Midfielder Quinn excited to create opportunities with NSL's Vancouver Rise

Quinn is pictured during an announcement of their signing to the Vancouver Rise in Vancouver, on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (Ethan Cairns / The Canadian Press)

VANCOUVER — Being a trailblazer is nothing new for Canadian midfielder Quinn.

Now the Olympic gold medallist is breaking ground once again, signing with Vancouver Rise FC and becoming one of the biggest players to join the Northern Super League ahead of its inaugural season.

Being part of the first professional women’s soccer league in Canada is a surreal experience, Quinn said Friday.

“Growing up in Toronto, I think every opportunity the national team came to town, I was begging my parents to take me. It was really the only opportunity I got to see professional soccer players in action,” they said. “I didn’t even dream of playing professionally because I didn’t understand that, because it had never been in my home backyard.”

Canada’s top women’s soccer players have long had to move to the U.S. or overseas to pursue their careers, leaving family and friends behind, and often putting their personal lives on pause in the process.

Quinn played six seasons with the Seattle Reign of the National Women’s Soccer League, where they won the National Women’s Soccer League Shield in 2022. They also spent time with Paris FC in France, Swedish side Vittsjo GIK and the NWSL’s Washington Spirit.

The lack of a women’s pro league has been a “glaring gap” in Canadian soccer history, Quinn said, especially when virtually every other top country in the world has a place for its athletes to play and grow.

When the NSL kicks off April 16, the girls currently learning and loving soccer on fields across Canada will finally have the same chance.

“I think this is just such an incredible opportunity for young athletes to finally see themselves and what their future can look like on the pitch,” Quinn said. “That’s the most exciting thing for me, is to be able to show the younger generation of such talented athletes that we’re seeing now that there’s an opportunity for them, there’s an opportunity for them right now.”

The five-foot-10 midfielder has already inspired the next generation of players, making over 100 appearances for Canada. They helped the country to Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games, bronze at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and played in two World Cups.

They’ve made history, too.

Quinn became the first openly transgender, nonbinary athlete to win an Olympic medal in 2021 and play at the FIFA World Cup in 2023.

They were also the first trans, nonbinary athlete in the NWSL and said being open pushed the league to reassess its policies and find ways to be more inclusive.

Quinn hopes for the same in the NSL.

“I think this is just another aspect that will push this league to be the most inclusive league in the world. And I think that there is a really great opportunity for that,” they said. “So to set that standard, I think, is a really exciting thing.”

Adding Quinn to the roster is a big deal for the Rise, said head coach Anja Heiner-Moller.

“For them to come in to inspire fans, but also players with that huge experience they have from NWSL and the Canadian women’s national team, that’s of huge importance,” she said.

The new addition will not only help elevate Vancouver’s other players, but attract new talent and set the tone for the team, said Rise president Sinead King.

It’s important for the NSL as a whole to have big-name players, she added.

“This is a professional league. It’s going to be exciting to watch as players that are at the peak of their career that want to be playing here,” King said. ”And I think that’s turning heads and making people more and more excited to see our inaugural season and how competitive the games are going to be.”

In Vancouver, Quinn will be reunited with several familiar faces.

Former national team goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe is the club’s sporting director and Canadian defender Shannon Woeller was the Rise’s first signing. Last week, the team announced it had inked veteran NWSL midfielder Nikki Stanton, who Quinn played with in Seattle.

The squad will continue to grow, too, Heiner-Moller said.

“The market is still open, so a lot can happen and change and all these things,” she said. ”But as long as we are confident in how we want to play and what we’re looking for, I’m very confident that we’ll build a great team that, of course, will develop during the season.”

Quinn expects the Rise “to be pushing the standard” when the six-team NSL begins play this spring.

“I think with my decision to join this organization, it was with the full confidence that this is the team that’s going to be pushing the standard both on and off the field of what professional soccer should look like in Canada,” they said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2025.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press