Team Canada prepares for first tournament with Nell Fortner at the helm

It seems like a lot, but every make matters for a team that left the 2024 Paris Olympics 0-3 with a 28.8% three-point field goal percentage despite coming 4th in the Women’s World Cup in 2022. In that aspect, yes — Canada was extremely cold.

But even though many players at camp this week were not a part of the Olympic team, one invisible string laces through the entire Canada Basketball federation: togetherness. That’s why high-school rising senior Savannah Swords, a 5-star NCAA recruit heading into her first tournament with the Senior Team, was also getting up her 100 shots at the end of practice. For the player shooting next to Swords, long-time veteran Kayla Alexander (who is fresh off a European season in Valencia, Spain), the lessons from Paris are top of mind.

“I have a lot of experience I can share, which is important,” said Alexander after her 100 shots were made. “The most important thing is I want everybody to feel comfortable. They are all here for a reason, all have a different skill set, a different talent, something unique that you bring that no one else can bring.”

The relationships between the younger and more experienced players on Canada’s Senior Women’s National Team will be more important than ever this summer and beyond. After the Olympics in 2024, long-time team captain Natalie Achonwa announced her retirement as a player, shifting to a new role in coaching. She is an assistant coach for the women’s team at Michigan, where up-and-coming Canadian star Syla Swords is playing college hoops. Achonwa will also assist the U19 women’s team this summer, where the younger Swords sister, Savvy, will be the star.

Canada Basketball also parted ways with both their men’s and women’s senior team coaches after the Olympics, hiring Gord Herbert on the men’s side and Nell Fortner on the women’s. After a disappointing 2024 all-around for both teams, it was clear that everyone needed a fresh start. With two new coaches, the energy is starting to come back into the federation, for both the players and the fans.

Sami Hill, who played in her first Olympics in 2024, explained that while the players did not have direct involvement in picking their new coach, everyone knew there needed to be a “culture reset” heading into the future.

“Our values need to be consistent across the board from players to staff and to a head coach,” Hill said. “We set our culture, we set our standards, and coach [Fortner] now seems like a great fit.”

Nell Fortner, who was born in Mississippi and played at Texas, can take the heat — figuratively and literally. She comes into this role with the Canadian team after decades of experience coaching at the college, professional, and international level, even winning an Olympic Gold Medal with Team USA at the 2000 Sydney Games. Fortner had just a few weeks off after announcing her retirement from her role as the head coach of Georgia Tech’s women’s basketball team, before she received a call from Canada Basketball as she watched the March Madness Men’s Final Four game. That call was from Steve Baur, the newly-appointed general manager and vice president, high performance for the Canadian women’s team. He brought up the idea of bringing Fortner on as the head coach of the women’s senior program that night.

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Despite her retirement, she was not opposed to coming back to coaching in some capacity. Fortner, however, knew she was done coaching college. “It wasn’t like I was tired of coaching,” Fortner said, “but I knew I was done with college, it’s just changed so much.” After each of the three calls she had with Baur over a few weeks, as well as doing her own research, she felt more and more like coaching this team was her next move. It felt right.

“It’s a total honor,” were Fortner’s exact words, actually. And she’s enjoying the new challenge. Fortner explained that coaching an international federation is unique in the sense that one is with the top talent in a country. And, as opposed to younger college-aged players, a coach can move faster through concepts with a lot of international players who cycle between national team duties and playing professionally all over the world.

Canada is also unique in another sense — they have multiple talented players in the NCAA right now who play on their senior team; Fortner, therefore, was already able to get a sense of young players she would later coach, like Syla Swords and Toby Fournier, while at Georgia Tech. Swords and Fournier won’t be at the AmeriCup, but Fortner is looking forward to working with them in the future.

The players at camp also have high reviews about the Fortner experience early on. Per Alexander, the her new coach “demands excellence.” She’s going to “encourage you to get there, … she also has a wealth of knowledge and experience,” Alexander said. “We’re all there in different stages right now, and I think she can help each of us.”

“I just like the energy and the attitude, the want and the drive,” Fortner said of her first impressions of the Canadian players this week. “They want to be great, they want to win. They want to win at the highest level.”

That’s a testament to years of this highly-ranked Canadian Women’s team, which has come just short of the knockout rounds or even the podium at international tournaments. It’s also a testament to the high level of Canadian talent at the college level with Swords, Toby Fournier (Duke), Delaney Gibb (BYU) and more, as well as the WNBA’s Canadian talent in Bridget Carleton (Minnesota Lynx), Aaliyah Edwards (Washington Mystics), and Kia Nurse (Chicago Sky). They want to win and really prove themselves as an elite basketball country.

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There was a buzz of energy in the air at the first camp with Fortner at the helm as this team prepares for the FIBA AmeriCup in Santiago, Chile this month. Canada was placed in Group A with El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. Team USA leads Group B and is joined by host Chile, as well as Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The tournament begins on June 28, with Canada facing El Salvador.

Heading into the tournament, there is one thing on this team’s mind — strong defense. Fortner is instilling a message in her team that their defensive energy should “never wane,” while also pushing the pace to ensure her team gets ahead on offensive possessions.

When asked if there is one word or phrase that she wants to be the identity of this Canadian team, Fortner says: relentless.

“You need to be relentless in everything you do,” she says with a charming Southern twang that’s rare to encounter in downtown Toronto.

Oftentimes, you need to introduce something different to challenge yourself to be better than ever, and that’s what Fortner (and her memorable accent) bring to this program. She’s experienced, knowledgeable, different from the status quo of this program, and ready to lead a promising team to the top of the podium. Welcome to the newest chapter of Canada basketball story.

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