Canadian Premier League

[kmacphee]

After the Red Sox won their first (so called ) World Series in a very long time they brought the Trophy to Halifax, even hosted a shin dig at the American Consulate for the fans.

As for the Bluejays, not so much....just take our money and ignore.   It's the Canadian way I guess.

[GimliJetsMan]

43 minutes ago, kmacphee said:

After the Red Sox won their first (so called ) World Series in a very long time they brought the Trophy to Halifax, even hosted a shin dig at the American Consulate for the fans.

As for the Bluejays, not so much....just take our money and ignore.   It's the Canadian way I guess.

http://m.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article/212856994/blue-jays-set-for-seventh-annual-winter-tour/

The Winter Tour will officially begin in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Jan. 12. Members of the organization will spend two days in the city before travelling to Edmonton for another two-day stay from Jan. 13-14. After that, the club will return home from Jan. 20-22 to wrap up the annual event.

In Regina, the Blue Jays will host a Jays Care Foundation Challenger Baseball clinic with players from North Regina Little League on Jan. 12. The following day, Estrada, Pillar, Travis and Sanchez will be joined by Toronto's mascot ACE to visit with students and staff from the Albert Community School.

The Edmonton stop will include a visit to Stollery Children's Hospital and an appearance at the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers hockey game. The Blue Jays have also scheduled a fan autograph session at Rogers Place for Jan. 13, but this will be a ticketed event. The ability to purchase tickets is determined by a random lottery that will open at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday and will close at 9:59 a.m. ET on Friday.

...

The Winter Tour began in 2011 and has visited more than 20 Canadian cities over the past seven years. Some of the stops have included Fredericton, Halifax, St. John's, Ottawa, Montreal, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

[GimliJetsMan]

Doing some googling, the Whitecaps have apparently had an academy in Saskatchewan since 2013.

They also apparently have formal partnerships with seven provincial Soccer associations, (Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island).

These are some low key partnerships, as the only way I was able to find out about them was on a footnote at the bottom of an article talking about their partnership with Saskatchewan.

[GimliJetsMan]

Just now, dsqpr said:

In an ideal world I'd like to see 16 teams playing a fully interlocking 30 game schedule and the team with the most points crowned league champions.

I'd also like to eventually see a second division(s) but that would have to be regional (4 regions?) to control travel costs. Not sure it is feasible to have relegation though (too big of a financial hit).

Interesting.

What are your sixteeen teams, and what are your four regions?

[kmacphee]

28 minutes ago, GimliJetsMan said:

http://m.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article/212856994/blue-jays-set-for-seventh-annual-winter-tour/

The Winter Tour will officially begin in Regina, Saskatchewan, on Jan. 12. Members of the organization will spend two days in the city before travelling to Edmonton for another two-day stay from Jan. 13-14. After that, the club will return home from Jan. 20-22 to wrap up the annual event.

In Regina, the Blue Jays will host a Jays Care Foundation Challenger Baseball clinic with players from North Regina Little League on Jan. 12. The following day, Estrada, Pillar, Travis and Sanchez will be joined by Toronto's mascot ACE to visit with students and staff from the Albert Community School.

The Edmonton stop will include a visit to Stollery Children's Hospital and an appearance at the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers hockey game. The Blue Jays have also scheduled a fan autograph session at Rogers Place for Jan. 13, but this will be a ticketed event. The ability to purchase tickets is determined by a random lottery that will open at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday and will close at 9:59 a.m. ET on Friday.

...

The Winter Tour began in 2011 and has visited more than 20 Canadian cities over the past seven years. Some of the stops have included Fredericton, Halifax, St. John's, Ottawa, Montreal, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

my apologies... Didn't even realize it they did any kind of tour.  Good job Jays.

 

[Dub Narcotic]

1 hour ago, GimliJetsMan said:

Doing some googling, the Whitecaps have apparently had an academy in Saskatchewan since 2013.

They also apparently have formal partnerships with seven provincial Soccer associations, (Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island).

These are some low key partnerships, as the only way I was able to find out about them was on a footnote at the bottom of an article talking about their partnership with Saskatchewan.

The Whitecaps partnership gets a lot of play (relatively speaking) in Saskatoon, as they have a partnership with a soccer program at a high school and with youth clubs. Someone like @rob.notenboom probably knows more of the details. Additionally, Brett Levis' career makes the front page here quite often and he's been back to do camps and the like.

It would be nice if they did some exhibition games across the prairies but FC Edmonton doesn't really do that either and they are a lot closer to Saskatoon and Regina than Vancouver is (FCEd did have a mini-training camp here last year).

 

[matty]

5 hours ago, GimliJetsMan said:

So interesting thought exercise: Build your ideal CanPL.

Format/Schedule

No divisions, 18 games per side, with each team playing away to and hosting every other team. Top of the table at the end of the season are league champions. I'd prefer this format over a East/West split.

North American Style
East: Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Moncton, Halifax
West: Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria

Season: March to December 4 games against each in conference rival (24) and 2 interconference rival (14) for a 38 game season
Playoff: Top 4 in each conference with a home away series at each stage until a one game final.

Traditionalist
A two league pro/rel system with 13 teams in each. Season sees each team play 24 games from April to October. Division 1's bottom 3 are religated and division 2's top 3 are promoted, D1's 7th place team and D2's 4th place team play a playoff.

Teams: Toronto (x2), Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal (x2), Quebec, Moncton, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver (x2), Victoria, Saskatoon, K-W, Surrey, St. John's, Charlottetown, Kingston, Windsor

Notes
All things said I don't see the later happening.....ever. I'd say Thunder Bay could be swapped with Sudbury, either way a Northern Ontario team would be interesting.

[GimliJetsMan]

13 minutes ago, Dub Narcotic said:

The Whitecaps partnership gets a lot of play (relatively speaking) in Saskatoon, as they have a partnership with a soccer program at a high school and with youth clubs. Someone like @rob.notenboom probably knows more of the details. Additionally, Brett Levis' career makes the front page here quite often and he's been back to do camps and the like.

It would be nice if they did some exhibition games across the prairies but FC Edmonton doesn't really do that either and they are a lot closer to Saskatoon and Regina than Vancouver is (FCEd did have a mini-training camp here last year).

 

From my 30 seconds of googling, it appears they are making an effort in Sask.

MB has something, but I have never heard of it. I did find out a player who was born in Brunkild was playing for the caps, and was transferred to a euro club.

My impression, and I could be wrong, is they are trying to suck up the talent in the prairies, and not trying to build a fanbase here.

[GimliJetsMan]

2 minutes ago, matty said:

North American Style
East: Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Moncton, Halifax
West: Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria

Season: March to December 4 games against each in conference rival (24) and 2 interconference rival (14) for a 38 game season
Playoff: Top 4 in each conference with a home away series at each stage until a one game final.

Traditionalist
A two league pro/rel system with 13 teams in each. Season sees each team play 24 games from April to October. Division 1's bottom 3 are religated and division 2's top 3 are promoted, D1's 7th place team and D2's 4th place team play a playoff.

Teams: Toronto (x2), Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal (x2), Quebec, Moncton, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver (x2), Victoria, Saskatoon, K-W, Surrey, St. John's, Charlottetown, Kingston, Windsor

Notes
All things said I don't see the later happening.....ever. I'd say Thunder Bay could be swapped with Sudbury, either way a Northern Ontario team would be interesting.

I'd LOVE that Traditionalist system. Don't think there are enough markets yet to do it, but it's perfect for schedule.

I think less teams per division might be able to make that work.

[rob.notenboom]

2 hours ago, Dub Narcotic said:

The Whitecaps partnership gets a lot of play (relatively speaking) in Saskatoon, as they have a partnership with a soccer program at a high school and with youth clubs. Someone like @rob.notenboom probably knows more of the details. Additionally, Brett Levis' career makes the front page here quite often and he's been back to do camps and the like.

It would be nice if they did some exhibition games across the prairies but FC Edmonton doesn't really do that either and they are a lot closer to Saskatoon and Regina than Vancouver is (FCEd did have a mini-training camp here last year).

 

I actually don't know too many of the details. A bit about the Regina partnership between the Caps and FCR (and that has changed during the last year so I'm not exactly sure where it stands now), and I'd been told only a bit about the Stoon situation so I'm afraid I'm not very much help here. 

[masster]

1 hour ago, Dub Narcotic said:

The Whitecaps partnership gets a lot of play (relatively speaking) in Saskatoon, as they have a partnership with a soccer program at a high school and with youth clubs. Someone like @rob.notenboom probably knows more of the details. Additionally, Brett Levis' career makes the front page here quite often and he's been back to do camps and the like.

It would be nice if they did some exhibition games across the prairies but FC Edmonton doesn't really do that either and they are a lot closer to Saskatoon and Regina than Vancouver is (FCEd did have a mini-training camp here last year).

 

I'm not sure where all of this started, but who, besides Rollins, is saying that the Whitecaps claim all of Western Canada? MLS grants them this territory in terms of homegrown players for their academy, but MLS does that for all teams. It is based on population and that isn't unique to the Whitecaps.

Now I'm sure the team would love to have as many fans as possible and grow their brand. That helps in term of TV ratings, merchandising, etc. Levis has done appearances in Saskatchewan. Bustos has in Winnipeg. Having preseason or exhibition games, like the Raptors or Blue Jays do, would be impossible though. You can't host outdoor games in Edmonton, Regina or Winnipeg in February!! Perhaps they could do something midseason with a touring European team, but the local fan base doesn't want more fixture congestion with other friendlies.

Could the Whitecaps do more to reach out to other markets in Western Canada, sure. But I don't get this sense of entitlement that people are talking about.

[Pat Carrasco]

Can someone here please tell me who's this fucking annoying cunt by the name of TFC RED Brigade. I've recently been following several of his posts on Twitter. He's probably the biggest CPL basher I ever encountered. His ideas are totally warped. He constantly goes on Twitter giving us the doomsday news that the CPL will fail right from the start.

 

[matty]

18 minutes ago, Pat Carrasco said:

Can someone here please tell me who's this fucking annoying cunt by the name of TFC RED Brigade. I've recently been following several of his posts on Twitter. He's probably the biggest CPL basher I ever encountered. His ideas are totally warped.  

 

He thinks MLS and Liga MX are basically equal (possibly to troll). Just call him an idiot and move on

 

[GimliJetsMan]

2 hours ago, masster said:

I'm not sure where all of this started, but who, besides Rollins, is saying that the Whitecaps claim all of Western Canada? MLS grants them this territory in terms of homegrown players for their academy, but MLS does that for all teams. It is based on population and that isn't unique to the Whitecaps.

Now I'm sure the team would love to have as many fans as possible and grow their brand. That helps in term of TV ratings, merchandising, etc. Levis has done appearances in Saskatchewan. Bustos has in Winnipeg. Having preseason or exhibition games, like the Raptors or Blue Jays do, would be impossible though. You can't host outdoor games in Edmonton, Regina or Winnipeg in February!! Perhaps they could do something midseason with a touring European team, but the local fan base doesn't want more fixture congestion with other friendlies.

Could the Whitecaps do more to reach out to other markets in Western Canada, sure. But I don't get this sense of entitlement that people are talking about.

I completely buy into the fact that Vancouver's ownership sees all of Western Canada as theirs, and only theirs. On another forum, I post a LOT about the business of hockey. I'd like to think I have a pretty good BS alarm when it comes to these things, and it's dead quiet on this one. I assume they see dominating Western Canada as a long term goal in their portfolio. It's a footnote in all of their year end meetings. I can guarantee "Exclusive high level soccer access to these markets:" is a bullet point on their macro selling point presentation.

Lets be real, there is not a chance in hell the MLS will come to Winnipeg, Regina, or even both of Edmonton and Calgary. The only opportunity I would get to have an actual home team to root for is through the CanPL, and some yobbos in Vancouver want to take that away? F*** them. I would have this opinion even if they made an effort to attract fans in the market, but they haven't even done that, and that makes me even more sour.

[Complete Homer]

2 hours ago, Pat Carrasco said:

Can someone here please tell me who's this fucking annoying cunt by the name of TFC RED Brigade. I've recently been following several of his posts on Twitter. He's probably the biggest CPL basher I ever encountered. His ideas are totally warped. He constantly goes on Twitter giving us the doomsday news that the CPL will fail right from the start.

 

Don't bother replying. Not sure if there's something wrong with him or if he's just a classic internet troll, but it's a guy named Duncan who goes around harassing anyone/anything that he sees as opposing MLS/TFC. His accounts keep getting banned but he pops back with some variation of TFC Army/force/brigade/etc

Regardless, doesn't really matter if there's some sort of borderline/spectrum thing going on or if he's just a troll, best way to deal with it is to avoid confrontation 

[masster]

8 minutes ago, GimliJetsMan said:

I completely buy into the fact that Vancouver's ownership sees all of Western Canada as theirs, and only theirs. On another forum, I post a LOT about the business of hockey. I'd like to think I have a pretty good BS alarm when it comes to these things, and it's dead quiet on this one. I assume they see dominating Western Canada as a long term goal in their portfolio. It's a footnote in all of their year end meetings. I can guarantee "Exclusive high level soccer access to these markets:" is a bullet point on their macro selling point presentation.

Lets be real, there is not a chance in hell the MLS will come to Winnipeg, Regina, or even both of Edmonton and Calgary. The only opportunity I would get to have an actual home team to root for is through the CanPL, and some yobbos in Vancouver want to take that away? F*** them. I would have this opinion even if they made an effort to attract fans in the market, but they haven't even done that, and that makes me even more sour.

Now some yobbos in Vancouver want to stop other pro teams from forming in the prairies? You're starting to sound like BBTB!

[fmfranck]

Long time reader, first time poster. I say we shouldn't imply that Rollins is right on his "MLS canadian clubs hate CanPL idea" theory. We know that TFC is either condescending or threatened about the project from Manning's comments, but it's highly speculative to claim to know what Joey Saputo or Kerfoot and co. are thinking on the matter. I know Rollins is an idk Toronto based journalist, so I give him "some" credit when it comes to his zone of "competence", but I highly doubt his level of accuracy when it comes to the Impact or Saputo. 

As a longtime supporter of the Impact, I can tell you that Saputo has supported the overall growth of the sport to a fault for over 20 years. Id very much doubt that he'd be opposed to a team in Québec. The proposition of a team in Montréal "might" be met with some reticence however. But to claim that Saputo thinks Québec's his turf alone and that he would oppose any professional developments in that area is way off the mark. 

[GimliJetsMan]

18 minutes ago, masster said:

Now some yobbos in Vancouver want to stop other pro teams from forming in the prairies? You're starting to sound like BBTB!

They're not going to stop it, but if they were able too, they would 100%.

Look back to the Canadian WHA/NHL expansion of the 1977. Defeated by Canadian Teams. In the first round of the '79 voting Montreal and Vancouver voted against the merger to try and protect TV dollars and markets. WHA markets boycotted Molson (who owned Montreal) products to try and get them to change their position, which they did.

So if in the 70's yobbos in Toronto and Montreal worked to keep NHL out of Winnipeg, Quebec, and Edmonton, It's not a stretch to say in the 2010's that MLS teams will work to keep ahold of their soccer monopoly in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL–WHA_merger

1977:

the American teams were far less hostile to the idea of a merger than their Canadian counterparts...

Montreal and Toronto had only agreed to support Vancouver's addition to the NHL after they were paid indemnities for the inclusion of the Canucks in the Hockey Night in Canada television deal. Although the three Canadian teams could not block a merger on their own, the fact that any deal needed three-quarters support among the NHL owners meant that the Canadian teams only needed two American teams to side with them to block any agreement...

Led by Toronto's Harold Ballard, the owners voted down Ziegler's proposal...

1979:

12 of the 17 owners supported the proposal – one short of the required three-fourths majority.[4] The five teams that voted against the merger were the Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Los Angeles Kings.

The Canadiens were owned by Molson Brewery. When the news got out that the Canadiens had voted against the deal, fans in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Quebec City organized a boycott of Molson products, believing that Molson was standing in the way of their cities remaining big-league hockey towns.[9] The boycott quickly spread nationwide. It caused a drain on the Canucks' revenue as well, since Pacific Coliseum sold Molson products. The Canadian House of Commons weighed in as well, unanimously passing a motion urging the NHL to reconsider. A second vote was held in Chicago on March 22, 1979, which passed by a 14–3 margin as both Montreal and Vancouver reversed their positions.[4] Both teams' hands were forced by the boycott, and the Canucks were also won over by the promise of a balanced schedule, with each team playing the others twice at home and twice on the road.

[Cheeta]

10 hours ago, GimliJetsMan said:

So interesting thought exercise: Build your ideal CanPL.

...

 

OH!  I'll play!!

Victoria

Vancouver (or Vancouver ish)

Edmonton

Calgary

Regina or Saskatoon (actually think one or the other can make it work)

Winnipeg (of course!)

London

Hamilton

Toronto (or Toronto ish)

Ottawa

Quebec City 

Halifax (actually think CPL could work there too)

Balanced schedule.  Yes I know that will amplify travel costs but in my ideal CPL travel costs are pooled and covered by the league so the Victoria's and Halifax's of the league pay just as much for their "membership" as the Ontario teams.  Need them to have a truly national league (very important) so best to create as level a playing field as possible, that sort of thing.

That'll give you 22 matches plus V's Cup.  And Lord knows what the Vs Cup will look like if/when a CPL arrives.  Could be great fun.  I mean bat-shit-crazy, high summer, knock out tourney sort of fun.  Wouldn't that be grand eh?

And a balanced schedule doesn't over play the traditional city-state rivalries we have in Canadian sports.  If the casual fan in Hamilton is deciding what fixtures (1? 2?) to take in and the Fort York Bombers only make one visit to THF this season..well said fan may work there life around that just a little.  Same idea echoes in Surrey or Edmonchuk or The Peg. 

Fixed match days.  If that means matches are played Wednesday nights to avoid competition then make it Wednesday nights.  Or late Sunday fixtures (to try to get the cottage crowd in, and by late I mean 8:30 local time kick off).  Whatever.  Have a think, figure it out BUT STICK TO IT.  Own that day!

Playoffs.  Season isn't that long, in Canada we like/expect some sort of show to finish the season so yeah, why not?  Top four go home and away, highest ranker left standing hosts a one off for all the marbles and there you are.  Great fun for those concerned and its all wrapped up before you're battling the CFL playoffs or the NHL gets serious.

If any one involved in the CPL wishes to private message me I'll be happy to provide the necessary banking information for depositing the $60K consult fee I'll be requiring.  Further expenses determined on an as needed basis.

Your partner in crime

Cheeta Bench 

 

 

 

[fmfranck]

Not that im overly shocked, but it seems the demographical weight of the Québec province is not taken into account by most here when establishing a dream CanPL. If we take Cheetah's lineup : 

The Prairies (AB, MB, SK) are 6mil+ -> 4 teams = one team per 1.5 mil.

BC is 4,5mil+ -> 2 teams = one team per 2.25 mil

Maritimes are 2,5mil -> 1 team = one team per 2.5 mil

Ontario is 14mil -> 4 teams = one team per 3.5 mil.

Québec is 8mil + -> 1 team (Québec) = one team per 8 million inhabitants. And to be fair, the team will be accessible to less than 2 out of those 8 millions (I'm being very generous).

Look, I know that it's down to personal preference, and other factors besides demography weigh in, but I'm curious to know why people seem ready to abandon the idea of a hypothetical team in Montreal, but seem to think that teams in Vancouver or Toronto are conditions sine qua non for the welfare of CanPL.

[Ansem]

Ideal Canadian Premier League 

(Presence in every province except PEI and the territory)

Single table of 17 teams

Victoria

Vancouver-Surrey

Edmonton

Calgary

Saskatoon

Regina

Winnipeg

Kitchener-Waterloo

London

Hamilton

Toronto (Midtown/Danforth)

Toronto (North York - York Region)

Montreal-Downtown

Québec City

Moncton

Halifax

St.John's

[An Observer]

16 minutes ago, Ansem said:

Ideal Canadian Premier League 

(Presence in every province except PEI and the territory)

Single table of 16 teams

Victoria

Vancouver-Surrey

Edmonton

Calgary

Saskatoon

Regina

Winnipeg

Kitchener-Waterloo

London

Toronto (Midtown/Danforth)

Toronto (North York - York Region)

Montreal-Downtown

Québec City

Moncton

Halifax

St.John's

Interesting you forgot the hammer!

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

5 hours ago, masster said:

Now some yobbos in Vancouver want to stop other pro teams from forming in the prairies? You're starting to sound like BBTB!

What on earth? The main reason I question the CSA's strategy of having the moratorium and pushing a domestic pro league is precisely because it actually slowed that process down, since it involves chasing a dream for visceral level emotional reasons (Anthony Totera is very much the poster child for this) that ultimately may not be obtainable given teams in the three MLS markets are unlikely to be able to make a go of it and there is a very limited range of options elsewhere.

[Alex D]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

What on earth? The main reason I question the CSA's strategy of having the moratorium and pushing a domestic pro league is precisely because IN MY OPINION it actually slowed that process down, since it involves chasing a dream for visceral level emotional reasons (Anthony Totera is very much the poster child for this) that I BELIEVE ultimately may not be obtainable given teams in the three MLS markets are unlikely to be able to make a go of it and IT SEEMS TO ME there is a very limited range of options elsewhere.

FYP.

See how easy it is to share your opinions without stating them as facts?

[Ansem]

8 hours ago, An Observer said:

Interesting you forgot the hammer!

Fixed