Drawing the line on CanPL expansion

The enemy of good is perfect

Photo by Peter Glaser on Unsplash

When the final ball of the 2024 CanPL season was kicked, there was a lot to like.

The league had just completed its 6th season, which equals the run of the Canadian Soccer League (the real one, not the outlaw league). There were more than a few voices who were loudly proclaiming that the league would never get this far, back when it launched in 2019.

Getting to six is an accomplishment on its own. When you factor in the pandemic, and what it did to far more established businesses, you have to tip your hat even more. No one is talking about the league folding right now. There will be a 7th season. An 8th, too. There is no doubt that the league will surpass the first attempt and still be around by the time the 2026 World Cup starts.

When it launched, I wasn’t alone in my assessment that the real test would come after 2026, however. That’s the beacon of hope that the league has been marching towards. Once 2026 is in the rear view mirror, it will be up to the league to stand on its own.

With that in mind, I would argue that not only are we about to enter the most important two-year stretch in the league’s history, but also the entire sport’s history in Canada. Not to be overly dramatic, but the opportunity is there to truly move things into the big time.

Or to lose a once and a lifetime opportunity.

For the CanPL, the focus needs to be on one thing above all else over the next two years: growth.

So far the league has managed to find its people and figure out a way to survive by giving them a product they want to see, but it hasn’t really found a way to reach new people. They are treading water in most markets and outside of the addition of Vancouver FC (in a straight up swap for Edmonton) they have done nothing to increase the footprint.

Commissioner Mark Noonan spoke to that lack of expansion during his state of the league address, albeit more as a justification than a post-mortem, by saying that the league can’t expand for the sake of it. Things have to be to the highest standards, particularly when it comes to stadium infrastructure.

Ok, sure. Ideally. However, that’s going to make it tough. Canada is not a country that likes to take big risks when it comes to investing, particularly when it comes to building stadiums. What does get built generally has to be multi-purpose, so it can serve as many people in a community as possible.

Usually, that means afield of play that has a lot of lines on artificial turf — especially Canadian football lines.

The eternal conflict between the two footballs strikes again.

I get it. No soccer fan wants to see free kicks taken from the 45-yard line. However, very few stadiums get built that can’t accommodate that kind of football.

As an example, I was in Waterloo earlier this month to watch my Alma mater, Wilfrid Laurier, host the Yates Cup (go Golden Hawks!). Fans at the stadium were watching the game from temporary stands, as they are planning on building a new stadium. We know that stadium will host both kinds of football (and other university sports), so the question is: Could it get built without permanent lines?

Maybe.

Waterloo was one of the markets Noonan said was in line for a possible 2026 expansion team. It isn’t unreasonable to speculate that Laurier’s stadium project is part of the talks for that possible team. However, it’s going to be a tough sell.

The defending Yates Cup champion Golden Hawks (damn right!) will be the prime tenant in the stadium, as they should be. They’ve been drawing crowds for 50 years and are a well established sports property in Waterloo. Of course their needs should come first.

So, the question you have to ask yourself is whether Noonan and the CanPL can afford to be so precious when it comes to expansion in this market and by extension all others.

Keeping the focus on Waterloo, what would be the worst outcome? Missing out on expanding to a stadium located in one of the densest urban environments in Canada, in the downtown (sorry, Waterloo, Uptown) of a city with two universities and a thriving tech sector (that also doesn’t have a pro sports team they would be competing against) in a metropolitan region of more than a million people or…

…seeing a free kick from the 45-yard line?

To be clear, Uptown Waterloo is quite possibly the perfect place to put a CanPL team. It’s where you’d locate a successful lower league team in a work of fiction. Field of Dreams stuff.

Look, Noonan is right to want to ensure that the stadium plan should be solid for any potential new team. However, solid doesn’t mean perfect. Let’s hope there is some flexibility when it comes to choosing expansion sites because I’d rather see football lines on the pitch than see the CanPL fail to take advantage of the 2026 opportunity.

Also, LET’S GO GOLDEN HAWKS FOOTBALL!