“I wasn’t thinking about winning a medal after that World Cup,” she recalls. “There were a lot of hardships that our team went through."

In fact, bidding on both events for the same year is a plus, said Canada Soccer General Secretary Peter Montopoli.

So, as Calgary looks to edge closer to a “yes” and four other Canadian cities work towards a World Cup, is someone finally going to take charge ask if these processes are on a collision course?

The assessors suggested that it was “likely” that the joint bid to host the World Cup would clash with Calgary’s continuing pursuit of the 2026 Winter Olympics. The success of the Calgary Olympic bid was the only potential risk on the report deemed as a potential “worst-case” outcome.

Sinclair, to no one’s surprise, was announced as Canada’s top player on Thursday. And she accepted the award with the grace of the average Canadian, by wanting to talk about her team more than she wanted to talk about herself.

Why was Canada’s women’s national team coach so angry? Because Christine Sinclair, who moved into the No. 2 spot on the all-time women’s international scoring list in 2016, wasn’t on the shortlist for The Best FIFA Women’s Player Award. (Herdman was also skipped over in the coach-of-the-year selections).

We notice more interest from our readers when we try to tackle a big topic over the course of several stories — and issue 10 of Plastic Pitch fits that bill. The MLS standings are always clogged, and 12 of 20 teams (60 per cent) make the playoffs. The No. 1 seed rarely goes on to win MLS Cup. Does …

The fact that such impressive performances were turned in by youngsters — from fullback Ashley Lawrence to midfielder Jessie Fleming to Beckie to Rose — bodes well for a program that, just four years before, was starved for young talent.

Maybe now, it’s time to believe in the work coach John Herdman and the women have put into this push for the podium. A gritty 1-0 quarter-final win over France wasn’t always pretty, there were some scares, but we know this — Canada can be called not just a medal threat, but a gold-medal threat.

Despite having defender Shelina Zadorsky sent off in the 18th minute, despite a penalty miss, the Canadian national women’s team opened the Olympic soccer tournament with a 2-0 win over the world No. 5-ranked Australians in Sao Paulo.