AFC Toronto beat the Montreal Roses 1-0 on Saturday, November 14, 2026, to win the club’s first Northern Super League title. FINAL: Montreal Roses 0, AFC Toronto 1, at TD Place Stadium in Ottawa, where teenager Olivia Chisholm scored the only goal in the 39th minute and Toronto lifted the Diana B. Matheson Cup as the second champion in league history.
How to watch: Montreal Roses vs AFC Toronto, Saturday, November 14, 2:00 p.m. ET at TD Place Stadium, Ottawa
TV (Canada): CBC and TSN in English, RDS in French
Stream: ESPN+ in the United States, NSL YouTube channel worldwide
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The result was confirmed by CBC Sports’ report of the final, and the league’s own full-time graphic recorded the same 1-0 scoreline with Chisholm as the scorer. The Northern Super League’s official final page set the stage as a winner-take-all match for the Diana B. Matheson Cup at TD Place, and Toronto, the third-place team in the regular season, took the trophy from the Supporters’ Shield winners in their own final.
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Olivia Chisholm Scores The Goal That Wins The NSL Final
Chisholm struck six minutes before halftime, in the 39th minute, and that single goal held for the remaining 51 minutes plus stoppage time. TSN’s goal clip described the teenager’s finish as a shock goal against the run of play, and the timing explains why: Montreal arrived in Ottawa as the regular-season champions and the favourites, and a Toronto goal late in the first half forced the Roses to chase a final they had expected to control. No second goal came at either end. Referee Carly Shaw-MacLaren’s final whistle made the 1-0 official and started the celebration the league captured in its champions graphic, Toronto’s players in light blue around the gold trophy as the confetti fell.
The scorer’s age is part of the story. Toronto’s attack all season ran through youth, led by 18-year-old Kaylee Hunter, who scored four times across the two semifinal legs and made her the final’s headline threat. Montreal’s plan had to account for Hunter first, and the winning goal came instead from Chisholm, the other teenager in Toronto’s front line, which is exactly the kind of depth a 25-game season and a two-legged semifinal demand from a champion.
Redemption A Year After Losing The First Final
This trophy closes the one open file from Toronto’s first season. In 2025 AFC Toronto won the league’s first Supporters’ Shield with a 16-6-3 record, then lost the inaugural final 2-1 to the Vancouver Rise at BMO Field, in front of 12,429, after Hunter had opened the scoring. The club spent a full year as the team that had dominated a season and lost the one match that decided it. Head coach Marko Milanovic’s side reached this final the harder way, finishing third in 2026 at 10-9-6 for 39 points, six behind Montreal, while leading the league in total shots with 327 and shots on target with 149.
The intent was stated before the final was played. “Reaching the NSL Final for a second consecutive season speaks to the ambition of this group and the work everyone at the club puts in every day. We still have something to prove,” co-founder and CEO Helena Ruken said after the semifinal. Milanovic said the same thing in football terms after the 4-0 second-leg win in Ottawa: “I thought the girls again delivered in a big game. It’s something that we’ve done over the last few years. Anytime there was a big occasion, these girls show up and play the way they did today.” On Saturday, on the same TD Place pitch where that semifinal was closed out, they delivered in the biggest one.
How Toronto And Montreal Reached Ottawa
Toronto’s route was emphatic: a 4-2 first-leg win over the Ottawa Rapid at York Lions Stadium, then a 4-0 win in the return leg for an 8-2 aggregate, with Hunter scoring twice in each leg, and captain Nikki Small and Lena Silano also on the scoresheet in the second match while Sabrina D’Angelo kept a clean sheet. iimiTV set this matchup in Roses Meet Toronto In NSL Final when the finalists were confirmed. Montreal’s route ran through the defending champions: a 3-0 first-leg win over Vancouver in Burnaby, then a 2-2 draw at home to complete a 5-2 aggregate and end the Rise’s title defence.
The season series pointed the other way, which is what made Montreal the favourite. The Roses won the Supporters’ Shield at 12-9-4 for 45 points, beat Toronto 1-0 on May 10 and 2-0 on August 16, and got 12 goals from Elyse Bennett, third in the league, with Lisa Pechersky and Tanya Boychuk also in the top ten. Toronto’s only regular-season win in the fixture was a 2-0 on July 23, alongside draws of 1-1 on June 13 and 2-2 on September 10. Montreal also did it after changing coaches in August, when assistant and goalkeeping coach Maryse Bard-Martel took over from Robert Rositoiu and led the Roses to their first final. None of that history scored a goal on Saturday. Chisholm’s did, and a club that lost the first NSL final on its home field now owns the second one, won on a neutral field in the capital, 1-0, with a teenager’s name on the only goal of the game.
