Since there's not a lot happening this weekend, I thought I'd give a brief rundown of the Canadian football scene, since it is sort of a unique beast and I am going to continue blabbing about Vancouver, so you might as well know what I am talking about
You basically have 4 options:
"League 1" is the regional semi-pro leagues. There are 4 regional leagues (British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Sorry thats Lique 1 Quebec
This includes semi pro teams as well as academy teams. Just to make it confusing, two of the League 1 regions have both a men and womens league while the other two have men only...but then have 3 tiers of semi pro mens teams. And one (Quebec) has promotion/relegation within itself.
Above this is the Canadian Premier League, this was created as a purely Canadian professional football league with currently 8 teams. You play each team 4 times and at the end of the season there are play offs with the top 5 participating. This is a decidedly small affair but it IS a professional league and is intended to help develop Canadian talent. It is currently into its 7th or so year.
There is no promotion into CPL from League 1. The league is completely self contained.
And above that, but also sort of side ways are the three Canadian teams in MLS: Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto FC and CF Montreal (formerly Montreal Impact). The Whitecaps actually date back to the NASL of the 80s, and were then rebuilt for the MLS.
Montreal existed previously in the APSL (a short lived league that tried to succeed the NASL).
Toronto I believe had no prior history to the MLS but was the first Canadian team to join.
The Whitecaps are currently on one of their historically best runs ever while Toronto and Montreal are on some of the worst.
MLS teams play in their own league (2 conferences with play offs to end the season US style).
The connecting point for all of these clubs is the Canadian Championship which is a cup competition featuring the three MLS clubs, all 8 CPL clubs and the four winners of the prior years League 1 competitions. There has never been a non MLS team winning the cup and I dont think a League 1 team has ever reached the finals.
On the womens side, it is the Northern Super League (NSL) currently nearing the end of its first season, created as a fully professional league for womens football, to prevent Canadian players having to go abroad, usually to the US, to develop their skills. It features 6 teams playing each other 5 times in the season and the top 4 going to semi finals at the end of the season.
All in all, football is relatively new in Canada as a major professional sport but it is growing pretty decently. Match attendances for the MLS clubs is usually around 20k, CPL clubs around 6k and NSL currently 3-4K.
Can you watch any of this abroad? I don't imagine that would be of interest but just in case someone is mad enough, MLS matches are all through Apples MLS Season pass which covers every team and every game. Over here you can watch some matches for free if you have Apple tv +, Im not sure if thats the case for everywhere else.
CPL is shown on a Canadian streaming service called OneSoccer. You can sign up from anywhere for about 10 Canadian bucks a month. It covers CPL, CONCACAF Champions cup and gold matches and any Canadian national team matches. Getting into CPL as a Swede would be only for the most phenomenal football hipster.
NSL shows most matches on youtube, with a few on ESPN+.
The various League 1's put about half their games on youtube, but only BC has anything resembling watchable quality. This is really only for folks who live there or for people scouting for talent on the academy teams.
