Burlington Soccer Club began with four police-backed teams and fewer than 100 players. Six decades later, its smartest move is less about trophies than architecture: one local system designed to keep people in the game from toddlerhood to adult league night.
Canada finally built a domestic professional league for its women. Ottawa's founding club made the playoffs in year one - then brought in new majority owners to solve the harder problem: making a new team feel inevitable.
A two-city tournament pays for courts, coaches and champions across a continent-sized country. The pandemic revealed how fragile that bargain was - and the rebuild offers a playbook for any mission-led organization with one very profitable product.