Turns out the World Cup is just what Canada needed

Let’s be honest: We didn’t know how this World Cup hosting gig would turn out.

Sure, there are football fans here. But in Canada, the game is known as soccer – the first giveaway that you are not a true football nation. Any pretournament excitement was drowned out by moaning (guilty as charged) over the exorbitant costs the country was incurring for the “privilege” of hosting 13 games, six in Toronto and seven in Vancouver.

But once the tournament began, a funny thing happened. We all became crazed soccer – I mean football – fans.

Who knew the World Cup would be just what this country needed, at just the right time? It might have been just what the entire planet needed, given the depressing state of affairs just about everywhere.

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But it hasn’t been the best time for this country in recent months. Or at least since – checks notes to see when Donald Trump began his second term in office – Jan. 20, 2025.

We needed something else to focus on. Something fun and uplifting.

“We live in difficult times,” John Furlong, the president and chief executive of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic organizing committee, told me. “Often, we don’t know what’s the next bad news we will wake up to. It felt like for the World Cup, people needed to celebrate and be together. Our citizens showed up. We’re good at that. And I think anyone who came here will remember that.”

Yes, we also needed something to be a little prideful about, and on that front, Toronto and Vancouver both did us proud as host cities.

Toronto hosted only one game involving Canada. But that didn’t matter. The city showed visitors just how cosmopolitan it is. Every team that played at Toronto Stadium had plenty of supporters from local environs to make them feel right at home.

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That was never more true than for the city’s sixth and final game involving Portugal and its resident superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. After the game, the global icon was serenaded by Portuguese (and other) fans outside his Toronto hotel room, prompting him to make a curtain call from his balcony.

While BMO Field is certainly small compared with the stadiums that soccer’s biggest names are used to playing on, it held up just fine. Players raved about the ambience.

And then there was Vancouver.

It is the supermodel of Canadian cities. Yes, it has its problems – many, in fact – but on a clear sunny day, against a backdrop of mountains and an ocean, there aren’t many places on Earth that turn out better for the cameras. The images of Vancouver transmitted around the globe through the World Cup were incredible. First-timers to the city were gobsmacked by its splendour.

Of the 13 cities that shared North American hosting duties, none could compare to Vancouver’s raw beauty.

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And for the near month that the World Cup has been on, the city has been in full-on celebration mode. The downtown core has been transformed into a no-vehicle party zone. The march to BC Place for the two matches involving Team Canada drew thousands of fans. The stadium’s much-discussed grass field – lovingly cultivated for a year ahead of the tournament at a local sod farm – was a smash hit with players. The 50,000-plus BC Place was sold out for all seven matches.

It all conspired to give off a vibe the city hasn’t felt since it hosted the Winter Games 16 years ago.

“I think our hosting duties lived up to their calling of being a nation-building event for Canada,” Mr. Furlong said. “Once again, we looked capable, quietly confident, ready, enthusiastic, welcoming and proud.”

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There is little question Canada is more of a soccer nation today than it was a month ago. There will be more girls and boys signing up for the sport, just as there were more kids signing up for baseball this spring after the Blue Jays’ magical run to the World Series last October.

On that front, the two events – the World Series and World Cup – had something in common in terms of the pan-national feeling of pure joy they both engendered.

In Vancouver, however, there is something especially bittersweet about saying goodbye to the tournament, because the city may also be saying goodbye to its MLS Whitecaps soccer team in the near future. Which would be cruel beyond words after the way that the city embraced the beautiful game over the past several weeks.

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Maybe what has transpired in the city – and in the country – over the past while will inspire someone with deep pockets to emerge to buy the team from an owner who wants to sell and, so far, has seemingly only received legitimate offers from buyers in the U.S.

Seeing the Whitecaps pack up and head to Las Vegas after watching the city of Vancouver show its immense love for the game would just be a real kick in the groin.

But let’s not finish on a sour note.

What Canada showed over the past month are a couple things. First, our men’s (like the women’s) national soccer team is damn good. We can, indeed, hold our own with the best. The powers that be in the sport in this country need to harness the energy and excitement that have been on display to their benefit. Let’s capitalize on the coast-to-coast enthusiasm out there and make both programs among the best anywhere.

Second, we, as a country, now know we can host any event there is and succeed, wildly. Maybe the greatest legacy of this World Cup is the feeling it imbued in us all that when we put our minds to it – and our hearts – we’re capable of anything.