Friday February 21st, 2020 My first thoughts on the CPL 2020 schedule from the perspective of a York 9 FC fan by Rocket Robin Just hours ago the CPL released it's 2020 schedule held back until now with the appearance of an eighth team Atletico Ottawa announced earlier this month. This may have been secretly anticipated but wasn't a sure thing as Canada Soccer already released their schedule for the Canadian Championship based on geographical groupings without that team and now may awkwardly have to bump some of the games around to squeeze them in. The league gets what it really wanted last season, their inaugural year, when they drew up a 28 game schedule expecting eight participants but when they only had seven teams, it meant each club played each other four times for 24 games and played four of their opponents a fifth time. With only two teams making a 'playoff' which took partway through the season to decide on, it could have caused a problem with one team not getting to play 'Pushover United' that extra time to pad their totals but since the top two teams were so far ahead in the standings it didn't make a difference. Now we are going to see every team twice and there will be two away appearances to each city. This season when I noticed the season was starting a full two weeks earlier than last year, I thought something was up and it is the rumoured three team playoff (out of the eight teams) with the second and third place teams playing a one game series at the home ground of the second place team and the winner advancing to play the first place team in a home and away final. There will be no 'split' season of Spring and Fall champions like last year. Cavalry FC finished first both seasons but lost a two-game final series to Forge FC who finished second in both seasons. York 9 FC was considered third overall thanks to the longer Fall season. With the regular season ending the first week of October, their should be time to get these playoffs over well before the first weekend of November when the second game of the final was in a cold Calgary. (at least it was in the afternoon unlike the MLS playoffs when games were held in the colder night for the television ratings and dragged into December until last year when a more streamlined set of knockout games cut a month off the time to the MLS Final game). It does make it easier to avoid the most severe weather in the early season by managing to schedule games in the more moderate climates. That's one reason why I think York 9 has drawn their first two fixtures at home by mid April. Interesting that their first game is on a Monday—Easter Monday April 13th a holiday for some but not all although it has been moved to 7:00pm. MLS Toronto FC are playing on the Saturday so that takes that day off the calendar. HFX Wanderers are their opponent and this is the point where York left off last year, HFX won their only road game of the season right here on the final day of the schedule. Now last year York were the last team to hold a home game which was partially explained by a feeling that they'd play the first part of their schedule at the smaller Alumni Field (field turf) also on the York University grounds but it turned out they were able to move into the renovated York Lions Stadium in time for their first home game (real grass) on Saturday May 25th...almost a month after the season kicked off (although they officially hosted a game on the previous Wednesday in Canadian Championship action against AS Blainville). That I believe killed some of the momentum for the team and the league in the GTA area. This season they are playing ten of their fourteen regular season home games on Friday night all at 7:00pm. (Is the rush hour in the north part of the city really over by then?) Another thing that caught my eye is that their final home game of the regular season is Friday September 4th (the Labour Day weekend) and they then play four road games to finish the season. I'm not sure why that is the case when their overhauled marketing team is making an effort to reach out to students at the university who may not be returning to school until September. With no more home games in September, I'll have more time to write deeper about the League 1 Ontario playoffs. I will try to get an answer at their 'Fan Forum and Kit Launch Party' this Wednesday. A few quirks of the York 9 schedule is their first two road games are both against Cavalry FC on April 25th and May 16th. Cavalry is the final team they play for their home schedule—not until July 10th. Pacific FC is the last team they don't meet at all until June 28th when they host them and that team is also their last game of the regular season when they play them away. One key difference from last season is they have avoided playing any home game on the same day as Toronto FC are downtown. At the fan forum, I will also try to get an answer of why York are scheduled for most of their home games to be on Friday nights. (Akk! No more free parking at the transit parking lot across Steeles Avenue because it is technically not the weekend yet). There are plenty of weekends when TFC are out of town. I have my own problems in that four times York 9 FC are playing home games on the same day as Toronto FC II of the USL are hosting games. Their game times haven't been announced yet but based on last season (and wishful thinking), their Friday home games kicked off at 4:00pm because of the absence of stadium lights at their facility but that still leaves an awkward rush hour drive to get up to York University for 7:00pm CPL starts. Rocket Robin robing@eol.ca
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