By Canadian Press

‘It’s going to be a really exciting year’: Rise taking shape ahead of NSL season

Feb 11, 2025 | 3:37 PM

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. — Stephanie Labbé has been busy.

As sporting director for Vancouver Rise, she’s spent the last several months glued to her phone and computer, hand selecting players and personnel, and crafting a solid squad ahead of the Northern Super League’s inaugural season.

The league will kickoff play in mid-April — right around the time Labbé is set to give birth to twins.

Growing her family and soccer club simultaneously is tricky, she admitted, but it’s also the culmination of generations of work.

“I think this is one of the things that we’ve fought so long for — as female athletes, as women in business, as women in any type of occupation — is to be able to pursue our dreams, to pursue the occupations and jobs that we love to do while also starting a family,” Labbé said.

“We’ve pushed the game forward in so many ways, and so to be on this side of it, to be able to chase this dream and help bring this team to life, but also be able to be supported and have the resources and be able to do this while starting to start a family, it’s really, really exciting.”

Labbé was on hand Tuesday as Rise hit the field for training for the first time as a team.

With snow covering many outdoor fields around Vancouver, the club borrowed an indoor pitch from the North Shore Girls Soccer Club in North Vancouver.

The moment was arguably one of the biggest yet for the fledgling franchise, Labbé said.

“I think just to start to see the personalities come out, the characters, all those kind of on-field relationships starting to form, it’s really fantastic for me now, just to get to kind of sit back and see them play, and see all this hard work come into fruition,” she said.

That hard work includes signing some familiar faces.

As goalkeeper for Canada’s national women’s team, Labbé played with both midfielder Quinn and defender Shannon Woeller.

She also brought in midfielder Nikki Stanton, formerly of the National Women’s Soccer League’s Seattle Reign, American forward Jasmyne Spencer and Danish head coach Anja Heiner-Moller.

“I think for me, a big piece of this was I really wanted to make sure that the standard of play from the start was super high,” the sporting director said of the signings. “We have a big ambition and big goal as a league, that we want to be one of the top five leagues in the world within the first five years.”

Vancouver still has some roster spots to fill and Labbé hinted she may not be quite done with signing top talent.

She will soon be taking a leave from her role, however, as she and her partner Georgia Simmerling prepare for their babies, then adjust to life as a family of four.

Stepping back won’t be easy, Labbé admitted.

“I’m going to want to be at every game, and it’s going to be a challenge,” she said. “But we’ll take it day by day as it comes. And I’ll probably be dragging these little babies around to as many soccer games as I can.”

The NSL has yet to release its schedule and the date for Vancouver’s home opener has not yet been announced, but Labbé is hopeful she’ll be there.

“You can’t always plan timing, as we all know. But what an amazing thing for me to be able to do, to bring in two new babies into this world, as well as start this club and this team and this franchise and this league,” she said. “It’s going to be a really exciting year. And if I am stuck on the couch, at least I have some good football to watch.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2025.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press