Forge FC dominated the 2020 Canadian Premier League soccer championship with a solid 2-0 win over HFX Wanderers. The late goal was a fluke but did bring insurance. The Canadian Premier League championship game in Charlottetown was even on Fox Sports 2 in the United States, simulcasting the One network coverage. Recognized Andi Petrillo as part of the studio coverage.
Hamilton won't likely have a parade for the winning Forge FC team. Halifax isn't likely to have welcomed the Wanderers with thousands waiting for the plane to land.
Like the other sports, the Canadian Premier League set up a bubble, branded as The Island Games at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown over a 5-week stretch from mid-August to mid-September.
Rise Above#CanPL l @ForgeFCHamilton pic.twitter.com/Z5nuequsAa
— CanPL (@CPLsoccer) September 19, 2020
The NFL is off and playing, though the league blew off the preseason. College football has been hit and miss, mostly miss so far. The CFL is on the sidelines, choosing not to play.
A 5-week season isn't a whole lot. MLS has been piecemeal and the Canadian teams are wandering nomads in the U.S. desert. The NHL and NBA bubbles have been stellar. MLB had a lot of troubles early with COVID-19 cases but played a lot of doubleheaders.
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MLS had to draw a schedule with pencil in the Orlando tournament as 2 teams didn't even play in Orlando. MLB had teams sitting out for a week in a 60-game season. If we make it to the next 5 years and look back on 2020, the details of how these leagues played in a pandemic will be forgotten. They played somewhat safely or completely safely. That is the lasting memory.
The CFL fumbled and stumbled. We offered up a bubble concept with teams playing in Moncton, Saint John, and Halifax. We didn't consider the University of Prince Edward Island campus. The CFL could have built up strong favour playing in a part of Canada where the league wants to grow the game.
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We even offered up a 9-week season: every team plays each other once. The CFL attempt worked on a 6-game schedule and couldn't even pull that off.
Money was the reason we heard. The CFL might have had that money if they played a season first. Does the CPL have so much more money than the CFL?
Hamilton winning the CPL title can't compete with the Tiger-Cats winning the Grey Cup. The other 8 CFL teams won a Grey Cup in the 2010s: Hamilton lost to Winnipeg in the 2019 Grey Cup. That was the last CFL game until 2021, hopefully.
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Football and soccer are different beasts in terms of turnaround and trying to get games played in a short window. Canada had the advantage of being in much better shape with COVID-19, especially Atlantic Canada.
The CPL has 8 teams vs. 9 for the CFL. The format was for all the teams to play each other in the beginning, just like my idea.
The NFL and CPL are not the CFL. They rolled up sleeves and made a 2020 season happen. The CFL will be in trouble even with playing a 2021 season. They will have to recover fan interest when fans may not be able to be in a stadium, even at half capacity. 750 fans watched the Montréal Impact in person. The NFL will conduct a grand experiment with fans at certain stadiums this fall. If there is a Michigan-Ohio State game this fall, how many fans will be in Columbus, Ohio?
The Stanley Cup, NBA Finals trophy, World Series trophy, and likely the Super Bowl championship will be awarded. The Grey Cup will collect dust. If the Canadian Premier League could figure out how to make a 2020 season work, the Canadian Football League should have tried harder to be more creative to get a 2020 season on the books.
photo credit: Canadian Premier League
Twitter capture: @CPLsoccer
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