2021 Canadian Championship

I'm very much looking forward to this tournament!

I'm happy that they've kept the geographic matchups as far as practical. There are some fun first round match ups in the west and potentially some very good ones in the east in later rounds.

The biggest chance for an early upset looks to be Pacific at home against the Whitecaps. Second would be Blainville shocking the Wanderers.

It makes sense to go single game for this year but I really hope they go back to home and away in 2022. It's so much more fun to have games in both stadiums, not to mention much fairer.

For the 2020 edition, I still hope the final game gets played even if it is done anachronistically. As a TFC fan, even if the CSA did just decide to award it to Toronto, I would not consider it a legitimate addition to our list of Canadian Championship victories. It would just be the year we didn't have a winner.

I do appreciate the CSA's logic in awarding first round byes to Hamilton and Toronto this year because they were last year's finalists. (As opposed to simply picking the three MLS teams or some other format to select the three bye teams.)

Oh, yeah, and I also love how the CSA's bracket shows the finalist going to the CCL and then to the FIFA Club World Cup. That's the spirit!

 

It's scheduled for October 15 at Timbits Stadium according to https://www.canadasoccer.com/events/canadian-championship/?c=canChamp&y=2020 - with TFC as the home team

 

That's been showing on the CSA website for a very long time. Long enough that I think it was put up as a potential date for October 15, 2020.

Also, TFC and Forge both have league home games scheduled for October 16, 2021 so it would be an odd bit of scheduling if true.

 

Good point - you must be right.

There was a rumour the other day about them playing the 2020 final on July 28.

 

The first game is in the books with Calgary defeating Edmonton 2-0.

Obviously attendance this year will be influenced by covid in the form of hesitant fans and attendance caps. Attendance at the first game was 1189 which is well below what Edmonton would normally draw.

Later this week we get the first of the really fun matches when teams from different leagues get to face each other. I'm most interested in the Whitecaps-Pacific and Halifax-Blainville games.

 

3780 in attendance for this game. Not sure if that was capacity restricted as Halifax normally sells out at 6000.

That was a beautiful first goal by the Wanderers. Blainville did their best after that but Halifax was the better team. I know both of the later goals were penalties which is never the same as scoring in open play but the final result seems fair on the night.

 

All the audio from the post game press conference for the Canadian Championship qualifying round game between the CPL York United FC and Masters FA of League1 Ontario.
http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports21/21york052.htm

 

You take a few days off and all sorts of fun stuff happens.

Great game by Victoria! It must have been hugely entertaining for the almost 5000 fans in attendance (minus the ones who took the ferry over from Vancouver for the match).

Looking ahead to round two, I've got my eye on the York at TFC match as the next chance for an upset. On paper, TFC should win easily but York will be giving it their all and TFC have been appeared extremely uninterested in playing with any effort over their past few games. (And that's assuming that, as I hope and expect, TFC fields a real line up.)

 

Forge over Valour in the early game of the quarter final round. A great warm up for Hamilton as they get ready to face Independiente in the CL.

Now we get to look forward to three games on Wednesday. Pacific at Calvary is ho hum.

I'm interested to see what Halifax can do at home against Montreal. The former Impact have been playing well and are heavy favourites but we'll see what line up they bring to the game. Could be fun.

And then there's the TFC-York match. Given how terribly TFC has been playing lately, I'm not sure if they'd be better off going with their typical starting roster or throwing on a bunch of youngsters who have something to prove. Either way, York has a reasonable chance in this game, which is not something that should be the case with a ~20 times disparity in payroll.

If I was a York fan, I'd be psyched. I know that the York team will be way up for this game.

Stepping outside fandom for a particular team for a moment, I'm disappointed this match up is happening with TFC in such disarray. In a normal year we'd see at least 15 000 fans out for this and have a true David and Goliath feel to the match. It would be great. Now there's actually a greater chance of a close, exciting score line but much less of a sense of fun and probably fewer than 5000 fans, which is sad.

 

The semi-finals start tonight in Hamilton with Forge hosting Montreal.

Go Forge for the upset win!

 

Why do I dislike Montreal? Well, because they are Montreal, and that is reason enough, but also because of games like this one where, once again, luck favours them for no particular reason.

The former Impact played with fire a bit, fielding a line up with just five of the eleven starters from their last MLS league game. Both teams had chances to score (and probably should have each converted at least one of them) during regulation. And then penalties with a predictably terrible result. A good crowd of over 5000 is sent home sad.

TFC now host Pacific next Wednesday to see who faces Montreal in the final. I believe the Toronto/Victoria winner is the host for that game, but I could be wrong about that.

 

TFC 2, Pacific 1. Kudos for Victoria for continuing to hang in there in a game that TFC should have decisively put away. The Pacific players should also all buy their keeper as much beer as he wants as he played very well.

Next up, Toronto and Montreal meet in the final for the fourth time in this tournament's history. Montreal has won two of the three previous finals, including the most recent Montreal-TFC final on penalties.

 

Montreal win 1-0 in a very uninspiring and lop-sided game.

Congratulations to the former Impact. As one of Canada's representatives in next year's CCL, may they make it all the way to the final before losing to Forge.

 

Why? The CPL Championship is the championship of CPL teams. This is literally the Canadian Championship with Canadian teams from a bunch of leagues. Not that we need to do things the way the Americans do, but there's a reason they call their national championship the US Open Cup even though they have their own league. Or, if you prefer, there's a reason the Dutch call their national championship the Royal Dutch Football Cup and don't use that title for the winner of the Eredivisie.

 

The Voyageurs Cup is the name of the trophy. That trophy predates the tournament. The tournament has never been the Voyageurs Cup except as a metonym. It has, since it's inception, been the Canadian Championship. It has this name because it crowns the best team in Canada, not the best team in one particular league.

Sure, but they still don't call have to call their top league the XXX Championship - in fact, I'm not aware of any who do.

As of 2023 our MLS clubs may qualify for the CCL via MLS in addition to the usual route of winning the Canadian Championship. Much like the CPL teams will be able to qualify through the CPL or the Canadian Championship.

If an MLS or a CPL team wants to be called the Canadian Champions they can earn that right by winning the very aptly named Canadian Championship. Or a D3 team - go Guelph and Mont Royal ! This isn't for or against any teams or leagues - it's just a literal description of the tournament.