WNBA's first international team in Toronto is finding fans all across Canada in Tempo's first season

TORONTO (AP) — The WNBA's decision to make Toronto the home of its first international team is going well.

Tempo fans can be found across Canada. The expansion team could break the WNBA single-game attendance record next week. Not in Toronto, however, but almost 350 miles east in Montreal.

On the opening leg of their Cross Canada Series, the Tempo are playing two games at Montreal's Bell Centre, which holds 22,114 for basketball. A capacity crowd could top the WNBA playoff attendance record of 22,076.

In August, the series heads west for two games in Vancouver.

“We’ve put the work in and we’re continuing to get better every game, so I think the support is going to continue," said Tempo guard Marina Mabrey. "It’s very inspiring to see this kind of hype and energy around it in Canada. It kind of motivates you to do better every single night.”

The Tempo have two home games before playing Dallas July 10 in Montreal. They have been giving fans much to be excited about. Toronto is one game under .500 with a 9=10 record thanks in part to the scoring of Mabrey, who is having an All-Star caliber season averaging 21.2 points a game, third-best third in the WNBA.

Mabrey made headlines when she matched the WNBA scoring record with a 53-point performance in a June 25 win over Los Angeles. With the trip to Quebec coming up, she’s looking forward to scoring more points and making fresh fans in a brand new city.

“I haven’t been to Montreal, so I’m excited to see who shows up for that and for us,” Mabrey said.

Guard Kia Nurse is the lone Canadian on the Toronto roster and she expects a great turnout for the team that features players from eight different countries and is led by an Australian coach — two-time WNBA champion Sandy Brondello..

Nurse’s unofficial duties with the Tempo have included using her local knowledge to help her teammates adjust to their Canadian home.

“Early in the season, there were a lot of conversations around the most simple things,” Nurse said. “I’ve tried to help them with anything that’s different, even from the beginning when we got here, they were looking for CVS. I’m like, you want Shoppers Drug Mart. What are the grocery stores? Okay, this one is near your house.”

Now that the Tempo have the basics figured out, Nurse said she’s seen her teammates learning something else, too.

“I think what everybody’s really starting to understand is how unique it is to play in a Canadian city and be the only Canadian team in the entire country, the same way the Raptors and Blue Jays are,” Nurse said. “We’re not on national television all the time in the US, but we are on national television every single game here in Canada, and that makes a difference, being able to reach people and get more love and excitement about women’s basketball. When we go to Montreal and when we go to Vancouver, the fans will fill out arenas.”

Brondello, who was a WNBA All-Star as a player, said she has received messages of support from Canadian basketball fans far beyond Toronto.

“We are Canada’s team, and we actually do feel it,” Brondello said. “One of the reasons I took this job is because it was a new challenge in a whole new country, and we had this unique opportunity to grow the game even bigger here.

“The WNBA is a real movement at the moment, the last few years,” Brondello said. “I’ve been part of this for 27 of the 30 years, so I’ve seen the evolution from when I played in the early, early days to how it is now, and there’s a sense of pride to see that. Women’s sport is so much more talked about than just a decade ago, five years ago. It’s our time now, and Canada gets to see that.”

As much as Mabrey is inspired by the prospect of a record crowd in Montreal, she also sees a bigger picture for her sport.

“Honestly, this is for all of women’s basketball,” Mabrey said. ’There’s so many players who have sacrificed time, money, themselves for us to be in this position now. It’s only right that when we get a fan base like that, that they’ve been working so many years for, that we go and we do it right and we put on a show, both teams.”

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Toronto Tempo's Nyara Sabally (8) and Phoenix Mercury's Kyara Linskens (31) jump for the ball at the start of first half of an WNBA basketball game in Toronto, on Saturday, June 27, 2026. (Sammy Kogan /The Canadian Press via AP)

Toronto Tempo's Marina Mabrey, left, celebrates with her sister Michaela Mabrey after her team's win over the Los Angeles Sparks in a WNBA basketball game in Toronto, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press via AP)

Toronto Tempo's Kia Nurse (11) celebrates after scoring against the Phoenix Mercury during first half of an WNBA basketball game in Toronto, on Saturday, June 27, 2026. (Sammy Kogan /The Canadian Press via AP)

Toronto Tempo's Marina Mabrey looks on before a WNBA basketball game against the Phoenix Mercury in Toronto, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press via AP)

The Toronto Tempo huddle before a WNBA basketball game against the Los Angeles Sparks in Toronto, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press via AP)

The Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday halted the criminal case against state Attorney General Liz Murrill a day after she was indicted on accusations that she threatened the jobs of officials in New Orleans.

The state's top court said the local court and special prosecutor in the case did not follow proper procedures in the process surrounding the indictment — including multiple local media reports that the court handcuffed and locked out a journalist attempting to report on the grand jury action.

Friday's stay puts the case on hold, at least for now. Murrill, a Republican, said she intends to ask a court to dismiss the case, which shows a deep rift between Republican state officials and the Democrats who control the state's most populous city.

“I hope this political witch hunt is not a harbinger of things to come,” she said in a statement Friday, “but I fear that it is.”

The 16-count indictment handed up Thursday by a New Orleans grand jury accused Murrill, the state's first female attorney general, with intimidation and malfeasance.

The Supreme Court says there were deep flaws with the charges.

“This indictment appears to turn the law on its head and flows from what appear to be extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties,” the court said in a filing signed by Justice Jay McCallum, a Republican.

The court says there are likely conflicts of interest involving Laurie White, the special prosecutor and former state judge who brought the charges, including that she's being defended by the attorney general's office against a sexual harassment lawsuit.

McCallum's explanation also notes that the law used in the intimidation charge against Murrill requires that threats be “unlawful or include a threat of bodily harm or death.”

The court also found the attorney general is likely to succeed in having the case dismissed and that she would suffer irreparable harm if it can move forward.

The order was issued by all four of the Republican justices and one Democrat. The court's other Democrat and an independent dissented. Justice John Guidry, a Democrat, was critical of the quick decision by his colleagues. "Due process and equal protection under the law does not allow anyone to cut the line and have their matters considered more preferentially than others,” he wrote.

The case is fallout from a major political battle in Louisiana.

The state this year abolished the job of the New Orleans criminal court clerk — merging it with another court clerk position. That action came months after Calvin Duncan, who spent decades in prison before his murder conviction was vacated, was elected to the criminal clerk office.

Murrill and other GOP officials have refused to acknowledge Duncan's innocence, though he's listed on the National Registry of Exonerations.

The court noted that Duncan was previously represented by White — which it called "a likely conflict of interest."

A letter from Murrill to New Orleans' city council members and Mayor Helena Moreno came after the city council set a special election that would have given Duncan a shot at the combined clerk role. Murrill told officials they could lose their offices for violating state laws that forbid support for an unauthorized officeholder.

Murrill has said she was doing her job.

After the indictment was issued Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, said he would pardon Murrill. The governor also said on social media that he was ordering state police to investigate “the alleged improprieties of this grand jury and those who ran it.”

On Friday, the governor thanked the Supreme Court and called the indictment “a political witch hunt” against Murrill.

FILE - Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill speaks with attendees during an election night watch party for U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., May 16, 2026, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)