CPL USports Draft Results

[masster]

1) Cavalry - Gabriel Bitar, Forward, Carleton
2) Valour - Dylan Carreiro, Midfielder, York
3) Forge - Jace Kotsopoulos, Forward, Guelph
4) York 9 - Daniel Gogarty, Defender, York
5) HFX Wanderers - Peter Schaale, Defender, Cape Breton*
6) Pacific - Thomas Gardner, Midfielder, UBC
7) Edmonton - Connor James, Goalkeeper, Alberta

8) Edmonton - Ajeej Sarkaria, Forward, Alberta
9) Pacific - Zach Verhoven, Forward, UBC
10) HFX Wanderers - Andre Bona, Defender, Montreal*
11) York 9 - Emmanuel Zambazis, Midfielder, York
12) Forge - Aboubacar Sissoko, Midfielder, Montreal*
13) Valour - Lewis White, Defender, Cape Breton*
14) Cavalry - Joel Waterman, Midfielder, Trinity Western

15)Cavalry - Easton Ongaro, Forward, Alberta
16) Valour - Jack Simpson, Midfielder, Cape Breton*
17) Forge - Marko Mandekic, Midfielder, Toronto
18) York 9 - Daniel Pritchard, Defender, Cape Breton*
19) HFX Wanderers - Christian Oxner, Goalkeeper, Saint Mary's
20) Pacific - Nick Fussell, Midfielder, UBC
21) Edmonton - Noah Cunningham, Defender, Alberta

* = Non Canadian

Edited November 13, 2018 by masster

[masster]

CPL website is back online:
https://canpl.ca/article/cpl-u-sports-draft-tracker

[Kent]

For those wondering, the * is for the non-Canadians.

[Keegan]

Crazy that a guy who played in the Greek top flight slips to the 2nd round.  Anyone know what happened to Zambazis?  For a while we thought he was lost to Greece, then we were all happy he was playing for us and then he’s in USports and forgotten just a year later.

[masster]

So Pacific and Edmonton decided to stay local. 3 UBC players for Pacific and 3 Alberta players for Edmonton. Also, 2 York players for York 9. It makes you question the usefulness of this whole exercise.

At the same time, the traffic took the CPL website down, so from a marketing standpoint, I guess you have to say it was a success.

 

[El Diego]

Looks like most of the picks were "local", so I'm most interested in the picks that weren't e.g. Bitar to Calgary, Bona to Halifax, White to Valour.

Would have been cool to have seen Nikolas Baikas from Saskatchewan drafted, but this draft was always going to be hard to predict. Maybe he can join the expansion Sask team next year 

[Ansem]

Videos are up on the website with the managers explaining their picks

[BenFisk'sBiggestFan]

Looks like most of the players came from teams that were at the U-sport championship. So the championship acted almost as a combine. 

[Big_M]

Zambazis played 9 games in the top tier of Greece, 7 of them as a sub, and that was close to 3 years ago when his uncle was the owner of the club so it means very little on his quality

[Symp_Res]

Interesting to see Valour take a Winnipeg kid and two British kids.  I presume the Brits don't have affiliations with any other professional clubs.  Have they in the past?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Lewis White was a youth player at Rangers apparently:

https://www.eastlothiancourier.com/sport/football/15696041.canada-title-success-for-musselburgh-footballers/

[top cheese]

surprised Cory Bent never went

[Obinna]

Cape Breton well represented. 

 

[Ams1984]

2 hours ago, Big_M said:

Zambazis played 9 games in the top tier of Greece, 7 of them as a sub, and that was close to 3 years ago when his uncle was the owner of the club so it means very little on his quality

To be fair, Wikipedia (I know...) has him as having played a couple of times for the Greek U19s and then a couple for the Greek U20s. That at least, he probably accomplished on his own no? I’d say a player who was good enough to play for the Greek U20 team in 2017 is probably pretty good. 

[Big_M]

Greece u19 in 2016 for two friendlies, didnt play in one and got pulled out after a half in the other in a 1-0 loss..Canada u20 in 2017 was a sub and got a start in the 3rd game when they were already eliminated

[Zem]

23 minutes ago, Ams1984 said:

To be fair, Wikipedia (I know...) has him as having played a couple of times for the Greek U19s and then a couple for the Greek U20s. That at least, he probably accomplished on his own no? I’d say a player who was good enough to play for the Greek U20 team in 2017 is probably pretty good. 

He played for Canada at the U20 level, not Greece

[Ams1984]

2 hours ago, Zem said:

He played for Canada at the U20 level, not Greece

I guess his Wikipedia page needs correcting then. 

[Copes]

3 hours ago, Obinna said:

Cape Breton well represented. 

 

This is what stood out to me. I play in the Intermediate Mens League with a keeper from CBU these past few years. He's deadly, don't get me wrong, but he joked to me the other day that CBU must have improved in the decade since he was boozing there. Haha. 

I convinced him to get HFX tickets with me. I'm pumped to see a CBU player go to them first. Curious about the Goalkeeper in the third round as well - Hart knows him and respects him, but I wonder if that respect clouded judgement at all. Also interesting that Hart did exactly what he said he would, focus on his defense. He talked about this in the videos leading up to the draft.

 

[LAK]

I guess I'm a little surprised that some teams like HFX weren't grabbing all the Canadians that they could. They only grabbed one. I just assumed everyone would load up with Canadians from the draft since, especially in the first year, that would be the hardest part of assembling the team. I understand there will be development of Canadians and that's the whole point of the league. I just thought it would take some time and that in the first few years they'd get as much help as they could.

[Blackjack15]

Very happy with the way the draft went! Couldn’t have asked for anything else, All the top players were picked

positive first day for The CPL 

[Keegan]

Does anyone know why Caleb Clarke wasn’t selected?  Not eligible since he has a Canadian cap? 

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, Keegan said:

Does anyone know why Caleb Clarke wasn’t selected?  Not eligible since he has a Canadian cap? 

Rumour is he has offers back in Germany he's contemplating.  So may have scared teams off of taking him.

[ktf]

I do wonder at the teams that did not pick all Canadians. I can understand picking one, but not two given the likely roster rules. 

I liked the Pacific FC draft, especially Gardner. I do not mind being total homers, given that it is unlikely we will expect much contribution next season from this. A UVIC player would have been nice as well. 

On the surface Cavalry had a really nice draft. they certainly seemed to add a couple potential forwards to the mix. 

As when they initially announced this draft, I still love the idea and implementation of it. USport stands to benefit greatly. However, the league can also benefit if even 1-2 of these players has an impact this season. Or long term.

[xman14]

10 hours ago, top cheese said:

surprised Cory Bent never went

I have a feeling there's a good number of players who have signed pre-contracts (Bent, Clark, Campanile) 

[shamrock]

Most teams went with the players they know best. Which makes sense. I can imagine Eddies offering college grad Conner James a Pro-contract right away. If you don't really know a kid, it's just a longshot to see how he performs in pre-season. For the #1 pick, he'll probably get signed as well, 'cause he's the most talented kid all around.