Result of the Thursday September 29th, 2005 CPSL game between Oakville Blue Devils and Durham Storm played at Bronte Stadium in Oakville at 8:00pm.
Final Score:....Oakville Blue Devils win by Forfeit !!!
Durham Storm didn't show up for this game because they couldn't get enough players together. I drove 117 km round trip to get to Bronte Stadium and find out there was no game. The Blue Devils players were there but they turned it into a practice.
I talked to Blue Devils coach Duncan Wilde. He'd found out the game had been cancelled at 3:00pm. Both of us had looked on the CPSL website before coming here but there was not a word mentioned about the situation. (At the time I'd have only expected a terse "The game has been cancelled", not a reason in particular).
The Blue Devils had won in their previous meeting exactly one week earlier in Oshawa 12-1. Wilde said the Storm had a full team with a few substitutes but everything the Blue Devils shot seemed to go into the net. He told me about a lot of the 2005 players from the fast season start to a tailing off to the late playoff burst. Ex-Toronto Lynx player Darren Baxter went back to England and four starters were either gone over to Europe or were injured. Ex-Lynx player Sean Faria is still not 100% recovered from a hamstring injury but played one half of last week's game. (He didn't play a game for the Lynx this year and was eventually cut).
A Scottish tourist has been coming to a few CPSL games and is a fan of Queen's Park Spiders who play at Hampton Park in Glasgow (the country's national stadium) but are an amateur team and are always in the lowest division. They were a great team in the 1890s. I've always been fascinated by them and in a soccer simulator computer game I tried to win with that team but could never pay for the upkeep of the stadium and afford better players. In the real world the Scottish FA wanted an upgrade to Hampton Park and the team couldn't afford it so the FA financed it and took back a long lease. This means the team couldn't hold any rock concerts and raise enough money to buy some good players because the FA gets all the money.
Fans were arriving at the game and eventually turning around and driving away. I'd brought my parka because night-time Fall weather has finally hit Southern Ontario. At last night's game between Toronto Supra and Hamilton Thunder, Thunder execs and members of their supporter's group were conceding the game to Oakville just because the Storm are so inept but no-one thought this would happen.
This is the CPSL message e-mailed to me and the usual media outlets at 9:52pm. (Almost seven hours after they knew the game was cancelled)!
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Thursday, September 29.
The Oakville Blue Devils vs. Durham Storm regular season league game scheduled for Bronte Stadium tonight was cancelled, the game put in default and awarded to Oakville Blue Devils by a 2-0 score. There was a violation of the Rules and Regulations of the Canadian Professional Soccer League resulting in a fine of $10,000 to the Durham Storm Soccer Club by order of CPSL commissioner Cary Kaplan. The league standings have been updated to reflect that decision. The up-to-date standings are attached.
The Toronto Croatia vs. Vaughan Shooters game postponed Wednesday night due to ground conditions has been rescheduled for tomorrow, Friday, at The Soccer Centre, a 9 p.m. kickoff.
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That means this game will be instead of Toronto Croatia vs. London City. With London City out of the playoffs and this the last weekend of the season, I don't expect this game to be played at all (probably there won't be a Durham vs. London game next Tuesday either.--Rocket Robin
I had just enough time to drive home (while singing, hey no one can hear me--"Well we're living here in Allentown, and they're closing all the factories down, out in Bethlehem they're killing time, filling out form, standing in line") and go swimming and met up with some friends rather than work on last night's report. I'll post a story of the Supra vs. Thunder game this weekend.
For sure I'll extract another cutlet at the CPSL dinner I'm invited to next weekend as partial payment for my gas money.
Rocket Robin
robing@eol.ca
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