The details for next year's Amway Canadian Championship (I still hate that name, BTW) have been released, if ya need 'em: http://www.torontofc.ca/news/2012/09/voyageurs-cup-schedule-released So, anyone wanna place odds that TFC doesn't win a fifth consecutive Voyageurs Cup?
And despite winning the championship 4 years in a row, TFC gets seeded 3rd. To be honest, though now that the CCL format has changed, this championship means less to me. The winner gets to play in a tournament designed for a USA v Mexico final.
Then just call it the Canadian Championship or the Voyageurs Cup and ignore the corporate sponsor de jour.
The fact is though that it is pretty clear that VWFC and IdM are far better clubs than we are. I seriously doubt that the title will be ours next year.
And had a decent coach. Next year? Too many questions with Mariner (and yes, there is another thread for that discussion ).
I hope you're not referring to De Winter... The Canadian Championship in my eyes is a so over bloated...there are only 4 teams yet two of those teams play 4 games a piece.
Kinda sucks that we don't get Edmonton in the first round. I could have sworn that Voyageurs Cup records from previous year was determined first. That's how the seeds were set 2009, 2010, and 2011. When they switched from league format, I thought preference was still given to finalists. Either way, this is still a fun tournament, and if Canada is lucky enough to draw a US group next year, then the prize is worth something. I will admit CCL has lost some of its luster this year, because the group stages seem less competitive.
Do you not find it nice to have a Canadian only tourney? Based on that, you need a home and away format to keep it fair. Like I've said, if Ottawa comes in, they should go back to a league format with 4 matches.
The problem with the four match league format is the imbalance in home and away matches. There is a definite skew toward winning at home. If I'm a TFC fan, it makes a huge difference if I play Vancouver and Montreal at home while playing Edmonton and Ottawa on the road as compared to the opposite. How do you keep things fair for everyone? Home and away, I suppose, but eight games is a lot to ask.
I think the solution to that is to balance it out from year to year. If you play 2 home games in one year, you play three the next and vice versa.
My view in a 5 team league like that would be, each MLS team gets one road game v. Ottawa or Edmonton and one home game. That would balance it enough. Everything else would in God's hands. It would still be a lot more fair than a bracket tournament since you have to play every team. 8 games would likely not be possible, so it has to be ruled out as an option.
I'd actually be more concerned about the games against MLS opposition since you'd have to assume you'd beat the NASL teams no matter where you play them. Your idea of ensuring a balance of home and away by league would still be valid, though, and probably the most workable option.
If each MLS team is guaranteed one home and away versus NASL, the related corollary is that each MLS team will have one home and away versus the other MLS teams, as you'd have to have 2 home and 2 away.
BTW, for those interested, here is how the teams will be seeded for the tournament next year, based on how the Canadian teams finished the regular season: 1. Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2. Montréal Impact 3. Toronto FC 4. FC Edmonton
Why it is we continue to dominate this competition despite being the crappiest MLS side in Canada is beyond me. I'm starting to suspect that the other clubs aren't even trying.
It may be an indication that the team, head to head, is not as far away from Montreal and Vancouver as we like to think we are....we may have talked ourselves into being miserable. Yes it is a small sample, but if you turn the 9 matches (all competitions) between Canadian based MLS clubs in 2012 into a league format....Toronto wins the league. Toronto would be W4-L1-D3 for 15pts (62.5% of available points) Vancouver wld be W1-L2-D1 for 4pts (33.33% of available points) Montreal would be W1-L3-D2 for 5pts (27.78% of available) Even if you expand it to include the two matches involving Edmonton (who end up with a 0%) Vancouver's two wins take them to 55.56% winning percentage. So if the other Canadian MLS squads are "not trying" against us, they extended that to the league too .
I'm going to go with statistical fluke. Earlier this season, I posted that I think this tournament was lame and that we should just use the MLS standings. Some valid criticisms of that idea were posted such as the unbalanced schedule but the high probability of a statistical fluke where a crappy team qualifies for a tournament supposedly made of champions is precisely the reason I posted that.
I still don't see that as a reason to abandon it. That's a reason to improve it, by bringing more clubs in NASL. And it can happen in even the most respectable of tournaments, look at Portsmouth winning the FA Cup a few years ago.
If you are going with the premise that Canada should only be entering its best team into the tournament, then yes you could argue that the tournament is a failure in doing that. But aside from the unbalance schedule argument, picking the top team in the MLS standings is a boring way to go about doing it. And sure, the worst mls team qualified. But it also gave some interest to an otherwise pointless season for TFC fans. So from that point of view I see it as a good thing to keep the tournament going.
oh for sure we should keep it. Don't forget MOntreal made it quite far before they were even in the MLS. I look forward to a day when there's even more teams.
Not to mention the relative silliness of choosing your Canadian champion based on how they perform against (mainly) American teams.