Well, I would like to make a few comments about building a Canadian league. Partly referencing the past, but also the present and future. Hope that's OK. First off, I'm not Canadian. I'm a Yank. I don't know TOO much about Canada, but I've kept up a bit with Canadian soccer since the CSL days so I'm not totally ignorant. That being said, here goes... In my opinion, Canadian soccer is in the position of 'is the glass half-empty or half-full'? You can certainly argue that it's half-empty because there's no national league and one doesn't appear anywhere on the horizon. But you can also argue that it's half-full. At the moment, there is the CPSL in parts of Ontario and Quebec...the PCSL in BC...and the AMSL (a lower level, but probably not by much) in Alberta. If I'm not mistaken, these are the four most populous provinces of Canada and represents at least 80% of the population. These leagues could certainly be fleshed out a little more, especially in Quebec. It's also not hard to imagine the creation of a 'central' league including Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Western Ontario and an 'eastern provinces' league. If you split the CPSL into Ontario and Quebec, you have 6 regional leagues. Why not use that as a building block? Have an annual playoff at one site of all these champions, plus the A-League teams? These teams and leagues can gradually grow, build their fan base, build their youth programs and become more competitive. Eventually, if the support is there, another level could be built on top of that, with a West and East league, with pro/rel between the 6 leagues and the top 2. And so on... Getting back to the history question, it seems that the lesson to be learned from the first go-round of the CSL was that there is simply not enough support for soccer to make a go of a national league. Start with what you have, and grow little by little. It seems like the way forward to me.
I could't agree with you more. Improving on the regional leagues like the CPSL, PCSL is the way to go as they would likely form the future second division in Canada. The other ones to look at are the LSEQ (www.lseq.qc.ca) and the AMSL (www.albertamajorsoocer.com). On the Praries and in Atlantic Canada it would make more sense to have an interprovincial circuit. As for professional teams, they would likely be entered into the A-League or USL until such time that will be stable enough to break away to form part of the new national league. In theory, the future D1 national league(named by someone as CPS, Canadian Premiership Soccer) with its east west conferences and the D2 CNS(Canadian Nationawide Soccer)with its 6 regional leagues, will possibly be the way to go in the future. The only potential drawback might be is that will spectators be really interested in seeing clubs from outside the big cities. Ie would a person be really be interested in seeing a game between eg Lake shore vs. Flin Flon?????? Just a thought.
How well do these leagues compare to the CPSL and PCSL in terms of quality? Any idea? Also, any possibility of teams from the LSEQ joining the CPSL? Probably not a lot of neutrals, but I'm sure people in the smaller towns would. Smallish crowds, of course, but that can be said for smaller towns in any country, in any sport.
In terms of quality I'd guess that the PCSL is on even par with the CPSL. From what I understand about the attendance at CPSL games the crowds are bigger at most PCSL games. However the PCSL is strictly an amateur league at the moment and has a few American teams playing in it. What can be learned from thre CSL experience? Don't dress your teams in gaudy cheap uniforms, and play in crappy stadiums (I think there are enough good stadiums in Canada now). Looking at old footage of CSL games you'd think that some teams were playing in public parks. Other than that not much else is to be learned as the times are so different now. In the CSL days it was hard to get information about other teams in the league (all we had to follow the league back then was TSN and small blurbs in the local paper if we were lucky-and only about the local team). Now we have other sports channels, and most importantly the internet to follow the teams and league. It's much easier nowadays to publicize a team, if the team wishes to do so.
We had good stadiums in the past, it just wasn't suitable for the fanbase. The big example being the Ottawa Intrepid at Frank Clair.
Winnipeg Fury at Winnipeg stadium also comes to mind. However I'm talking about games being held in an unprofessional atmosphere. For instance a couple of weeks ago I was going through old videotapes and I have about 25 minutes of a Brickmen-Fury game from Winnipeg. I have no idea where it was played (I'm not about to go find out) but on the TV it looked like a local park. All the seats were on one side of the stadium, and the camera was situated in the stands. So all the camera showed thropughout the game was the pitch (which was as narrow as a CFL football field-you could see where the soccer lines were the same as the football ones) and a small 4 foot fence which was all that seperated the outside of the stadium and the inside. I suppose many people got in free by hopping that fence. Anyway to get back to the point I'm trying to make is that it looked more like a mens beer league game in a local park than a professional soccer game.
Re: Re: Building a League: What can we learn from the past? A definite improvement on Foothills though. While it would be great if we had the facilities for them, right now I'd accept a greater number of teams that didn't bleed money like a sieve so that the concept of building/improving facilities for them wasn't such a fantasy. I don't know of any locales that can do the "If you build it, they will come" scenario. With decent weather and decent crowds (slightly larger then the PDL ones of 2 years ago) a stronfg case could be made in Calgary for improvements that would make the franchise much more viable. Fingers crossed that the average game time temperature for the Storm this year is in the positive double digits - that alone would be good for a few hundred extra butts in the collapsing bleachers.
As far as Foothills goes, I don't think that you need the larger crowds to make a case for a new or improved stadium. What you have now is unnacceptable from all that I've read, and needs to be improved or a new stadium found. As for the "if you build in they will come" scenario, I believe that exists everywhere. The problem is keeping the fans returning after the new stadium is not such a novelty. If the stadium is a pleasant place to watch the game they'll return.
Or BC Place. The same scenario would be different in the case of a new 5000-10000 seat soccer stadium. Sure there might be a drop off after the novelty wears out but the crowds would still be decent.
It seems to me that what y'all are talking about is making local leagues national. That will increase travel costs, need more infrastructure, and will still be the same players. Unfortunate, and disappointing, cause I'd like to see a "Canadian Premiership". Really what I'd like to see is better soccer in Canada, with player development feeding the Nats. Improve the National Team profile, and you have more fans, bettering the chance for a league. It is unlikely that Canada will win a bid to host the World Cup anytime soon, so the spark the USA used to get fired up isn't going to work here. So, an Alternate Suggestion. Find a Sugar Daddy or Momma, lets call him/her the Canadian Lamarr Hunt. Build a nice 20,000 seat or so soccer specific stadium where ever the likely fan base wll be good (in Canada). Enter a team in MLS, with the adjustment that for that team either Canadian or US players can play without prejudice (ie, niether are foriegners). Stock the team with a Canadian Coach and Canadian players. There are several decent canadians playing abroad who would be good players in MLS. So then go Win Something. MLS needs money and expanding thier owner/operator base away from the 2 that own the league right now would be attractive to them. Money talks. MLS continually try foriegn teams, putting foriegn stars places they will attract local immigrant attention. I'll bet the new Canadian Team would be allocated DeRosario right off. FIFA wouldn't care. Canada would have a platform for player development. Candian fans would have a team to root for, or against, soccer fans being what we are. Likely Soccer Canada would be interested in some sort of role, providing training facilities, organizing tournaments against the MLS team, etc. OK, it sounds unlikely, but reread the previous posts. Does it sound like the Canadian Premiership is imminent? All thats needed is the money, likely a lot less money than nationalizing the leagues we have now. Got to find the Sugar Daddy, tho. If I win the lottery then I am that man.
Actually as far as I'm concerned a Canadian premiership would be on par with the A-League for awhile. If we used the A-League teams then travel would not increase significantly from what some teams presently do. For instance I support the Vancouver Whitecaps. They Travel all across Canada and the USA as it is now. This upcoming season they have to travel to Montreal, Toronto, Indiana, Cincinnati, El Paso, and even a neutral game site in Saskatoon. Those are quite long road trips for a team that supposedly is playing a regional schedule. Sure we'd be seeing the same players as we do now, but the league would be our own. Not only would more Canadians have somewhere to play but it would give more Canadian cities a team to follow which always seems forgotten in these discussions. It seems everyone always wants to talk about whether or not it will improve the national team, but how about how it will give more Canadian fans a team to follow?
Would love to see a better calibre of soccer in this country, but unfortunately don't see tht happening any time soon. If there was a non-Calgary Canadian MLS entry I'd still be cheering for the Fire. They're my team and in this day of 12000 channels I can find them somewhere. Travel costs into the US market wouldn't be significantly lower then costs for within Canada. My hope is to grow what teams and leagues we have here into a Canadian Premiership. If we could get more teams, it would help decrease travel costs as the schedule could be more regional and would increase the chances for the league to get a television deal of some sort (even if it didn't contribute financially there's no such thing as bad publicity and it would allow the teams to charge more for signange rights - TV exposure). The embarrasment to the City of having Foothills presented on national TV as their best facility might goad city council into improving that two holer. I'm willing to take baby steps for the long haul - the quick and easy fix is almost never quick, easy or a fix.
How long has soccer been played in this country? Nobody is asking for a quick fix considering Canadas been an eternity without it's own league.
It would be somewhat questionalable when it comes to the possibility that a new Canadian league would mean less quality. The soccer scene has expanded by leaps and bounds since 1993. No doubt we have seen an improvement in the talent level of players. As has been ponted out, the travel situations between the A-League and a possible Canadian one are not much different. It's no doubt cheaper to travel in Canada now than it has been in the past. The biggest downside I might see is a reduced schdule since a team will likely play fewer games.
Canadian teams in the A-League played 28 games last season. In a possible attempt to avoid too many games, a new league may have teams only play a 20 or 22 game schedule.
Getting back to the original theme of this thread, maybe we should ask why the CSL failed. If we want to learn from the past in terms of building a new league, maybe that's the place to start. So...why did the CSL fail?
If a new Canadain league was to scale back to a 20-22 game schedule then I wouldn't bother. I'd rather have the 28 game A-League.
It's failed because teams went broke. It's not like the CSL was anything more than bush league, the A-League today is far superior to what the CSL was. The only difference is we had television coverage of it here with a game of the week, but no internet to spread the word.