The Voyageurs Cup is Awesome

The Voyageurs Cup has long been one of this site’s major obsessions. This is because the Voyageurs Cup is the best. It’s been proven by science. Heaven knows the Canadian Soccer Association tries to screw it up (more on that another day) but it’s still just amazing. And that amazingness has nothing to do with how competitive it might be.

Tonight’s game between the Vancouver Whitecaps and FC Edmonton should go the Whitecaps way. Vancouver has a one-goal lead in the two-legged tie and a titanic three away goals, meaning Edmonton must either win by two or score at least three away goals of their own to have a chance. Last year, famously, Yashir Pinto gave Vancouver a scare by heading home an Antonio Rago cross for the first goal at BC Place[1], but they’ll need a hell of a lot more than one shocking moment now.

Edmonton has only won a road game by two goals twice in their NASL history, both against the then-hapless Atlanta Silverbacks on May 7, 2011 and May 12, 2012. They have lost every game they have ever played against MLS competition with a cumulative goal differential of -9 in five games. Edmonton looks set for, at best, mid-table mediocrity in the NASL this year (1W-1D-1L and the one W was by no means convincing), and while the Whitecaps are probably no better in MLS they are at least reliable with home field advantage. Even bearing in mind that the gap between MLS and NASL is smaller than most MLS-only fans think, if Edmonton were to get that two-goal win at BC Place it would be by far the greatest away result in their history. Oh, by the way, Edmonton is still without its two best central defenders (Albert Watson: injured, Carlyle Mitchell: ineligible to play against Vancouver) and its head coach (Colin Miller: suspended).

This tie is as sure a thing as soccer ever can be. There’s not one chance in twenty that FC Edmonton will go on to the Voyageurs Cup final.

So why am I still so thrilled for this game? Why should it fire the hearts of every Canadian soccer supporter, even when the result is by no means in doubt?

The FC Edmonton Supporters Group has sold ten tickets for BC Place tonight, which doesn’t sound like a lot but is a better traveling contingent than non-Cascadian MLS teams bring and is great by the standards of the North American Soccer League (to say nothing of a weekday game where Edmonton has small chances of winning the tie). Their fans are excited, not because of the MLS star factor (oh wow we get to see Greg Klazura said nobody except Mrs. Klazura) but because it’s a nearby regional rival in what will be, bar a miraculous run to the top of the NASL table, the biggest game the Eddies will play all season. An even larger group of Whitecaps supporters went out to Commonwealth Stadium last week; the Whitecaps have a better chance of playoff soccer than Edmonton thanks to MLS’s more forgiving format, but this is still a championship semi-final. The two groups played a supporters match at Clarke Field (Vancouver won 6-2) and drank together in friendly rivalry which in no way diminished the enthusiasm with which each fan called the opposing team a bunch of cheating shitsacks when the whistle blew.

So how about the other side of the country? I don’t know how many supporters U-Sector and the Red Patch Boys are bringing to Montreal but I bet you’ll be able to hear them. U-Sector self-deprecatingly tweeted that they expected “not too many” supporters. “Perhaps a few dozen[2].” On a Wednesday. Oh well then. Maybe Toronto is getting a little bored with victory (maybe), but to hear their supporters celebrate that 2-0 win over Montreal last week you wouldn’t think so. The Montreal Ultras made waves last week when they brought banners to Saputo Stadium condemning the Impact’s prioritizing regular season matches over the Cup[3], my favourite being “nous on l’a pris au sérieux.” We took it seriously. Fucking rights. The supporters care out east for sure.

All because of the Voyageurs Cup. Without that Cup, bought and paid for over a decade ago by Canadian soccer supporters in an era when cheering on domestic clubs was by no means trendy and the games were never televised, put their money where their mouths were. Sure, it took the Canadian Soccer Association to formalize the Voyageurs Cup as the end result of a Canadian Championship, but the way the supporters created the Cup made it all the easier for them to embrace the Championship. Look at the US Open Cup south of the border, which has the same stakes, the same environment, and which is taken seriously by supporters in only a few MLS cities. There’s are reasons we see so much more passion up here, and one of them is that the Cup has always felt like our creation, the one completely beautiful thing to emerge from the past 13 years of drama, dysfunction, and disappointment.

Of course the Voyageurs Cup isn’t there with casual MLS fans yet. In Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver Voyageurs Cup matches are among the less-attended matches of the season. But in Vancouver attendances are generally over 15,000 despite tough time slots and have resisted the decline we’ve seen with regular season attendances. Media attention and awareness has progressed with every season and one hears less from the “what is this?” crowd each year. We’re getting there, and as always the supporters are driving the atmosphere for their own cup. Once upon a time the Cascadia Cup was just a thing fifty people cared about and which hammered down the I-5 bouncing in passenger seats; now it is the marquee event on the MLS regular season calendar for casual and hardcore alike. It all takes time.

What am I trying to say? I don’t know. I just love this shit. I love that it happens, that we live in a world where a serious Canadian soccer championship is bringing away fans across the mountains just to experience it. Soccer in this country is screwed on a few levels but clearly, we did something right here.