Most Popular Sports in Canada: Hockey, Football, and Beyond

Ice hockey is the most popular sport in Canada, topping national viewership surveys with roughly one in five Canadians naming it their favourite. It is Canada’s official national winter sport and its cultural heartbeat. But the picture widens quickly below hockey: CFL football, surging basketball, mass-participation soccer, curling, and baseball all command committed, coast-to-coast followings of their own.

How we rank Canada’s biggest sports

Popularity is not one number. A sport can dominate television yet trail in participation, or lead youth registration while barely registering on the pro stage. This ranking weighs several signals together: national viewership and fan-interest surveys, participation and registration data, the reach of a marquee event, and cultural footprint. Hockey wins on nearly every measure, but soccer’s participation lead and basketball’s momentum show why the order shifts depending on how you count. The list below reflects overall national prominence as of 2026.

The biggest sports in Canada

Ice hockey sits at the top by a wide margin. It functions as a cultural institution, not just a sport. Seven NHL franchises play in Canadian cities, junior hockey through the CHL keeps the game rooted at the community level, and the pursuit of the Stanley Cup dominates sports talk from October through June. Hockey remains the single most popular sport to watch in national surveys.

Canadian football (CFL) is the country’s most distinctly homegrown pro league, with rules that set it apart from the NFL: 12 players per side, a wider field, and three downs instead of four. The Grey Cup, played every November, is one of the country’s most-watched broadcasts and functions as much as a cultural celebration as a championship game.

Basketball is Canada’s fastest-rising sport. Its profile jumped after the Toronto Raptors won the 2019 NBA Championship, and Canada now sends more players to the NBA than any country outside the United States. The national team reached the semifinals of the 2023 FIBA World Cup, its best-ever finish, cementing basketball’s growth well beyond Toronto.

Soccer leads every other sport in youth registration and overall participation, even if its pro profile trails hockey and basketball. The Canadian Premier League gives the country a domestic top flight, and the national teams have raised Canada’s global standing: the men qualified for the 2022 World Cup after a 36-year absence, and the women won Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020.

Curling may be the most quietly Canadian sport of all. It holds a special place in the prairie provinces, draws strong television audiences for events like the Brier and the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, and Canada remains one of the world’s strongest curling nations at both the Worlds and the Winter Olympics.

At a glance: Canada’s most popular sports

Rank	Sport	Governing body	Marquee event	Standout strength
1	Ice hockey	Hockey Canada / NHL	Stanley Cup	Top viewership, national identity
2	Canadian football	CFL	Grey Cup	Biggest domestic broadcast
3	Basketball	Canada Basketball / NBA	NBA / FIBA World Cup	Fastest-growing
4	Soccer	Canada Soccer	FIFA World Cup / CPL	Highest participation
5	Curling	Curling Canada	Brier / Winter Olympics	Prairie stronghold
6	Baseball	Toronto Blue Jays (MLB)	World Series	National rallying point

Canadian sport in 2024-2026

The 2024-2026 stretch has been one of the most eventful in recent Canadian sports memory. In hockey, the Edmonton Oilers reached the Stanley Cup Final in both 2024 and 2025 but lost each time to the Florida Panthers, extending Canada’s title drought that dates back to Montreal’s 1993 win. In baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays authored the story of 2025, reaching the World Series and pushing the Los Angeles Dodgers to a decisive Game 7 before falling in extra innings, a run that briefly turned the whole country into baseball fans.

Football stayed strong too: the Saskatchewan Roughriders won the 112th Grey Cup in November 2025, their first title since 2013, before a peak audience of just over 5 million viewers. And the biggest event is unfolding now. Canada is co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup with the United States and Mexico, its first time hosting the men’s tournament, with Toronto and Vancouver staging 13 matches and Canada’s men qualified automatically as hosts.

The role of winter sports

Beyond hockey, Canada holds its own across winter sport in general. Alpine skiing, ski jumping, speed skating, figure skating, and freestyle skiing all have deep Canadian traditions, and the country is a perennial medal contender at the Winter Olympics. Geography and climate shape much of this: long winters and abundant ice and snow make these sports accessible in a way few countries can match, and the Games every four years give them a natural national spotlight.

The bottom line

Hockey remains Canada’s defining sport, the one that crosses every regional and economic line, but it no longer tells the whole story. Basketball is climbing fast, soccer draws the most players and now a home World Cup, and the Blue Jays’ 2025 near-miss showed how quickly Canadians will rally around a contender. As of 2026, Canadian sport is broader and more competitive on the world stage than at any point in its history.