According to a note in a Montreal Gazette blog post by the Impact's Nevio Pizzolitto, the Voyageurs Cup is in for a significant format change next season. Instead of the plan we've seen in the past couple years where each Canadian team plays each other team in a home and home series, the format's apparently going to change to semi-finals, where the top-ranked team (defending champion Toronto FC) and the fourth-ranked team (newcomer FC Edmonton) face each other in one clash and the second (Vancouver) and third (Montreal) teams from last year face off in the other semi-final.
The winners would then apparently play in a one-game final.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
This is obviously a loss from a couple of perspectives. For one thing, it's quite possible that Montreal and Toronto might not play next season. If Vancouver loses to the Impact, they'd still face TFC in MLS action, but if either Montreal or Toronto comes up short, they wouldn't get to face each other at all. That's unfortunate for what's become an excellent burgeoning rivalry, and it also might make it more difficult for both groups of supporters to attend road games; the trip from Ontario or Quebec to Alberta or B.C. isn't as easy as just driving from Montreal to Toronto or vice-versa.
From Edmonton's perspective, this is an awful way to kick off their involvement in the Voyageurs Cup. I don't think they can argue with being seeded fourth, considering that they weren't even around last year, but a one-game semi-final means they have to beat Toronto FC on the road to advance to the final.
That's going to be a tough task. It's not impossible, but the odds are certainly against them.
Perhaps more significantly, though, they're not going to get a Voyageurs Cup home game, which is quite unfortunate. I know from covering Vancouver over the last couple of seasons that there's been significantly more media interest around the Cup games against Canadian squads than regular Division 2 matches against American teams, and I'd venture there's been more fan interest as well. The current format if expanded would have given Edmonton three home games against marquee opponents; the proposed one would give them none.
If everything goes according to this plan, Vancouver and Toronto might be the teams with the least to complain about. By finishing second in the Cup standings last year, this proposal would seem to indicate that the Whitecaps would host Montreal in a semi-final. Thus, they not only get a guaranteed home game against a fierce rival, but they also avoid the other MLS side until the final. Toronto's matchup isn't as notable, with them taking on newcomers FC Edmonton, but on paper at least, it provides an even easier path to the final.
From this corner, this idea doesn't seem particularly strong. The Voyageurs Cup has provided some of the most exciting Canadian soccer over the past few years, and it's drawn nationwide interest in a way regular league games against American competition haven't.
Drastically reducing the number of Voyageurs Cup games from six to three while adding a new team doesn't seem like a logical move. The change to a real championship game is a positive, as the Cup's no longer going to be decided by a game where one team has nothing at stake (Vancouver fans should appreciate that), but I'm not sure it's enough of a positive to cancel out cutting half the games.
Sure, there's always fixture congestion and that, but these games have been some of the highlights of the season. Sacrificing them doesn't seem like the right move from here, especially when there were so many other ways to do this. Squizz looked at several possible ways to tweak the format earlier this year; it's notable that he didn't mention this plan, and pretty much every idea he proposed (except the joking one to just hand TFC the title) looks better than this.