For most Canadians, the FIFA World Cup is a four-week television event. For Mark Kormish, it is an itinerary.
The lifelong superfan has tickets to twelve matches already. His ambition: every one of the sixteen host stadiums spread across Canada, the United States and Mexico, and somewhere between twenty and twenty-four matches in total. He flew to Mexico City for the double-header on a CAD$2,699 ticket, then caught a red-eye back to Toronto in time for Canada's home opener at BMO Field. "Love it," he says. "Worth every penny in saving up and working. If I'm not travelling for soccer, I'm working to pay for it."
Kormish is not unique, just visible. A small but ferocious tribe of Canadian supporters is treating the 2026 tournament as the long-promised reward for two decades of watching their men's national team be politely overlooked. "Now to have games on home soil in Toronto and Vancouver is unbelievable," he says. His plan if Canada finish first in their group: stay in Vancouver. If second: fly to Los Angeles. Either way, he is going.
The Voyageurs grow up
Behind Kormish is the institution that taught Canadian soccer how to sing. The Voyageurs Soccer Supporters Group, founded in 1996, will once again occupy the north end at BC Place and at Toronto Stadium, draped in red, leading chants that have become familiar at qualifiers and Concacaf finals but never before at a home World Cup. "Now hosting at home and having a real shot to compete and maybe make a run into the knockouts — and having the opportunity to play potentially our first five games, the three group stage games, at home on Canadian soil — it's huge," says one Voyageurs organiser.
The choreography is being rehearsed in WhatsApp groups for months. Banners are being painted in basements in Etobicoke and East Vancouver. Carpools are being organised between Calgary and Edmonton supporters' clubs who plan to make the long drive west when the tournament reaches BC Place.
The cost of believing
This kind of devotion is not cheap. Kormish's twelve confirmed tickets, the flights, the hotel rooms during the host cities' peak-season squeeze — it is a five-figure exercise even before the knockout rounds. He is not alone in this. Aidan D'Souza, a Torontonian who bought three tickets with his father and brother in December 2025, is heading to the June 26 group-stage match between Iraq and Senegal in Toronto. "I've been excited for this World Cup for a long time," he says. "It'll be amazing just seeing it live in action."
Some of this is straightforward fandom. Some of it is something Canadians do rarely: spending real money on a domestic event in the belief that it will feel like a national moment. The country's economic mood has been mixed for months. Borrowing costs are still elevated, and government spending choices are being scrutinised in the same week the federal budget books a major commitment to tournament security. Tickets to a home World Cup, for many supporters, are an emotional hedge — a way of buying back the optimism that the macro picture has been steadily withdrawing. (For a parallel debate about whether the political moment will outlast the spectacle, see our coverage of how earlier national promises have fared.)
Meeting in the stands
What the spreadsheet ledger misses is the social layer. "It's pretty neat when you meet someone in person that shares that same passion," Kormish says. "Then it's instinct, you can feel it." The superfans have been finding each other online for years — Discord servers, Reddit threads, the bilingual Voyageurs forums — but the tournament will be the first time most of them sit in the same stadium together.
That collective moment is the one Canadian soccer's stewards have been waiting for. The Canada Soccer Association's hope is that visible, sustained passion in the Toronto and Vancouver stands translates into the broader cultural footprint that the sport has never quite locked down in this country. A generation of children watching the singing section on television, the theory goes, is worth more than any single result on the pitch.
A short window
The window is short. After Canada's group-stage games, the tournament moves to other host cities. For Kormish, that means more flights, more time off work, more belt-tightening. "The Canada matches are my number one," he says. "Wherever they go, I go."
It is not a particularly Canadian sentiment — that loud, undignified, declarative kind of belonging. Which may be exactly why the country needs to hear it.