Canada had that very challenge on Wednesday night at BC Place; a high-profile Women’s World Cup tuneup against the Germans. And, even though the scoreline was a respectable 2-1 for the visitors, you’d have a hard time feeling good about this match if you were a Canadian supporter.

“For me, this was definitely a flashback,” said Labbe. “From the Aviators to the Alberta team, I was going back to my roots. Definitely, in 2002, when the under-19 championship was here, that was my first exposure to the national team. I was in the stadium watching them. Now, to be back here, with the national team, it feels like I have come full circle.”

And even though the late autumn/early winter conditions in Edmonton won’t be anything close to the July conditions we’ll see at the 2015 Women’s World Cup, Herdman said that getting a friendly in at the stadium where Canada will open the tournament will be vital to the team’s preparations. And, he said the cold can be a coaching tool, to see “if the players can focus on the task at hand.”

But, coming out of her Portland Thorns’ 2-0 win in this past weekend’s NWSL championship, in which Sinclair scored the stoppage-time icing-on-the-cake goal, the question: Is it enough to keep her in the lead for the 2013 award? Sure, there’s still a lot of soccer to be played. Sinclair could score three or four vs. South Korea on a late October night and make this column moot.

Meanwhile, even though Alex Morgan — who scored the U.S. winner in that Olympic semifinal — plays for Portland, the Timbers are clearly Canada’s team. Christine Sinclair didn’t score in the Timbers come-from-behind 3-2 extra-time semifinal win over FC Kansas City, but Canada’s all-time leading scorer netted eight times for Timbers this season.

Christine Sinclair came back from suspension, and promptly scored a winning goal.

While the four members of the Canadian women’s national team who were in Edmonton Monday will all soon head Stateside to report to their NWSL teams, they still dream of playing pro soccer in their home and native land.

“We were in China (for the Yongchuan Cup), so we didn’t find out live,” said LeBlanc, who was on a media conference call Tuesday promoting her upcoming visit to Edmonton with national teammates Christine Sinclair, Rhian Wilkinson and Diana Matheson. “But we all looked at our e-mail to find out where we were going, and then the trash talking started right away.”

Sinclair can score a goal a game, but it might not be enough. The difference from Canada going out in the group stage to Canada going deep into the tournament will be Big Red’s ability to find secondary scoring.

An audacious first-half chip from Diana Matheson and a cool second-half finish from Christine Sinclair gave Canada a 2-0 win over New Zealand in the opening match of the Matchworld Women’s World Cup.