With season two officially underway there are two clubs who are far and away the top of the crop in the league. Ottawa Rapid and Montréal Roses have smashed their opponents in the first two and a half weeks of football. Rapid have outscored their opponent's 10-5 in two rounds, including a 4-0 thrashing of defending champion Vancouver Rise. The Roses have put up 6 goals in two weeks, also including a 4-0 smashing of the Rise.
Round 2 Matches
Saturday 2 May
Ottawa Rapid 5–2 Calgary Wild
Rapid opened the weekend with their second ever home opener and sent the crowd of 2,855 back home extremely happy at the end of the day. Within the first minute of play Melanie Forbes got the crowd hot with a goal for Rapid. Ten minutes later Calgary Wild answered the early Rapid goal with back to back goals in the 12th and 13th minutes.
Ottawa did not take the goals lying down and proceeded to pour on the goals before the end of the first half. Keera Melenhorst snapped in a pair of goals for Ottawa bisected only by Florence Belzile's 30th minute strike. Rapid added one more goal in the second half to finish off their crushing win over Calgary.
Montréal Roses 4–0 Vancouver Rise
3,304 fans packed into Laval's Stade Boréale to watch the Roses second ever season opener and like the fans in Ottawa, left happy after a dominant win for their home side. Early on the Roses took the lead following a 13th minute Elyse Bennett header coming off a cross sent in from Lisa Pechersky. Tanya Boychuk added a second goal for the hosts near the end of the first half, sending in a loose ball following a corner.
The second half then started as the first half ended, with Boychuk securing herself a brace just four minutes into the second half. As the clocked closed in on 90 minutes Noémi Paquin added a fourth goal for the hosts. Paquin's goal came on a long shot sent from near the centre circle that easily went in as Rise goalkeeper Morgan McAslan was far outside her box when the shot was made.
Sunday 3 May
AFC Toronto 0–0 Halifax Tides
With their first home match of 2026, AFC Toronto returned to BMO Field for one of seven matches at the stadium. The 6,476 fans that filed into the stadium in Toronto's Exhibition Place were given a heavy dose of entertaining football, even though the match ended nil-nil. Toronto and Halifax combined for 19 shots and 11 shots on target. The hosts best chance to score came in the 23rd minute on a huge one on none breakout. Tides goalkeeper Rylee Foster easily made a parrying save to make sure the match stayed nil-nil.
Halifax Tides pushed hard and threatened Toronto as the first half came to a close, but were unable to get a shot past goalkeeper Sierra Cota-Yarde. Toronto came the closest to scoring on a low rolling shot from outside the box. Foster was unable to get to the weak shot, but it bounced off the post and away from goal.
Round 3 Matches
Wednesday 6 May
Ottawa Rapid 4–0 Vancouver Rise
After a rough loss a few days prior Rise stayed in Eastern Canada for a showdown with Ottawa Rapid. Unfortunately for the Rise the match ended exactly the same as Saturday in Montréal did. Three first half goals for Ottawa Rapid, including a brace from Delaney Baie Pridham put an end to Rise's hopes early on. Ottawa put the final dagger in with a late second half goal, sending Rise back to Vancouver with their second consecutive 4–0 defeat.
Sunday 10 May
AFC Toronto vs Montréal Roses - 11am CT / Noon ET
Only one match occurs this weekend and it's one of the biggest rivalries in the young league. Anglophone vs Francophone, Ontario vs Québec, Toronto vs Montréal. Last season's Supporters Shield winners hosts one of the most dangerous teams in the NSL. This is the first of five meetings between the two clubs during the 2026 season. Last season the two clubs faced each other seven times with AFC Toronto coming away with five wins and the Roses with just two.
Watch on: CBC Gem and RDS (Canada), YouTube (Internationally)
