The Canadian Premier League’s Kickoff to its third season will be from a single site.
The league announced the 2021 campaign will begin with all of its eight teams playing out of Winnipeg’s IG Field from June 26 to July 24 with pandemic restrictions preventing dates from occurring at home sites across the country.
“The level of support from the Province of Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg who have been at the forefront of all our planning has been tremendous and focused on delivering the season with safety for all a top priority,” said Canadian Premier League Commissioner David Clanachan in a league release. “Everyone has come together to make this happen. We know what it takes, we have the playbook, and we know how to execute flawlessly as we did in 2020.”
The league added it will re-evaluate after the Kickoff games are completed to see if clubs could return to their home markets, such as Cavalry FC taking to ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows for the first time since 2019, with the desire to do so by August.
“We’re going to follow the lead of the provinces but right now we’re over 60 per cent of Canadians with one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine or greater,” Clanachan told CanPl.ca. “We’re on a path now, as we watch other countries operate as these test cases. We’ve positioned ourselves to be flexible at the end of July. That word “flexible” is important — we could extend our stay, we could go back to home markets, we could only play in the markets where games will be allowed to be played.
“We’re very confident that we’ll see that — all the way to playing in front of fans and supporters by the time we get to the end of July and into August. The biggest thing is we are prepared to be flexible, nimble, and adjust…”
The CPL followed a similar format in 2020 with its Island Games Tournament in PEI taking the place of a regular season.
In Winnipeg, each team will play eight matches at the home of Valour FC.
Cavalry FC will open its season on June 27 against York United FC at 4 p.m.
For more information go to calvaryfc.canpl.ca
