On the day Canada’s team for the women’s World Cup of soccer is introduced, the prize at the end of the tournament, the World Cup trophy, will be in Kingston Tuesday, as part of a cross-Canada tour in advance of this summer’s tournament, June 6 to July 5 in several Canadian cities, including Ottawa.
The championship trophy, 47 centimetres tall and weighing 4.6 kilograms, is in the midst of a 12-city tour sponsored by Coca-Cola that began April 1 in Ottawa. It will be in Springer Market Square from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., where fans will have the opportunity to have their picture taken with the trophy and enjoy a beverage in a commemorative, limited edition aluminum bottle that is only available at tour stops.
Shueme, the FIFA mascot, will also be there.
Other trappings of the tour that have been part of the fan festival elsewhere—the opportunity for fans to shoot against a robot goalkeeper, or to record a cheer for their favourite team, for instance—will not be part of the caravan here.
Designed by William Sawaya of Sawaya & Moroni of Milan, and hand made in Switzerland, the trophy “incorporates two of the attributes of women’s football: elegance and dynamism,” according to the FIFA trophy fact sheet.
The trophy comprises a spiral band that encloses a soccer ball at the top. It was recently fitted with a cone-shaped base “that reinforces the uplifting spirit of the design.”
“It starts with a simple movement at the bottom, then rises upwards in a dancing crescendo of elegance, just like the level of interest (in) women’s football is rising in the world,” Sawaya writes.
Canada, the No. 9-ranked team in the world, will open the tournament June 6 in Edmonton against No. 13 China.
The U.S.—the only team to win the World Cup on home soil, in 1999—and Germany are the only nations to have won the trophy twice. Japan and Norway have won it once each.
Canada’s best showing was in 2003, when it placed fourth in a tournament held in the U.S.
