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National women's team to celebrate Olympic gold medal at BC Place

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It’s a golden homecoming for Canada’s national women’s soccer team, which will play its first match at BC Place in many years when it hosts Nigeria Friday night.

The evening is being dubbed a celebration of the Olympic gold medal the team secured with a thrilling 3-2 shootout win over Sweden at the Tokyo Olympics last August.

“I know personally I’m going to have like 50 or 60 friends and family here,” said Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair, the team’s captain. “It’s always special to be able to play in front of those that matter most to you and to be able to celebrate what we achieved last summer.”

Many of the players on the team are from British Columbia and got their start in the sport with B.C. Soccer.

The fortunes of the national team have risen at a time when youth soccer needs role models more than ever as programs try to keep young athletes from leaving the sport.

"You need people who have been through the battles to share their experiences with the next generations and I think we're pretty lucky, quite frankly, because we have some very good ambassadors to do that,” said B.C. Soccer’s Peter Schadd.

The national team has not played in B.C. often recently, and young players have been looking forward to seeing their heroes in person.

“Actually, our whole team is going to the game on Friday so we’re super excited for that as well,” said 17-year-old Shae Taylor, who plays with the Whitecaps Youth Academy.

In a few months, she’ll be on scholarship at the University of Memphis, and the attacking midfielder has dreams of one day donning the maple leaf as well.

“How the program has grown over the last few years is just crazy and we’re super excited as young players to maybe be a part of that one day,” Taylor said.

In addition to celebrating the team’s gold medal, Sinclair will also be individually honoured at the game.

She has 188 international goals in her career, more than any other player, man or woman, in the history of world football.

But the always-humble striker continues to shun the spotlight and deflect questions about individual accolades back to team accomplishments.

“It will be great to celebrate it with my friends and family but so much bigger things have happened since then and more important things,” Sinclair said. “So, I’m focusing on the other stuff now.”

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