With spring in full swing, many are eager for the sun to maintain shining. But for basketball fans in Kingston, Ont., the Sun they’re searching for is in Connecticut.
Limestone City native Aaliyah Edwards is getting set for her third season of skilled basketball, her first full season with the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA.
The previous Frontenac Secondary School standout was moved to the Sun before the trade deadline, after being seldom utilized by the team that drafted her sixth overall in 2024.
“It’s tough stuff that I needed to undergo that,” Edwards said from her hotel room in Toronto, where she is getting set to tackle the Toronto Tempo in pre-season motion.
“But at the identical time, I’m grateful that I went through it so early on in my profession.”
She adds that league veterans have encouraged her to maintain her head up, as trades and team movement are far too common in skilled sports.
But Edwards says she’s not dwelling on her turbulent sophomore season and is as a substitute using it as motivation to maintain progressing as knowledgeable basketball player.
“I would like my name to be thrown across the league, and I would like to prove people fallacious,” she said.
“Going to my third yr, obviously, I’m going to be team first. But individually, I’ve been working really hard to form of get back to what I do best, which is simply to dominate.”
During her rookie season with the Mystics in 2024, Edwards averaged 7.6 points and 5.6 rebounds in 21.8 minutes per game. But her production dipped in 2025, averaging 5.4 points and three.7 rebounds per game. Nonetheless, that got here in a median of seven fewer minutes per outing.
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Heading into this season, Edwards says she’s been told by Sun management and coaches that she’ll be an integral a part of the team in 2026.
“I’m really excited and just embracing that role and embracing just having that responsibility and accountability,” she said.
A part of the rationale she’s caught the eyes of the Sun brass is her outstanding showing during Unrivalled, the off-season 3-on-3 league, where Edwards averaged a double-double.
“I used to be able to essentially show that and just perform and it really just gave me that, that joy of the game again, after having such a troublesome season with a variety of adversity thrown my way.”
And although Edwards will probably be more heavily relied upon in 2026, she is hoping to make use of the season to be a mentee to league veteran, Britney Griner, who signed with Connecticut within the off-season. Griner is a 3-time Olympic Gold Medalist, in addition to a former NCAA and WNBA champion.
The addition to the Sun caught her off-guard, but she’s excited at the chance to learn from among the best to ever play within the WNBA.
“To form of like pick her brain and to utilize her to assist me be a greater player goes to be great for me this summer,” Edwards said, before joking that it is going to be nice to not play against her.
“She to this present day is considered one of the hardest people I’ve had to protect, just together with her size and her mobility at six-eight, like that’s really unheard of on this league. So to have her on our side of the team wearing our jersey, we like to see it.”
Earlier this off-season, the WNBA announced the sale of the Sun to a gaggle from Houston, who will relocate the long-standing club to the Lone Star State. It’s bittersweet for Edwards, as last season’s trade was a homecoming of sorts after spending her 4 years within the NCAA with the University of Connecticut Huskies.
While she admits it is going to be tough to depart her second home again, she’s excited for the chance to be a part of the league’s return to the town that won the primary 4 WNBA titles back-to-back from 1997 to 2000.
“It’s going to be great for us to relocate there. A variety of old fans are going to come back out and support us, but we’re also going to get a variety of latest fans,” Edwards said.
“That’s an amazing mix for me because, , you’re not only paving the way in which for the following generation, but you’re also respecting those who got here before us.”
But before she gets a brand new postal code, Edwards has to deal with this season and the Sun’s first exhibition game — a game that happens to be her first skilled game on home soil when Connecticut pays a visit to Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto against the expansion Tempo.
“Isn’t that crazy?” she remarked.
Edwards admits her phone has been busy ever because the league’s schedule was announced, with many family and friends reaching out in hopes of securing tickets to the sport. She’s exhausted the variety of tickets allotted to her by the league, and says that close relatives and former coaches will probably be in attendance for the exhibition matchup.
However the proven fact that tickets for the sport are so hard to come back by shows how far the league has come.
“You recognize, they’re not only playing games in Toronto, they’re playing in Vancouver. And Montreal, so that they’re going across the country. So yeah, I’m just super proud that it’s finally come.
“Little girls can look up and see a professional team playing on their home soil. It’s much more of a motivator for them to proceed to do this and play the game that they love.”
Edwards and the Sun will return to Toronto on June tenth, for Connecticut’s only other visit to Canada this season.
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