Each year the blog Out of Touch tracks the “Canadian content” of each professional team in Canada. The blog simply looks at how many minutes were played by Canadian players and determines what club had the highest percentage of Canuck footballers.
With just a couple games left in the season and two of the four pro teams done, the 2011 numbers look like this:
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
EDM: 77.3%; MTL; 21.4%; TOR: 18.7%; VAN: 5.9%
Clearly, Edmonton wins the battle this season. Going away. Considering the relative success of FCE this year, we all should celebrate that 77.3 per cent. Who says Canadians can’t play this game.
Montreal and Toronto finished with numbers that have are in line with what has been typical. Hopefully, that 20 per cent will inch up as the academies start to produce players, but all and all it’s not a bad number.
And then there is Vancouver. The club that spent most of the off-season trying to eliminate the Canadian quota totally – an effort that eventually saw said quota reduced to just three roster spots – put up a pathetic 5.9 per cent. In total, the Caps played 14 games without a single Canadian taking part. Since July 9, Canadian players have only taken part in 34 minutes of action and have not spent a second on the pitch since August 7.
Those with long memories will recall that there was a time when Vancouver was seen as the most friendly Canadian club to Canadian talent. Indeed, some of the most critical voices to TFC’s lack of Canadian players in 2007-2008 were from B.C.
So, it’s a bit disheartening to see Vancouver giving such a lack of effort to get Canadians into the line-up – to say the least.
To be fair, the Whitecaps continue to put a lot of resources into their academy and they will point out that is how they are contributing to the overall Canadian scene. That’s fair – to a point. We need to see some evidence that the Caps will be willing to give those young Canucks a chance. You would think that a season that has clearly been in the toilet for months would have provided them with some opportunity this year. It did in Toronto, and we’ve seen the emergence of an exciting young player in Ashtone Morgan because of it.
Time will tell if 2011 was an outlier and if the Whitecaps are committed to developing Canadian talent. Let’s hope so because 5.9 per cent should not be acceptable to anyone that truly cares about the overall growth of the game in this country.