When it comes to sports, Vancouver is a strange city.

Most people really only care about one team: the Canucks. I don’t know why this is. The team hasn’t even qualified for the play-offs in 4 of the past 5 seasons. And any time the Canucks have any kind of success, the fans get obnoxious. Look, I’ve lived through two Stanley Cup riots now. I’m talking from experience.

The most successful pro sports team is the BC Lions who are the local Canadian football team and have won 6 Grey Cups. I love the Lions. Attending a live game is a blast. But even when the Lions win, good luck getting people in Vancouver to care as much as they do for the failing Canucks.

The Vancouver Whitecaps FC is our MLS franchise. They’re not the only major pro soccer team, and I’ll get to that other one in a second. The Whitecaps have less fans than the Canucks or the Lions, but Whitecaps fans are hardcore. It’s definitely a more international fanbase They’ve reached the CONCACEF Champions League multiple times, so I can’t deny they’ve had their successes.

The other pro soccer team simply called “Vancouver FC” and they play in the Canadian Premier League. They’re less than a year old, so I’m not sure they can be sustained long term. Nevertheless, seeing how Vancouver is Canada’s 3rd largest city, I understand why the CPL wanted a Vancouver team.

But wait. There’s another pro sports team. That’s the Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2. They’re the Whitecaps development team, and they play in MLS Next.

Then there’s the Vancouver Warriors. They’re the local pro box lacrosse team, and they play in the NLL. If you’re not familiar with box lacrosse, it’s different from field lacrosse in that it’s typically played in an indoor arena. It’s also a lot like ice hockey in terms of culture. The Warriors don’t have that big of a fanbase, but the fanbase that does exist is pretty hardcore – in part because lacrosse is a pretty big deal in Vancouver. However, I don’t know if the Warriors can stay around forever seeing how the NLL competes with the WLA, which is probably one of the best amateur box lacrosse leagues in the world.

Rounding out the major sports teams, there’s the Vancouver Bandits which plays for the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Canadians generally like to say they invented Basketball, and they’re pretty hardcore about it. However, I don’t think the CEBL is particularly good, and if an NBA G League team played a CEBL team, I guarantee the G League team would blast them. Nevertheless, they’re a “major” sports league in Canada.

We also have a minor league baseball team, the Vancouver Canadians. Not very many people follow them but every game is sold out because there’s nothing like enjoying a hot dog and a beer on a hot summer’s day. I get it. But the Canadians are a “A” minor league team. This is not serious baseball.

Vancouver also has a pro Twenty20 cricket team called the Knights. Most Vancouver residents are completely unaware of this, but they have a big following in the South Asian community. And South Asians are a very big demographic in Vancouver.

Now these are the pro sports. Amateur leagues are something else.

Like I said, ice hockey is pretty big here. And junior hockey in Vancouver often has a bigger following than some pro sports teams.

There’s the WHL, a major junior hockey league, represented by the Vancouver giants.

There’s the BCHL, a junior “A” hockey league, and probably the best of its kind in the world. That’s represented in the Metro Vancouver area by the Coquitlam Express, Surrey Eagles, and Langley Rivermen.

There’s the PCJHL, a junior “B” hockey league, which has 14 teams in the Vancouver area.

Meanwhile, as I said, amateur box lacrosse is pretty popular. That’s represented by the Western Lacrosse Association (WLA) which is almost as good as the NLL – but it plays in the summer instead of winter. In fact, a lot of WLA players also play in the NLL. 5 of the 7 WLA teams are in Vancouver. This league is 91 years old, and it’s got a long, long history.

There’s an amateur Rugby Union team called the Wave. I know nothing about them.

There’s also a roller derby league called Terminal City Roller Derby. I’ve known quite a few women who play this, and they seem to like it a lot. But I don’t know much about the sport.

We once had an NBA team called the Grizzlies that moved to Memphis. They were horrible, but people still wish they were here.

There was a roller hockey team called the Voodoo back when rollerblading was huge.

Back when the WHA competed with the NHL, the Vancouver Blazers existed.

And back when ultimate had a following there were two semi-pro ultimate teams that competed with each other called Riptide and the Nighthawks. They both folded.

Snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding, golf, and hoking are huge but I don’t know enough about how those sports are organized here.