I don’t think there’s any doubt that in terms of team sports, hockey rules the roost in Canada. However, what other team sports are popular and how do they rank? Is it baseball? Football? Basketball? Curling?
Let’s discuss.
Second place by a clear margin is CFL (that’s Canadian football — it’s very similar to American football, but there are some different rules). After that, it’s definitely soccer, baseball, basketball, and F1, but I wouldn’t want to speculate in what order. Three of those have a top flight team/event in only one city (Toronto for basketball and baseball, Montreal for F1), but the other (soccer) is a recent arrival. On the other hand, there are far more immigrants here than in the US, so that may skew things toward soccer. It definitely gets pretty festive during the World Cup.
Definitely CFL/NFL. The two games are close enough that a football fan is a football fan on either side of the border. Though the rule differences make for some lively discussion at times.
I’d suggest Major League Baseball in third spot. Maybe curling in fourth?
After that, all bets are off–soccer fans claim that that game is popular, but I’ve never seen whatever league Toronto FC plays in on TV; NBA basketball is niche, and Formula 1 doesn’t seem to be very popular in most of Canada. Montreal’s F1 annual race got it a few fans, but I think that in terms of motorsports, NASCAR has a few more fans than F1.
Don’t forget lacrosse–it seems to have a fan base, but whether it’s bigger than soccer or NBA basketball, I don’t know and won’t guess.
Silliness. The second most popular team sport in Canada after hockey is hockey. Hockey also takes 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 9th places.
All the time I used to spend watching hockey, I now spend watching ringette.
Women’s hockey.
There is no clear answer to the question because it depends where you live. It also depends how you define popularity, and how you subdivide sports.
In terms of fandom, down east the answer would probably be baseball. In Quebec, it’s extremely varied and I’m not sure there’s really any clear answer because varios niche individual sports are super popular there. Certainly in Montreal people do love the Alouettes, though. In Ontario, probably baseball but possibly football, and if it’s football it’s NOT the CFL, but the NFL, but soccer’s popularity is growing fast. As you move in the Prairies, football, and it’s the CFL. BC I’m not sure.
For participation, though, the answer is clearly soccer, followed by the various forms of baseball, and closel followed by basketball. Football is not actually played by many people. (As per the OP I am excluding invidiaul sports, or else golf is #1.)
For fandom, though, really Gorsnak is right. Hockey is extremely dominant; it is as important to Canadians as any sport is to any country on earth. It’s very hard to overstate its central importance to Canadian culture.