It wasn't until long after midnight on Aug. 7, 2021, that the Canadian women's Olympic football team could turn to face the lofted Canadian flag, gold medals hanging around their necks, and begin to sing "O Canada." From back-to-back semifinals heartbreak in 2012 and 2016, the North American team had finally won a major women's football tournament.
Despite the Olympics taking place in empty stadia across Japan over the summer of 2021, rather than the full venues of the 2015 Women's World Cup that Canada had hosted, the joy in the sticky Yokohama night air was mixed with hope.