League 1 Ontario 2020

Good to see a Hamilton team. Hopefully the league can continue to grow outside Toronto.

 

There were the Nitros, but this is different?

 

July 6, 2014 first year of League 1 Ontario game between TFC Academy and Woodbridge Strikers and a key photo in my report http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports14/14l1o044.htm

Halftime subs Mo Babouli, Mark-Anthony Kaye and Chris Mannella coming into the game with PA guy Anthony Totella (now a motivational speaker for the CPL). Page down to the bottom for photos. Mannella and Babouli are now linked to York 9 FC.

Note the captain of TFCA was defender Mateo Restrepo now being talked about as a possible signing for a CPL team.

 

Ottawa South United has jumped from L1O to the PLSQ.

This is basically neutral so far as D3 soccer in Canada goes but I'm disappointed. I would have preferred to see another couple of teams added in Ottawa (and maybe even one back in Kingston) to keep growing L1O outside the GTA. While understandable for Ottawa from a travel perspective, this basically ensures L1O will remain GTA and west.

 

Here are articles from L1O:

https://www.league1ontario.com/news_article/show/1081804

and the PLSQ (in French):

http://plsq.ca/actualites/ottawa-south-united-se-joint-a-la-plsq

 

My thoughts after receiving the League 1 Ontario schedule for 2020. http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports20/20l1o010.htm

I say there will still be problems with the playoffs finishing in September. They do however mostly avoid scheduling conflicts with CPL games.

 

Robin,

You're level of service to Canadian soccer is unmatched. You've been at it forever with a level of passion that is unmatched.

I've followed you for a long time, thanks for your efforts. You deserve an award from the CSA.

 

Trust me, there is a big gap between Ottawa and Toronto with only Kingston as the City that could host a L1O team (and even that proved unsustainable there). As an OPDL parent, I would have preferred traveling 2 hours to games around Montreal than twice that time for games in Toronto.
That said, when the Ottawa Fury Academy played in the PLSQ, it was boys vs men and they got pushed off the ball a lot. But L1O players are older, so this is a better fit geographic-wise.

 

June 6, 2020 League 1 Ontario cancels their 'summer' season.
https://www.league1ontario.com/news_article/show/1108174 (statement from the league)

I wouldn't put too much thought into a 'fall' season. 2020 plans were to have the season end in August (one game playoff series save weeks of time) after last year having 15-0 aggregate playoff upsets as powerhouse teams had their entire rosters return to NCAA and Canadian colleges and universities.

The fall season would have to have high schoolers and working guys fill the rosters UNLESS the colleges and universities suspend their season (explained more in the chat with the women's and men's commissioner connected with that link)

 

Found this on Wikipedia:

Barrie played an integral role in the War of 1812. During the war, the city became a supply depot for British forces and, in addition, the Nine Mile Portage was adopted by the British military as a key piece of their supply line which provided a strategic path for communication, personnel and vital supplies and equipment to and from Fort Willow and Georgian Bay/ Lake Huron .

May help explain the choice of team name. '1812 FC Barrie'

We'll see if that draws less criticism than York 9 FC "Oh I'm so confused!'
I'm having that argument with some others on other message boards.

Three Bundesliga teams have their year of origin in their names. Indy Eleven named after an American Civil War unit (good in these times they were on the Union/North side). Invincible Eleven was one of George Weah's early teams back in Liberia.

 

I like the name. More than than, I'm happy to see L1O expanding to new cities.

 

I don't care too much if they sell or not so long as it is easy for players to move up to the CPL when they are ready. I suspect that will happen regardless of ownership because the PLSQ players will want it at least as much as the CPL does.

 

More about 1812 FC Barrie

https://www.simcoe.com/news-story/1...ng-toward-professional-soccer-franchise-goal/

Article says the club will play at J Massie Field at Georgian College. I looked it over from Google Earth. It does have a lot of seats for L1O. Artificial turf with gridiron lines is also not unusual for L1O.

 

Name drop at today's Zoom press conference of possible player for 1812FC Barrie in their first season in League1Ontario is Jeremy Hall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hall_(soccer)
He does tick the box of 50 TorontoFC appearances!

 

Here's the audio of the last 25 minutes of the Zoom conference in today's 1812 FC Barrie announcement.

http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports20/20l1o021.htm

 

OK here's the audio from today's press conference (September 29th, 2020) on my site.

http://www.rocketrobinsoccerintoronto.com/reports20/20l1o023.htm

The video/audio is on the 1812FC site but I've marked the minute marks of when each question is asked.