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Are a lot of CPL supporters not on this board, what can be done to engage all those that are not?


Cblake

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It has got me thinking , are a lot of CPL supoorters not on this board, is this the go to place for CPL supporters to come and discuss this new league and the comings and goings of each supporter group in their respective city, a catch all of sorts? What do the groups think of it, from say the lads on Barton street, out east to Halifax and west to Victoria with everyone else in the middle? Some of the discussion or just should say one sided negative posts got me to the point of wanting to ask this question?

I am a TFC season ticket holder and for sure will be checking out some CPL action in both Hamilton and York. Even thinking I will forge the TFC  Timbers game to be at the CPL opener. In my eyes the more footy and opportunities for players in this country the merrier. Let's celebrate this amazing time.

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38 minutes ago, Cblake said:

Let's celebrate this amazing time.

I second that for sure!  It is an amazing time. 

I still think the club stuff should be separated and be arms length from the national team stuff. This should have happened years ago when we got multiple MLS teams.   It was supposed to happen, that part of the forum was supposed to be moved to CSN.  But as soon as the word forum appeared, all press passes were immediately in jeopardy so the forum stayed on the V's site. 

Today, I think the club stuff should move there, and the V's site become the place for national team supporters and nothing else.   The club stuff in this country and the divisiveness ensnared in it outgrew the purpose of the V's years ago and has only hurt us. 

Single log in to both sites, and I think in the long run we get people who are club only who would not otherwise get on board, and we separate the club shit that divides so many.

 

 

 

 

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Oh boy ... that’s a great question and I think I have a very long-winded and perhaps ultimately disappointing answer for you. 

But let me preface what I’m about to say with this - For me, building relationships is a very important thing. And having had enjoyed soccer (Canadian or otherwise) since the 80s essentially on my own, when I stumbled upon the Voyageurs and started to travel to attend games live, it was huge for me as I finally found people to share this passion with.

Since then, I’ve made friends in virtually every city in Canada, travelled to watch games all across the country, have become acquainted with people in every CanPL supporter’s group (even the ones that don’t have teams), and gotten to know a ton of people that are involved with soccer at the highest levels in Canada whether that be clubs, Provincial/national associations, or the CanPL. I consider myself very lucky but I also work at trying to touch base with people regularly, a task that gets tougher the more people you meet. So in this sense, I think I’m excellently positioned to answer your question.

You’re asking about CanPL SG members, but first off let me say that the vast majority of Voyageurs do not post or even lurk here. It’s a fraction of a fraction only. Conversely, there are several that post here that despite having access to national team games, don’t ever go. There is another significant group of Voyageurs who historically have posted here but no longer do. 

As for CanPL SG members, the overwhelming majority are not on this board and several new members who joined this board quickly decided it wasn’t worth their time. This included significant leaders in their respective communities. So I doubt very much all of the FCE supporters or Halifax supporters will suddenly start showing up here because leaders in their groups have already decided it’s not worth it. And honestly that is a loss for everyone here because many of those same people are plugged into what is actually going on with CanPL, not to mention many of them are excellent  individuals in their own right.

 

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1 hour ago, Cblake said:

It has got me thinking , are a lot of CPL supoorters not on this board, is this the go to place for CPL supporters to come and discuss this new league and the comings and goings of each supporter group in their respective city, a catch all of sorts?

I don't know. Part of me says, no, this is just where old fogeys have been arguing for 20+ years about a domestic pro league as the main reason we haven't been to World Cup since '86.

But part of me has no idea where else you get discussions of the league in general and team operations with people from across the country.

There is a connection between the Vees core mission and that of the CanPL and frankly the overlap in fans should be pretty high.

I think the main thing is that there are a lot of CanPL fans who have never heard of this group.

And to put that in perspective: the other week some guy here in Victoria started a PFC Fan instagram account and one of our Lake Side Buoys spotted it. We made contact and the guy had never heard of us and thought there was no supporters group yet formed. 

This despite the fact that we have:

  • been a group in Victoria for a decade
  • are listed on the PFC Wiki page
  • have a website, twitter, and YouTube channel
  • were featured in league and local TV coverage of the launch

So we still have a ton of work to do to be visible in the community and this applies to the Voyageurs. If we want to be, "the go to place" we may have to work at it.

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1 hour ago, Cblake said:

 is this the go to place for CPL supporters to come and discuss this new league and the comings and goings of each supporter group in their respective city, a catch all of sorts?

I know there are some CanPL Reddit discussion groups.  Canucks Abroad also has a CanPL discussion forum on Discord.  And Twitter always has various CanPL threads going on.

I think this site has a big role to play in CanPL debate and support, not sure any one place could be called a catch-all anymore.  People use various platforms according to their preferences and to meet their needs.

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1 hour ago, rob.notenboom said:

 

As for CanPL SG members, the overwhelming majority are not on this board and several new members who joined this board quickly decided it wasn’t worth their time. This included significant leaders in their respective communities. So I doubt very much all of the FCE supporters or Halifax supporters will suddenly start showing up here because leaders in their groups have already decided it’s not worth it. And honestly that is a loss for everyone here because many of those same people are plugged into what is actually going on with CanPL, not to mention many of them are excellent  individuals in their own right.

 

Here in is the biggest problem.  Once you lose the Mavens and the Influencers.... you take a big hit. 

I would also argue in a broader Canadian soccer question this is one of our biggest broadest problems.  The aficionados, those mavens and influencers are the most negative people in the country.   The very people you need to sell the game to a broad audience do nothing but shit on it. 

The English/Spanish/Brazilian/ect..  guy at work who is a dedicated supporter of team XYZ and everyone knows it, but all they do is shit on the game here endlessly and use all of their knowledge to make it sound credible.  They exist in clubs, leagues, district level ect....  wreaking endless damage.  My favorite being a certain project manager at a certain well known software company that makes a very well known soccer game that purposely kept Canada out of it 'cause he was one of these people.  Even though it was made here, what an asshole he was. 

So too on this site we have people that just rip apart anything and everything they can.   A lot of it I think comes from the fact that there is this faux credibility in being angry/negative/critical to the point where it replaces real discourse/reality.

Rob is right about relationship building. Relationship building is the game I always wanted to be in wrt The Voyageurs and building a community.  But I think that is over for me, the madness on this site, and the fact that I am just too weird sort of sealed my fate a long time ago.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, admin said:

Here in is the biggest problem.  Once you lose the Mavens and the Influencers.... you take a big hit. 

I would also argue in a broader Canadian soccer question this is one of our biggest broadest problems.  The aficionados, those mavens and influencers are the most negative people in the country.   The very people you need to sell the game to a broad audience do nothing but shit on it. 

The English/Spanish/Brazilian/ect..  guy at work who is a dedicated supporter of team XYZ and everyone knows it, but all they do is shit on the game here endlessly and use all of their knowledge to make it sound credible.  They exist in clubs, leagues, district level ect....  wreaking endless damage.  My favorite being a certain project manager at a certain well known software company that makes a very well known soccer game that purposely kept Canada out of it 'cause he was one of these people.  Even though it was made here, what an asshole he was. 

So too on this site we have people that just rip apart anything and everything they can.   A lot of it I think comes from the fact that there is this faux credibility in being angry/negative/critical to the point where it replaces real discourse/reality.

Rob is right about relationship building. Relationship building is the game I always wanted to be in wrt The Voyageurs and building a community.  But I think that is over for me, the madness on this site, and the fact that I am just too weird sort of sealed my fate a long time ago.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agree with most of this but disagree with two things:

1) Many of the CanPL ‘influencers’ are great people who are not actively crapping on the game here (I realize you didn’t mean them necessarily). 

2) In terms of building relationships, what you’ve done face to face with people across Canada speaks for yourself ... you’ve been very successful in that regard and I don’t think that should be discounted. 

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1 minute ago, rob.notenboom said:

Agree with most of this but disagree with two things:

1) Many of the CanPL ‘influencers’ are great people who are not actively crapping on the game here (I realize you didn’t mean them necessarily). 

2) In terms of building relationships, what you’ve done face to face with people across Canada speaks for yourself ... you’ve been very successful in that regard and I don’t think that should be discounted. 

Sorry, two things got conflated. By definition a CanPL influencer is definitely not who I am talking about.   

I do ok with the soccer nerds, but not the people in power.  I think most of them actually really dislike me.  I don't fit that mold at all and I don't try to and that has probably really hurt us more than anything.   I should have got out of the way and let someone like yourself do the politicking but even that is too strong a word, just building relationships and being generally likeable...lol

 

 

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4 hours ago, Shortdutchcanuck said:

I know there are some CanPL Reddit discussion groups.  Canucks Abroad also has a CanPL discussion forum on Discord.  And Twitter always has various CanPL threads going on.

I think this site has a big role to play in CanPL debate and support, not sure any one place could be called a catch-all anymore.  People use various platforms according to their preferences and to meet their needs.

There are lots of reasons why people arent on this board, but for me, this is the biggest.

When I joined 15 years ago this was the only place. Now between reddit, twitter and Facebook, those discussions can happen elsewhere.

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44 minutes ago, masster said:

There are lots of reasons why people arent on this board, but for me, this is the biggest.

When I joined 15 years ago this was the only place. Now between reddit, twitter and Facebook, those discussions can happen elsewhere.

Exactly.  And if people aren’t posting here because of our bad characters, they definitely aren’t using other mediums like twitter and Reddit, which are just as bad.  

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10 hours ago, ted said:

And to put that in perspective: the other week some guy here in Victoria started a PFC Fan instagram account and one of our Lake Side Buoys spotted it. We made contact and the guy had never heard of us and thought there was no supporters group yet formed. 

This despite the fact that we have:

  • been a group in Victoria for a decade
  • are listed on the PFC Wiki page
  • have a website, twitter, and YouTube channel
  • were featured in league and local TV coverage of the launch

So we still have a ton of work to do to be visible in the community and this applies to the Voyageurs. If we want to be, "the go to place" we may have to work at it.

Yes, all very well, but do you post regularly on VibrantVictoria?

Seriously, my two bits: getting to meet people does help, I agree. I actually has softened me a lot, sometimes I want to just shit on a post and then I realise, oh, that's someone I know personally. So I just restrain myself, slightly. 

I was going to ask when we'd get specific season threads for each of the CPL teams, or how Jamie was thinking of doing it. Even now it is rather exhausting trying to keep up on all the CPL threads.

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I will point out one difference.  This site to me is a different creature because it is intended to be a Canadian soccer SUPPORTERS site.  That is different that a general discussion forum.  Want to discuss Canadian soccer whether you love it or hate it - Reddit is a great place, and shit away.  But to me this isn't the place for people who actively undermine CPL.  It isn't about quashing healthy debate or constructive dissenting opinions.  It is about ensuring that the people who discuss here are actually interested in advancing Canadian soccer.  Even the often seen criticisms of the CSA are still about advancing the cause.  They are motivated by a sense of wanting to make the landscape better.  But there are no mental gymnastics that can get me to the point where I can interpret incessant undermining of CPL as coming from a positive place.

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