(So as to avoid any confusion - this post was written on Wednesday, April 23. This game is already done.)
What are you doing tonight?
Say, about 7:30 if you're in Ontario. 4:30 if you're in B.C. Or whichever time zone applies to you (you're a smart Canadian, you know how this game works).
Watching sports, probably? Maybe? Well, don't bother turning on the NHL playoffs -- no Canadian teams tonight. The NBA playoffs? Nope, no Canadian teams tonight. Baseball? Perhaps, but how important is an April game in a 162-game season? (Hint: Not very.)
No no, what you want to be doing, no matter where you are, is heading over to the CSA's website -- canadasoccer.com -- to catch a live stream of the first game of the 2014 Voyageurs Cup, the first leg of the play-in between FC Edmonton and the expansion Ottawa Fury.
Why do you want to do this? Well, here's a little idea.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
First, look at the website you're on. Nobody stumbles across "CanadianSoccerNews.com" by accident. The URL is pretty clear about what's going to be here. So clearly you, to whatever extent, care about the game in this country. And while there are dimwits (far too many of them) ready to disparage the tournament for any number of reasons, the reality is that it's a vital part of the modern-day Canadian soccer environment.
And yeah, that matters to you. (Admit it, it does.)
Secondly, because it's a tournament in the ascendancy. Yes, it's all relative; we're still talking about a competition that has only just grown to five teams. But given the rumblings from the CSA about bringing in new regional semi-pro leagues and considering expanding the tournament to include untold numbers of squads in the future, it might be worth getting in on... well, not the ground floor, but surely the first or second floor.
Thirdly -- and this is really the most important, to those who care about that sort of thing (which, as we've established, includes you) -- the trophy. A legitimate piece of Canadian soccer history, modest as it may be. This is the 13th time the Voyageurs Cup will be awarded. On each occasion, it has been awarded to the winning team by a member of the supporters group that, at the turn of the century, took matters into their own hands and decided to give some recognition to the country's top pro club.
(And it's the reason why Maclean's magazine -- a 103-year-old Canadian institution -- had the excuse to publish a photograph of Ben "Lord Bob" Massey looking absolutely crestfallen. That, alone, is almost enough to justify the tournament's existence.)
While the so-called "
Even if you're not from Edmonton or Ottawa, tonight's clash carries significance -- specifically, the fact that both teams are awash in Canadian talent. The Eddies's 23-man roster includes 12 Canadians; the Fury's includes 11. No matter what the outcome of the game, or the tournament, giving Canadian players more opportunities to compete in meaningful games can only mean good things for our national team in the long run.
But this particular clash carries its own storylines as well. FC Edmonton, after making a surprise playoff appearance in its inaugural season (2011), has stumbled over the past two years, and will be desperate not to be taken out by the upstart Fury, who have just started their own NASL existence.
Ottawa, meanwhile, is coached by former Impact manager Marc Dos Santos (a key figure in the Miracle in Montreal), with the winner of Edmonton/Ottawa set to contest the Voyageurs Cup semifinals against... you guessed it, Montreal.
No, nobody's going to confuse Edmonton vs. Ottawa with Bayern Munich vs. Real Madrid. But that isn't the point. That is their tournament. The Voyageurs Cup is ours.
And that's something that too many self-loathing Canadians, dismissive non-Canadians and predictable Deadspin scribes don't seem to understand about the growth of the game in our country. Yes, sports are about entertainment, and prestige, and history, and so on and so forth. But they are also about identity; about feeling that palpable connection to people from the same place as you, who feel similarly passionate about a team or competition that (ostensibly) represents you.
The Voyageurs Cup isn't the oldest tournament. Or the most prestigious. Or the largest. Or the best. And it might never be close to any of those things.
But so long as it is fully, unabashedly and indisputably ours, it will be worthy of our attention in a way unlike any other sporting event you might otherwise watch tonight, or any other night.
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