on Argentina.
It was hard to tell who was cheering more though: the red-and-white clad, flag-waving men with coordinated chants sitting in the supporters section behind one goal line, or the group of young Cowichan girls that had joined them.
While the U11 Cowichan Golden Knights soccer squad was living it up with the evergreen supporters at one end of the pitch, another young Cowichan player nabbed a coveted spot as a ball girl at the other. The stadium was no doubt the place to be for any soccer lover on Vancouver Island.
They weren't the only ones from the Cowichan region to have made the trip. There were many. And they were joined by players and their families from near and far.
Though just a 45-minute trip south from Duncan, a two-hour game with a 7 p.m. start time plus another 45 minutes home added up to a real commitment for a school night. But it was worth the trip.
All this hype for a women's soccer game.
You see, if you want to watch higher level men's sports, there's no shortage on Vancouver Island. The Canadian Premier League's Pacific FC plays out of Starlight Stadium, the WHL's Victoria Royals are at the Save-On-Foods Centre for roughly 34 games a year, and the Victoria HarbourCats and Nanaimo NightOwls have things covered on the baseball front. That's not including junior 'A' hockey either.
For women though, the chances to see elite sports close to home are few and far between. That fact was not lost on the Canadian national team players who said they love playing on the country's west coast.
London, Ontario's Shelina Zadorsky, 32 wore the captain's armband for the match.
"When we come out west, we're always greeted by really nice people," Zadorsky said. 鈥淎ny time we play in Canada, it means so much. No matter where it is, part of our heart is there."
Playing out west means something extra special to the likes of Vancouver鈥檚 Julia Grosso, 24, one of just three players on Canada's April roster to hail from somewhere other than Quebec or Ontario.
鈥淚t means the world to me to play here," Grosso said. "I had Christine Sinclair and Sophie Schmidt as mentors, and I vividly remember watching them because they were from B.C. and I was like 'that's so cool.'"
She understands that it means the same to girls now.
鈥淚 hope to be the same for other young girls in the crowd and hopefully have a little impact on them," she said. "It means the world to me to be that for them."
What a life-changing gift to our little girls 鈥� for them to be able to see themselves in the ones they admire.
While the Golden Knights cheered themselves hoarse, Cowichan's ball-girl was getting a pitch-side view of her favourite player, Adriana Leon, in action. Elsewhere in the stadium, a different group of girls were nearly melting with glee after merely touching a ball that had gone out of play. Near the merchandise table, yet another young player was beaming after putting on her brand new Team Canada jersey.
They say representation matters and the impact of women's sports was on full display.
For many young girls in attendance, it was more than just a soccer match. It was a chance to see their idols in action, to believe in their own potential, and to imagine themselves on the national stage one day.
Luckily for them, the opportunities are finally increasing with Canada's first professional women's soccer league, the Northern Super League, having kicked off on April 16, and other professional opportunities opening up across the globe.
For many young girls, the question is no longer 'if' but 'when' they'll don the maple leaf and take their place among the nation's best.
But that doesn't happen without support.
So let's continue to support women's sports, to cheer on our favourite teams, and to empower the next generation of female athletes to ask: 'why not me?'"
