Connecticut Sun forward Aaliyah Edwards has spent the last month fielding constant texts and calls from friends and family trying to get tickets to the team’s preseason game against the Toronto Tempo.
The Kingston, Ontario, native doesn’t have nearly enough complimentary tickets to get everyone in the door, but she’s expecting the Tempo’s home arena will still be packed with familiar faces when Connecticut comes to town at 7 p.m. on Wednesday. The game marks the first preseason matchup of the season for the Sun and the first ever for the Tempo, who are joining the league as an expansion franchise in 2026.
“I’m just really excited to play at home and be around family and friends,” Edwards said with a grin. “I’ve got so many people coming out, it’s probably like the whole arena at this point. … Even the people I didn’t get tickets for, they’re like, ‘Oh we’re coming.’ So many people are hitting me up already.”
Edwards was thrilled when the Tempo were announced as the WNBA’s first international expansion team last May, especially because it will give young girls in Canada consistent opportunities to see high-level women’s basketball. The league tested the market during the 2025 preseason, and Canadian fans sold out more than 19,000 seats for the exhibition game between the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The Seattle Storm and Atlanta Dream also sold out a regular-season showcase in Vancouver last August.
“I’m just really happy for the country and for women’s basketball in Canada, because we deserve it,” Edwards said. “It’s only going to make future Canadian ballers even better and more inspired.”
Edwards is used to representing the home team when she’s playing in Canada as a member of the senior national team, so she’s not sure what to expect going in as the opponent. UConn scheduled an exhibition against Toronto Metropolitan University in December 2023 to give Edwards a homecoming during her final college season, and though the Huskies were technically on the road for that matchup, competing against Toronto’s WNBA team will be a unique experience.
“My mindset is just gonna be playing for the Connecticut Sun and having my teammates’ back, but the team has already poured into me. They’re super happy for me,” Edwards said. “Every time I play at home it’s with my national team, so it’s gonna be a little weird, but I’m excited.”
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Former UCLA point guard Charlisse Leger-Walker, the Sun’s 2026 second-round draft pick, will be one to watch against the Tempo after her impressive start to training camp. Nearly every player and coach has identified the rookie as one of the biggest surprises so far with how quickly she’s adjusted to her role as the team’s floor general despite her inexperience.
“It’s already hard coming in as a rookie on a new team, new environment, new league, but when you have to come in and play point guard, you have to get (veterans) in spots,” second-year guard Saniya Rivers said. “You’ve gotta have a lot of confidence. You’ve gotta have a lot of courage. You’ve gotta have some balls to do that, and she came in with all of that and just shocked me.”
Coach Rachid Meziane was also surprised by how smoothly first-round pick Gianna Kneepkens transitioned to the professional level. He said he had questions coming in about how the former UCLA guard would handle the pace and physicality of the WNBA, but he’s been impressed by her high IQ on the court.
“She’s not a super-fast player, but because she’s smart … she can take some advantage of the team system and also bring what she can bring,” Meziane said. “She’s a good passer and she facilitates our offense a lot of times. Defensively, her footwork and positioning, she compensates for a lot of her lack of physicality with her intelligence.”
Beyond the new draftees, former Harvard star Harmoni Turner is making a strong impression with her energy and competitive fire. Turner was selected in the third round of the 2025 WNBA Draft by the Las Vegas Aces but got waived during camp, and she spent the offseason developing her game overseas playing for Landerneau in France’s Ligue Feminine.
Turner may not make the final 12-player roster, but she seems like a perfect candidate for one of Connecticut’s developmental spots. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams can sign up to two development players — players with less than three years of experience who can appear in up to 12 games and do not count against a team’s salary cap.
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The Sun’s first preseason game comes a week and a half into training camp and provides a crucial opportunity for the coaching staff to evaluate its overwhelmingly young roster in live action against other pros rather than practice players. Only three of the team’s 15 active players have more than four years of experience in the WNBA, and six are rookies.
“It’s just gonna be how quickly we can adapt to the pace of the game, how physical it is. Everyone always talks about that, but I’m excited to see how that plays out in a game,” Leger-Walker said. “I’m obviously still learning, still learning how to play with a lot of these players but just learning to play at this level, so I’m just going in hoping I can be confident and take what’s there for me but also understand that I’m going to make mistakes and just learning from that as quick as I can.”
Connecticut is still in the process of implementing its offensive system, and everyone in the building expects there will be some ugly moments as they work through the growing pains for the first time. But the team is building its identity around defense, so Wednesday will be a test of players’ effort and intensity more than anything else.
“I just want to see how we’re going to respond,” All-Star center Brittney Griner said. “If we get up, are we gonna keep that lead, or are we gonna let them come back? If they get up on us, how are we gonna respond to it? You get to see everybody’s real character out there. When you get hit in the face with adversity, that’s when you really see the real player.”
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