UPDATE: Thanks to the Halifax Wanderers supporters’ group, who got in touch with us to clarify a few things. Their tweets, firstly:

@WakingtheRed @NorthernXI The document wasn't taken down, the URL changed. People are missing the point. It's a stadium proposal to council. — Halifax Wanderers SG (@Wanderers_SG) March 28, 2017

@WakingtheRed @NorthernXI The map is likely just to illustrate to city council what league would look like. Council meetings are public info — Halifax Wanderers SG (@Wanderers_SG) March 28, 2017

@WakingtheRed @NorthernXI SEA wouldn't put sensitive info in a doc they knew would be public. We shared this to show the stadium plans. — Halifax Wanderers SG (@Wanderers_SG) March 28, 2017

@WakingtheRed @NorthernXI We shared the doc. So people can see what's happening here, some took it as a "leak" and presented it as such. — Halifax Wanderers SG (@Wanderers_SG) March 28, 2017

My take hasn’t really changed. You can indeed find the document that was presented at a planning meeting online at a different link, but the slide displaying the ‘Original Six’ team locations has been removed (unless there is another URL I haven’t come across).

The most likely explanation, in my opinion, for its removal is that Sports & Entertainment Atlantic (the organization behind the Halifax bid and referred to as SEA in those tweets) were speculating to a certain extent, saw it start to generate some debate and didn’t want people to get carried away. That said - as I stated in the original article below - I would be surprised if they do not have a degree of knowledge as to what the league might look like on launch.

Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Hamilton and Halifax.

That’s what the Canadian Premier League could look like - at least to begin with. Canada Soccer president Victor Montagliani has indicated there has been more interest than he expected in buying in to the new professional league but documents published by the Halifax bid last night suggest those six cities - an ‘Original Six’, if you like - represent the starting point.

The documents have been taken down now, but here’s a screenshot of the first couple of pages courtesy of Namu Yoon:

The rest of the presentation encompassed the details of Halifax’s bid, including stadium development (see here for further details on that), fanbase viability and so on.

That all looks fine, except for one thing: the Edmonton team included on the map is not FC Edmonton of the NASL according to Steven Sandor, who has worked for the club as a broadcaster.

Talked with #FCEd front office today. Confirm that the Edmonton team indicated in Halifax document is NOT them. — Steven Sandor (@stevensandor) March 28, 2017

It should be noted, of course, that there is no concrete evidence that this is what the league is going with and not just those behind the Halifax bid speculating. You would expect, however, that they would have a degree of knowledge about the most solid bids across the country in a league they are preparing to spend millions of dollars to join.