2015 Amway Canadian Championship Schedule Announced
The schedule for the 2015 Amway Canadian Championship was announced on Thursday by the Canadian Soccer Association. The winner of the championship will receive the Voyageurs Cup. The Voyageurs Cup, created and donated to the CSA by Canada’s national-team supporters group, has been awarded to Canada’s top pro club yearly since 2002. The Montreal Impact is the most recent winners of the Amway Canadian Championship.
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Prior to the creation of the official competition in 2007, there was no domestic competition to determine the best Canadian team. An unofficial Canadian Champion determined in the same manner as 2008-2010, a home and away series with the games taken from USL First Division regular season league games, was awarded by the Canadian national teams’ supporters group, The Voyageurs.
FC Edmonton and the Ottawa Fury of the NASL will meet in a home-and-away series on April 22 and 29 with the winner joining the Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto FC and Montreal Impact in the semi-finals. The winner will face the Whitecaps as the number four seed. The Whitecaps were seeded as the number one team because they had the most points at the end of the 2014 MLS season.
The first leg of the semi-finals will take place on May 6th with the second leg following seven day later on May 13th. The final however will not be played until August 12th and 26th due to the 2015 Women’s World Cup being played in July as well as the CONCACAF Gold Cup matches.
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With the final being so late in the year, the winner will earn entry into the 2016-17 edition of the CONCACAF Champions League, rather than the 2015-16 edition. Canada’s representative in the 2015-16 CCL will be the Whitecaps as they were the top Canadian finisher in MLS last season.
Canada’s three new USL PRO teams, Whitecaps FC 2, Toronto FC II and FC Montreal, will not compete for this year’s Voyageurs Cup. That being said, the CSA has expressed a desire to expand the tournament field in the future.
I feel that it would be good to have more teams involved in the Voyageurs cup every year. Make it somewhat similar to the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup and make it open to everyone that plays soccer in Canada. Could you imagine an amateur team winning the championship and then play in CONCACAF Champions League? I don’t foresee it happening but you never know.
Per mlssoccer.com, here is the schedule of the 2015 Amway Canadian Championship:
Full 2015 Canadian Championship schedule (Home team listed first):
Preliminary Round
- April 22 – Ottawa Fury vs. FC Edmonton, Leg 1
- April 29 – FC Edmonton vs. Ottawa Fury, Leg 2
Semifinals
- May 6 – Ottawa Fury/FC Edmonton vs. Vancouver Whitecaps, Leg 1
- May 6 – Montreal Impact vs. Toronto FC, Leg 1
- May 13 – Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Ottawa Fury/FC Edmonton, Leg 2
- May 13 – Toronto FC vs. Montreal Impact, Leg 2
Final
- August 12 – Final, Leg 1
- August 26 – Final, Leg 2