The WNBA's first-ever regular-season Canada Game was a hit, as the No. 8 Seattle Storm upset the No. 2 Atlanta Dream 80-78 in front of a sold-out crowd inside Vancouver's Rogers Arena on Friday.
Storm star Skylar Diggins registered 21 points and 11 assists in the matchup, combining with Nneka Ogwumike's 16 points to help end Seattle's six-game losing streak — and snap the Dream's six-game winning streak.
Seattle's 2025 No. 2 overall draft pick Dominique Malonga also showed out, with the 19-year-old tallying 12 points and eight rebounds over her 19 minutes of play.
"It was an incredible crowd tonight," Diggins said afterwards. "First time in Vancouver, they showed a lot of love. We just love coming out here, playing in front of this electric [crowd]... We really leaned on them tonight to help us lock in that victory."
As for Atlanta, the Dream's offense stuttered after losing guard Jordin Canada to a hamstring injury last week, with the team netting just two of 13 three-point shots despite entering the clash averaging 9.6 shots from behind the arc per game.
Canada will miss at least two weeks of action, with newly healthy Atlanta heavy-hitters Rhyne Howard and Brittney Griner expected to pick up the slack in her absence — and it appears they're already righting the ship: The Dream overcame the No. 7 Golden State Valkyries 79-63 on Sunday with a team victory that saw five players reach double-digit scoring.
How to watch the WNBA this week
After falling 85-82 to the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury on Sunday night, the No. 8 Seattle Storm will look to bounce back against the No. 12 Chicago Sky on Tuesday. The game will tip off at 8 PM ET, with live coverage on WNBA League Pass.
Later on Tuesday night, the No. 2 Atlanta Dream will battle the No. 5 Las Vegas Aces at 10 PM ET, airing live on NBA TV.
Seattle added some new hardware on Sunday, installing an eight-foot, 650-pound bronze statue of Storm icon Sue Bird outside Climate Pledge Arena — making Bird the first-ever WNBA player immortalized by a former franchise.
Unveiled ahead of Sunday's Storm clash with the Phoenix Mercury, the statue depicts Bird mid-layup in a nod to the legendary player's first and last made-shots for Seattle.
"People keep asking me what it feels like to be the first, and the truth is I never set out to be first at anything," Bird said during the ceremony. "But if being the first means that I won't be the last, if this statue means that 20 years from now there will be statues of other WNBA greats... then I'm proud to be the first."
Bird played her entire 21-year WNBA career with the Storm, leading the team to four championships (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020) before calling it quits at the end of the 2022 season. The 13-time All-Star still stands as the league's career assists leader.
"I hope [this statue] tells a simple story that greatness isn't about being perfect. It's about being persistent," added Bird, who purchased a minority stake in the 2000 expansion team after she retired. "That you can be true to yourself and still achieve extraordinary things, and that when a city believes in you, anything is possible."
"Sue's legacy isn't just written in championships — it's woven into the fabric of Seattle," Storm president and CEO Alisha Valavanis said in a statement. "Her leadership transcended basketball and helped shape a cultural shift — one that expanded who gets to lead, who gets seen, and who gets celebrated."
The WNBA is taking a weekend road trip, as the No. 2 Atlanta Dream and No. 8 Seattle Storm head across the border to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the league's first-ever in-season Canada Game on Friday night.
The game features a rematch of Atlanta's 85-75 win over the Storm on Wednesday, with the win propelling the Dream up the WNBA standings — and threatening to drop Seattle out of postseason contention entirely.
"Time is running out, and the team knows it," Seattle head coach Noelle Quinn said earlier this week. "I didn't want to put so much pressure on them, but they know the situation, and they understand the urgency."
While Friday marks the first regular-season WNBA matchup played outside the US, the league has previously staged two preseason games in Canada, tipping off in Toronto in 2023 and Edmonton in 2024 — both in front of sold-out crowds.
Toronto's 2023 exhibition appeared to serve as a trial run for expansion, with the league awarding the Canadian city its first franchise — the 2026-incoming Toronto Tempo — earlier this year.
While plans for a formal move to Vancouver hasn't yet surfaced, the WNBA's explosive popularity and rapid growth outlook provide plenty of room for new markets to enter the conversation.
How to watch the 2025 WNBA Canada Game
The No. 8 Seattle Storm and No. 2 Atlanta Dream will square off inside Vancouver's Rogers Arena at 10 PM ET on Friday night.
Live coverage of the WNBA Canada Game clash will air on ION.
Coming off a series of strategic transactions, the No. 10 Washington Mystics will forge ahead on Friday night, taking on the short-staffed No. 6 Indiana Fever with a chance to play spoiler as they reshape their 2025 expectations from below the postseason cutoff line.
"There's just so many different success stories with this group," Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson said following Washington's 88-83 loss to the No. 7 Golden State Valkyries on Wednesday.
The Mystics have lost five of their last six games, and will take the court on Friday without injured new addition Jacy Sheldon and starting center Shakira Austin.
While Washington exceeded this year's early-season projections — skyrocketing above the playoff line behind leading scorer Brittney Sykes and the dynamic rookie duo of Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron — the now-fading Mystics chose to shift gears at the trade deadline, sending Sykes to the No. 8 Seattle Storm and shipping second-year forward Aaliyah Edwards off to the No. 13 Connecticut Sun.
With their natural 2026 draft pick secured, Washington has a shot at adding a top first-round prospect should they play out the rest of the regular season at the bottom of the WNBA standings — in other words, by strategically tanking the final weeks of 2025 play.
On the other hand, the injury-laden Indiana enters Friday's action eyeing a win after falling to the No. 11 Dallas Wings by just one point on Tuesday.
How to watch the Washington Mystics vs. Indiana Fever on Friday
The No. 10 Mystics will take on the No. 6 Fever in Indianapolis at 7:30 PM ET on Friday, with live coverage airing on ION.
The No. 3 Atlanta Dream still have something to say, entering Wednesday's matchup with the No. 8 Seattle Storm on a five-game winning streak — and, notably, just a half-game behind the No. 2 New York Liberty in the WNBA standings.
"We know it doesn't get any easier," Dream head coach Karl Smesko said of his team's remaining regular-season slate. "This is a trip where we're playing a lot of really good teams."
With stars Rhyne Howard and Brittney Griner back in the lineup, Atlanta is returning to the height of their power at exactly the right time: "I thought BG was great," Smesko said of his once-injured center. "She was moving great. She looked really good out there."
As for Seattle, however, the Storm finds themselves on the opposite trajectory, riding a five-game losing streak into Wednesday's clash.
Adding insult to injury, former Storm guard Alysha Clark confirmed this week that she requested her midseason trade to the No. 10 Washington Mystics.
"Asked Alysha Clark if she had conversations with Seattle before the trade and she said she requested to be moved," tweeted Washington Post journalist Kareem Copeland on Tuesday. "Things hadn't worked out as they envisioned and she told herself at 38 years old she was going to stay in control of her career."
Clark's admission follows 2024 reports that volatile locker room dynamics and front office disputes prompted former Seattle star Jewell Loyd to request a trade last season.
How to watch the Atlanta Dream vs. Seattle Storm on Wednesday
The Dream will put their winning streak to the test while trying to take advantage of the Storm's skid at 10 PM ET on Wednesday.
Live coverage of the game will air on ESPN3.
The No. 1 Minnesota Lynx are inching toward the clinch, closing in on booking a 2025 WNBA Playoffs spot after weekend victories over the No. 10 Washington Mystics and No. 2 New York Liberty extended the league leaders' winning streak to five straight games.
"We didn't make them feel uncomfortable, and they made us feel really uncomfortable," Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said of Minnesota's locked-in defense — fueled by recent addition DiJonai Carrington.
The top two teams in the WNBA standings will meet twice more in the next nine days, as both Minnesota and New York look to maintain their positioning while waiting for their MVP short-listers — Lynx star Napheesa Collier and Liberty standout Breanna Stewart — to return from injury.
As Minnesota widens the gap with just 12 games remaining before the 2025 Playoffs, last weekend's lineup saw other teams rise and fall as clock ticks down on 2025 play.
No. 8 Seattle experienced a precipitous drop, pulling level with the postseason cutoff line after two narrow weekend losses to the No. 6 Las Vegas Aces and No. 9 LA Sparks stretched the Storm's skid to five games.
Taking advantage of other teams' shortcomings, the previously struggling Aces are again climbing the standings, logging a four-game winning streak capped by forward A'ja Wilson's record-setting 32-point, 20-rebound Sunday performance.
How to watch the WNBA game on Monday
The WNBA's lone Monday matchup pits the No. 7 Golden State Valkyries against the No. 13 Connecticut Sun.
The East Coast vs. West Coast clash tips off at 10 PM ET, with live coverage on WNBA League Pass.
Thursday's WNBA trade deadline came and went with one final flurry of activity, as the No. 10 Washington Mystics leaned all the way into their rebuild by sending 2024 No. 6 draft pick Aaliyah Edwards to the No. 13 Connecticut Sun.
"Bringing Aaliyah to the Connecticut Sun is more than just a roster move.... Aaliyah is a transformational talent with the mindset and drive that aligns with our vision of building a championship culture," Sun GM Morgan Tuck said in a statement. "Aaliyah is the kind of person and player who can help redefine the future of this organization and we're ready to build that future together."
In return for Edwards, Connecticut sent 2024 No. 5 draft pick Jacy Sheldon to the Mystics, with Washington also receiving the right to a first-round pick swap in 2026 WNBA Draft in the trade deal.
The move follows a Tuesday trade in which the Mystics offloaded their leading scorer Brittney Sykes to the No. 6 Seattle Storm in return for forward Alysha Clark and a 2026 first-round draft pick.
While a few major midseason moves emerged this week, seven of the league's 13 teams decided to forego any trades, with No. 2 New York, No. 3 Atlanta, No. 4 Phoenix, No. 5 Indiana, No. 8 Golden State, No. 9 LA, and No. 11 Chicago holding their rosters steady in the final week of the transaction window.
Like their NWSL counterparts, the WNBA is hyping up a rivalry slate of its own, with recent history and tight standings raising the tension in more than a few of the matchups this weekend:
- No. 6 Seattle Storm vs. No. 7 Las Vegas Aces, Friday at 10 PM ET (ION): Hunting a third straight win, the Aces could make a major statement by leapfrogging a struggling Seattle with a victory on Friday.
- No. 9 Los Angeles Sparks vs. No. 8 Golden State Valkyries, Saturday at 8:30 PM ET (WNBA League Pass): While the Valkyries have struggled to retain their early season form, the Sparks are on the rise, and a Saturday win could give LA both California rivalry bragging rights and a boost above the playoff line.
- No. 1 Minnesota Lynx vs. No. 2 New York Liberty, Sunday at 12:30 PM ET (ABC): For the second time this season, a 2024 WNBA Finals rematch pits the league's two titans against each other — though both are contending with injuries to star players, leaving the Lynx competing without Napheesa Collier against a Breanna Stewart-less Liberty squad.
- No. 3 Atlanta Dream vs. No. 4 Phoenix Mercury, Sunday at 6 PM ET (NBA TV): Tied with season records of 19-11, Sunday's duel will see both the Dream and the Mercury put their multi-game winning streaks on the line.
The clock is ticking down toward the WNBA trade deadline, as teams around the league evaluate their rosters and make midseason moves ahead of Thursday's 3 PM ET final whistle.
The No. 10 Washington Mystics made the most recent transactional splash, sending leading scorer Brittney Sykes to the No. 6 Seattle Storm on Tuesday.
In return, Washington received forward Alysha Clark, guard Zia Cooke, and a 2026 first-round draft pick — though the Mystics immediately waived Cooke as well as center Sika Koné.
Teams now have a little more than 24 hours to decide if they’re stocking up for the postseason or punting this year's potential to shore up future prospects.
Though the WNBA trade deadline has historically been less dramatic than other leagues thanks to hard salary caps and roster limitations, ramped-up expansion and the promise of a new CBA appear to be greasing the wheels this year.
While not every title contender has roster room to spare, teams in line for the lottery will likely look to clean house this week.
To that end, Washington may still be dealing: 2024 No. 6 overall draft pick Aaliyah Edwards played just seven minutes for the Mystics in their 78-64 loss to the No. 11 Chicago Sky on Tuesday, sparking rumors of another potential big trade.
As for the last-place Connecticut Sun, guard Marina Mabrey could serve as a last-minute asset after the team initially denied Mabrey's offseason trade request.
The No. 6 Seattle Storm continue to lose ground, sliding down the WNBA standings after falling to No. 1 Minnesota 91-87 on Tuesday night — even as injured Lynx star Napheesa Collier watched from the sidelines.
Sitting as high as No. 4 this season, the Storm are now on a three-game losing streak, despite a string of very narrow score lines.
"We know those deposits are going to pay dividends coming up, but yeah, I think this group needs to feel a win," Seattle Storm head coach Noelle Quinn said after Sunday's 78-74 loss to the No. 5 Indiana Fever.
While Seattle is skidding, another West Coast team is on the rise, as the No. 9 LA Sparks recorded their seventh win in eight games on Tuesday, snapping Indiana's five-game winning streak with a 100-91 LA victory.
The win lifted the Sparks over the No. 10 Washington Mystics in the standings.
Forward Rickea Jackson and guard Kelsey Plum combined for 50 points to book the win, while newly returned forward Cameron Brink tied her career-high with five registered blocks on the night.
Ultimately, while some teams are struggling, others are surging toward the postseason, leaving the lottery-likely to decide whether to throw their weight behind a playoff push or shift their focus to next year.