Whitecaps FC Guide of What the Fan Needs to Know About the Canadian Championship

 The Vancouver Whitecaps will start the journey to be crowned 2012 Canadian Champions Wednesday at Commonwealth Stadium when they take on Edmonton FC in the first leg of a two legged series.

This isn’t an ordinary MLS match for the Whitecaps. The game doesn’t even count in the MLS  standings. The Canadian Championship is a separate tournament involving every Canadian team in the MLS and the NASL (North American Soccer League).

The four participants are Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and Edmonton FC. The winner of the tournament will get Canada’s one and only berth in the CONCACAF Champions League.

It’s an important tournament for the Whitecaps to win. The MLS is viewed as a lower key league compared to other leagues such as the one in Mexico. If the Whitecaps are  to win the Canadian Championship they would be assured at least two extra games against a club team from a country like Honduras or El Salvador. The farther Vancouver would go in the tournament the better quality of teams the Whitecaps would play. The more games the Whitecaps would play would give the team just that much more experience.

Vancouver has never made it to the CONCACAF Champions League. However, they have been extremely close on a couple occasions. The first time came in 2009 when they got edged out by goal difference by Toronto FC. This was a heartbreaking event to swallow because it was out of their control entering the final day of the tournament. It was out of their control because back then, Edmonton FC didn’t exist and the tournament was a round robin format. Montreal and Toronto FC happened to play in the final game. Montreal was already eliminated from first place and decided to rest some of their best players.

The end result of this was Toronto FC running up the score on Montreal and winning 6-1.  Toronto FC needed to win by five goals to win the title. To make it even more heartbreaking, the sixth goal was scored in the 90^th minute. Whitecaps fans claim that Montreal was unsportsmanlike. In contrast, Montreal fans feel that what happened was okay and they were resting players for more important games coming up.

The second time the Whitecaps felt they got ripped off was last year in the 2011 Canadian Championship. This time, the Whitecaps were playing in the final. The Whitecaps and Toronto FC had played a week before and tied 1-1. The ninety minutes at BMO field at Toronto would decide who would represent Canada in the CONCACAF Champions League. The Whitecaps were up 1-0 in the 62^nd minute. After a first rain delay at halftime, the referee finally postponed the game when Thunder and Lightning were in the area. The game was called because of what the referee said was “unplayable field conditions.” That would have been fair however it was unplayable field conditions for the majority of the game. Toronto FC claims that the decision was the right because of player safety. In contrast, Vancouver believes that if it was Toronto that was up 1-0 they would have wanted to play on.

The game was restarted a month later and the Whitecaps lost 2-1.

This year the Whitecaps are focused to erase a lot of bad memories. The Whitecaps are overwhelming favorites to advance past Edmonton. In fact, the Whitecaps would have to really play careless to not advance.

The first leg of the series starts at 7pm and can be seen on Sportsnet Pacific and West.