York 9 2019 launch/offseason thread

[C2SKI]

Is anyone else a little surprised by the average age of the signings so far? I was expecting more young up and comers for some reason.

[Gopherbashi]

40 minutes ago, C2SKI said:

Is anyone else a little surprised by the average age of the signings so far? I was expecting more young up and comers for some reason.

Not surprised, because these are the signings "so far".  Sure, they're not superstar names, but they've got some experience behind them.

They want to build themselves up with their first impeession, and they'd turn people off if their initial signings were all 19-year-old no-names.

[Keegan]

45 minutes ago, C2SKI said:

Is anyone else a little surprised by the average age of the signings so far? I was expecting more young up and comers for some reason.

Well if the league is going to be a decent standard you need signings of all ages and I think that’s what we’re seeing. DiChiara and Thompson have been around, you can’t find up and comers who can say the same.  I’m sure you’ll see some guys like Bustos, Borges etc eventually but there aren’t a ton of those types. 

[Tigers]

2 hours ago, Rocket Robin said:

MLS dropped their full schedule today.  

Toronto FC is scheduled for a home game on the CPL opening weekend April 26th to 28th (?)

TFC plays Portland at BMO Field Saturday at 3:00pm.   

I'd say best not to have York 9 play their first home game that day.  Have them play Sunday or on the road that first weekend.  

The next weekend TFC is out of town.  

I'd say now the CPL officials have the MLS schedule and can work around it.  ie don't have York 9 play a home game on the same day as a TFC home game and not at the same time of the same day if TFC is on the road.  

It's also worth noting that the Toronto Arrows are at home at York on the 28th, so that Sunday isn't available. A road game for York9 that weekend and their home opener the next Saturday makes a lot of sense. 

That's also the only shared weekend at York, following that the Arrows switch to Lamport for their last 4 games.

[Tigers]

2 hours ago, Rocket Robin said:

 

Edit

Edited January 8, 2019 by Tigers

[Tigers]

2 hours ago, Rocket Robin said:

 

Edit

Edited January 8, 2019 by Tigers

[rob.notenboom]

Is CanPL opening weekend actually the weekend of Apr 26th? 

[Keegan]

7 minutes ago, rob.notenboom said:

Is CanPL opening weekend actually the weekend of Apr 26th? 

Yeah that’s what I’m wondering as well.. Seems about a month late.

[rob.notenboom]

13 minutes ago, Keegan said:

Yeah that’s what I’m wondering as well.. Seems about a month late.

I thought (although I understand the potential risk of doing so) that they might target the weekend of April 19th to kickoff. That conflicts with Easter but maybe games on Saturday and/or Monday would be worth a shot. 

Going much earlier and they are almost guaranteed crap weather, especially on the Prairies. 

[Ams1984]

DiChiara seems like a good signing. I’m pretty happy with the sorts of guys York 9 has been signing, and I’m hoping that some of the rumors are true as well (O’Dea and Aparicio specifically). All in all, it’s shaping up pretty nicely. 

[MtlMario]

1 hour ago, rob.notenboom said:

I thought (although I understand the potential risk of doing so) that they might target the weekend of April 19th to kickoff. That conflicts with Easter but maybe games on Saturday and/or Monday would be worth a shot. 

Going much earlier and they are almost guaranteed crap weather, especially on the Prairies. 

Starting the season mid April should be ok in cities like Victoria,Toronto and Hamilton. Do the first couple of weeks in those cities.

[Keegan]

When does the season end?  Late November?  That’s 7 months, anything less and it’s bush league imo.  MLS starts early March and finishes late October - so nearly 8 months and that still feels really short. 

[Initial B]

If you want the season to end late November, be prepared for a lot of snow in some locations.

The FIFA international window is Nov 11-19 this year. No point in having games after the 19th in a Canadian Climate (unless we want cold weather injuries), so November 10th should be the last day of the season at most.

[zeelaw]

1 hour ago, Keegan said:

When does the season end?  Late November?  That’s 7 months, anything less and it’s bush league imo.  MLS starts early March and finishes late October - so nearly 8 months and that still feels really short. 

Isn't there like nearly 30 teams in there now?

[Bison44]

18 hours ago, C2SKI said:

Is anyone else a little surprised by the average age of the signings so far? I was expecting more young up and comers for some reason.

Zajac to Forge, Muenkat signing with Valour is only 20.  Starting to see more up and comers.  

[Kent]

4 hours ago, rob.notenboom said:

Is CanPL opening weekend actually the weekend of Apr 26th? 

I haven't heard them say a specific date, but I'm pretty sure whenever they have talked about it they've either said "April" or "late April".

[Zem]

2 hours ago, Keegan said:

When does the season end?  Late November?  That’s 7 months, anything less and it’s bush league imo.  MLS starts early March and finishes late October - so nearly 8 months and that still feels really short. 

Hardly anyone would consider it to be "bush league" to have a short season because most of Canada has a short summer. It's expected. The MLS season is short for the same reason.

Frankly it would be pretty bush league if every team was forced to play on artificial turf because the league decided to have the season run too long.

[Keegan]

11 minutes ago, Zem said:

Hardly anyone would consider it to be "bush league" to have a short season because most of Canada has a short summer. It's expected. The MLS season is short for the same reason.

Frankly it would be pretty bush league if every team was forced to play on artificial turf because the league decided to have the season run too long.

Most people in the football world would.  It’s not conventional for high level players to play just half the year - most high level players have no more than 3 weeks to 1.5 months off (depending on internationals).

So if our guys are done early November and start training camp early March that is almost 4 months off.  Now I’m sure some guys will play internationally in Jan/feb but that’s not many (and of course one team will be in the club World Cup in December ?).  Also you have to think in the future we’ll have teams starting continentally in February/March so how does this work?  

Edited January 8, 2019 by Keegan

[Bison44]

6 minutes ago, Keegan said:

Most people in the football world would.  It’s not conventional for high level players to play just half the year - most high level players have no more than 3 weeks to 1.5 months off (depending on internationals).

So if our guys are done early November and start training camp early March that is almost 4 months off.  Now I’m sure some guys will play internationally in Jan/feb but that’s not many (and of course one team will be in the club World Cup in December ?).  Also you have to think in the future we’ll have teams starting continentally in February/March so how does this work?  

We have to make some adjustments based on climate.  There is no way guys should be playing in Winnipeg in Feb.  -20 with 3 feet of snow?  You can still get those conditions in April.  If season starts in April, training camp/preseason would be early march, season ending in Nov...means you have Dec-Feb off, 3 months.  Hate to be a ass, but boo hoo if euro snobs think that's too long,  we wont have a 3-4 week long "winter break" mid season.  Out guys will play right through as it doesnt make sense for our climate...but fill your boots if it works for you europe.  We dont have to run everything like they do, and we dont have to worry about what they think...

[1996]

The 

21 minutes ago, Keegan said:

Most people in the football world would.  It’s not conventional for high level players to play just half the year - most high level players have no more than 3 weeks to 1.5 months off (depending on internationals).

So if our guys are done early November and start training camp early March that is almost 4 months off.  Now I’m sure some guys will play internationally in Jan/feb but that’s not many (and of course one team will be in the club World Cup in December ?).  Also you have to think in the future we’ll have teams starting continentally in February/March so how does this work?  

That’s one of the things I’m not liking about the new MLS schedule, if you don’t make the playoffs a player can be doing nothing for almost 4 months. MLS schedule now ends the first week of October and starts again in the first days of March that’s just about 4 months before training camps open in the middle of January. In most countries like in Europe seasons end in the middle of May with training camps opening up a gain in early July so about two month of an off season for those guys , how does a young player expicially develop by not being in a competitive environment for like 4 months? Yes I realize that the weather is a problem expically here in Canada but if the rest of the world expecially younger players are constantly at it we here in North America will always be at a disadvantage in my books I’m sorry.

[1996]

11 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

We have to make some adjustments based on climate.  There is no way guys should be playing in Winnipeg in Feb.  -20 with 3 feet of snow?  You can still get those conditions in April.  If season starts in April, training camp/preseason would be early march, season ending in Nov...means you have Dec-Feb off, 3 months.  Hate to be a ass, but boo hoo if euro snobs think that's too long,  we wont have a 3-4 week long "winter break" mid season.  Out guys will play right through as it doesnt make sense for our climate...but fill your boots if it works for you europe.  We dont have to run everything like they do, and we dont have to worry about what they think...

It’s not about what they think it’s about our young players expecially being idle a lot more than the rest of the world’s players.This is something that needs to be figured out if we want to produce players that can compete and become stars in Europe one day, it’s a start just by having a league in terms of development but in the future we can’t have guys breaking from a competitive atmosphere for too long , every little bit counts .

Edited January 8, 2019 by 1996

[Keegan]

8 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

We have to make some adjustments based on climate.  There is no way guys should be playing in Winnipeg in Feb.  -20 with 3 feet of snow?  You can still get those conditions in April.  If season starts in April, training camp/preseason would be early march, season ending in Nov...means you have Dec-Feb off, 3 months.  Hate to be a ass, but boo hoo if euro snobs think that's too long,  we wont have a 3-4 week long "winter break" mid season.  Out guys will play right through as it doesnt make sense for our climate...but fill your boots if it works for you europe.  We dont have to run everything like they do, and we dont have to worry about what they think...

I don’t think we need to do it exactly like them but there is no denying that taking 1/3 of the year off is excessive for a pro footballer.  It’s tough but there needs to be a middle ground, especially if we ever want to compete against concacaf and attract good non Canadian talent. 

Competing in concacaf is key to making this work so we either need to work out some sort of compromise (I.e spring training type deal) or hope that Vic throws us a bone and rearranges the current scheduling. 

[Kent]

38 minutes ago, Keegan said:

Most people in the football world would.  It’s not conventional for high level players to play just half the year - most high level players have no more than 3 weeks to 1.5 months off (depending on internationals).

So if our guys are done early November and start training camp early March that is almost 4 months off.  Now I’m sure some guys will play internationally in Jan/feb but that’s not many (and of course one team will be in the club World Cup in December ?).  Also you have to think in the future we’ll have teams starting continentally in February/March so how does this work?  

I tried looking up leagues in other cold weather countries. I had problems finding the length of season for Russia and Sweden but have a guess based on things like relegation playoff dates and poor translations of what may or may not be the first scheduled game of the season (or pre-season? or something else entirely?)

Iceland - April 27 to September 29 (5 months)
Russia - November 10 to May (I could have these dates wrong, and I don't know how long a winter break they have. 6 months)
Sweden - March to November 11 (I could have these dates wrong. 8 months)
Finland - April 7 to October 27 (6.5 months)
Norway - March 31 to December 1 (8 months)
Denmark - July 13 - May (unknown winter break, 10 months)

So if we are around 6 months, that's more than or similar to Iceland, Russia, and Finland.

Edit: I meant to add I definitely share your concern about CCL being in February/March. That will be a serious problem if/when CPL teams are involved if we still aren't in our season yet.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Kent

[Keegan]

Just brainstorming here but how about a community shield type mini tournament to start each season in March held in Victoria. 

Can be a QF to final single knockout format.. each team gets ~3 games and you manage it as seriously as you like.  It’s a real trophy like the community shield but some may choose to take it more serious than others.  With 3 matches in a short time and the proper season kicking off shortly after you would have a lot of squad rotation anyway.  

This would presumably push training camp start back to February, which to me is more logical. 

[RS]

Keep in mind that many MLS teams continue training after they are eliminated from the playoffs. Some even schedule friendlies during that time. Teams are only required to give six weeks' vacation per the CBA, but of course the individual club could decide to give more.

There's no reason why the CPL clubs couldn't do the same, assuming contracts run through Dec. 31 of each year.

It's not a great solution, games are always better than training, but players won't exactly be "idle" per se.