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Never mind the finale.

Cavalry FC can call its first season quite the success.

Both on and off the field.

The inaugural campaign of Calgary’s professional soccer club wrapped up Saturday at Spruce Meadows.

It wasn’t the finish anybody around there wanted, losing the Canadian Premier League’s first-ever championship to Hamilton’s Forge FC, but the match capped a sparkling season for a franchise that didn’t exist a mere 18 months ago.

“It’s been a terrific osmosis from fantasy football to real football,” said Cavalry president Ian Allison.

“One-hundred and eighty days ago, we didn’t have a stadium and we didn’t have a locker room and we didn’t have our roster buttoned down.”

Now, they not only have all that — plus a successful season in the books — but they also have a future.

A bright one.

“Definitely,” said GM/head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. “You look at the work from our ownership to building a stadium inside of six months to formulating a squad to doing all those game trials to the U Sports draft to training camp in the Dominican Republic to coming back here, and it’s been an incredible journey. The attendance is growing and the atmosphere is incredible — and that’s something that we’ve been really excited about.