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    Canadian Premier League & Canadian Championship 2020

    The news about Ottawa joining the CPL has been mentioned on the MLS thread but now that it's official, it seemed like the right time to start one for all Canadian football in 2020. I had been wondering why it was taking so long to publish the CPL schedule for this season and am still waiting for a call from the HFX Wanderers ticket office to entice me to buy another half-season ticket but now it's clear why there was no news until the last possible minute (deadline for CPL team registrations is tomorrow, I think) - here's the official CPL press release about the Ottawa team. I guess the team name will be confirmed officially at the unveiling on Feb 12th.

    Having an 8-team league will make scheduling a lot easier and should reduce the number of single midweek fixtures that were required to tidy things up last season. It doesn't feel like there should be any problems fitting in the fixtures for so few teams, but having the spring and autumn season format, plus Canadian Championship matches and Forge's involvement in the Concacaf League all in the same window (which is effectively restricted to April-October by the weather, and the fact that ice hockey absolutely dominates the schedules in the winter months) makes it a trickier job.

    Looks like Canada Soccer were not expecting a CPL expansion team - the Canadian Championship fixtures were announced recently and reflect the situation without an Ottawa representative (Ottawa Fury competed last season, reaching the semi-final). This year's fixtures throw up some interesting match-ups in the quarter-finals: assuming that Halifax beat Quebec champions Blainville, they get to face Montreal Impact, while York9 get a big local derby against Toronto if they can see off Ontario champions Masters Futbol Academy (League1 is going to have to work on the some of the daft team names, I think...).

    2020 Canadian Championship Schedule

    Qualifying Round 1 (16-25 June 2020)

    Match 1 - FC Edmonton (CanPL) v Pacific FC (CanPL)
    Match 2 - Valour FC (CanPL) v Forge FC (CanPL)
    Match 3 - AS Blainville (PLSQ) v HFX Wanderers (CanPL)
    Match 4 - Masters Futbol Academy (L10) v York9 FC (CanPL)

    Quarterfinal Round (7-16 July 2020)

    Match 5 - Winner Match 1 v Vancouver Whitecaps FC (MLS)
    Match 6 - Winner Match 2 v Cavalry FC (CanPL)
    Match 7 - Winner Match 3 v Montreal Impact (MLS)
    Match 8 - Winner Match 4 v Toronto FC (MLS)

    Semi-Final Round (11-20 August 2020)

    Match 9 - Winner Match 5 v Winner Match 6
    Match 10 - Winner Match 8 v Winner Match 7

    Final Round (15-24 September 2020)

    Match 11 - Winner Match 9 v Winner Match 10
    Last edited by JVL; 30-01-2020, 14:05. Reason: Rogue apostrophe

    #2
    Paul Stalteri joins the coaching staff at York9.

    Meanwhile, the official announcement about Ottawa's club colours, name etc. is set to be made next week - but club president Jeff Hunt (heavily involved in other sports ventures in the city for many years) has already revealed in an interview that (unsurprisingly) they'll be called Atletico and play in red and white. Whatever the name, they've got a hell of a job on their hands to put a squad together in two months...

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      #3
      This has got nothing to do with the opening post, but I’m sharing my claim to fame anyway. In 1992, I played against the Canadian national team. Canada were in Bermuda for a World Cup qualifier and the Canadian coach wanted to play a warm up game before the WC qualifier. He knew one of the expat team’s coach and asked him to put together a team. The lad I was marking was Alex Bunbury, who was on West Ham’s books at the time. Subsequently he scored heaps of goals in Portugal for Maritimo. I would like to say he was in my hip pocket, but almost 30 years later, I’m still looking for him- by flock, was he fast. The likes of Craig Forrest, Frank Yallop and Paul Peschosolido all played in that game. We were second.

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        #4
        Wow

        I have a mate who is the unofficial historian of the Canadian national team, so if you ever want to tell your stories to someone who will write them up (or fancy a couple of free pints in Saskatchewan . . .)

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          #5
          Great story from DPDPDPDP - and related to that, Alex Bunbury is apparently behind plans for a CPL expansion team in Quebec.

          It's now official that the new team is called Atletico Ottawa. The manager is Miguel Angel Ferrer, who played a few games for Toronto a decade ago...

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            #6
            Have to ask, what's up with the York9 name? They've cause a bit of entertainment in old York, both by sharing some of our name and also having an Ingham in goal, as we did for many years (and also for seemingly sharing our habit of conceding decisive late goals).

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              #7
              Just looked that up as I didn't have a clue either: apparently, the name was chosen to represent the nine municipalities that make up York Region – Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Whitchurch-Stouffville.

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                #8
                Originally posted by JVL View Post
                Just looked that up as I didn't have a clue either: apparently, the name was chosen to represent the nine municipalities that make up York Region – Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, King, Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Whitchurch-Stouffville.
                Glorious. Sounds like a list of the stops on a train line that might have featured in a TS Eliot poem.

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                  #9
                  That may be the official explanation, but it's actually about area codes in the Greater Toronto Area. Toronto is 416, the 'burbs are 905. Drake popularized the term "the six" when talking about Toronto (it;s possible you;ve seen this in connection with the Raptors), so York is "the nine".

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                    #10
                    First fixture information has been released for the 2020 season, with the full fixture list to follow tomorrow.

                    Halifax play Ottawa on April 25th, would like to go but I will probably be back in Germany around the end of that month. Still no news about the availability of half-season tickets this time around, might just pick and choose a few single games instead...

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                      #11
                      The full CPL fixture list has now been released - with some important changes to the league structure for the 2020 season.

                      Adding the Ottawa expansion team makes it a much more balanced league (if still a very small one!) with fewer midweek fixtures. Most importantly, this has enabled the removal of the spring/fall season split. Instead, it's a 28-game season from April to October and Friday night football is also being introduced, presumably to see if it can give a boost to attendances for some of the teams in the league.

                      The CPL announcements are also emphasising the reduced travel requirements for all teams - this schedule still means over 430,000 kilometres of travelling in total, but that's 10% down on the 60k that each team had to fly or drive last season... Halifax will still have the greatest distance to cover over the season, of course, but that's simply due to being so far away from any other team in the league (1500km to the closest opponents in Ottawa).

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                        #12
                        Bit about Atletico Ottawa from the Beeb: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52534277

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