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The Canadian Soccer Association has released the full schedule for this year’s Canadian Championship. Toronto FC don’t yet know who they’ll be playing in the semi-final, since they’re highest seed in the tournament, but they do know when they’ll be playing.
The Reds will start their Voyageurs Cup defence on July 18, when they’ll play the away leg of the semi-final. That’ll be followed by a home leg on July 25. That away game comes during a four-game road trip for TFC, meaning they’ll play five straight games away from BMO Field in July.
That’s also a lot of travel, as Toronto will be in Orlando on July 14, away in Canada on July 18, and then in Chicago the weekend after.
The final of this year’s Canadian Championship will take place in two legs on August 8 and August 15. The full schedule is as follows:
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A new feature of the tournament this season is the addition of an extra qualifying round at the beginning, where the League1 Ontario champion (Oakville Blue Devils) and the winners of the Première Ligue de soccer du Québec (AS Blainville) will face off for a spot in the next round against the USL’s Ottawa Fury.
TFC will play the winner of that tie between Ottawa and either Oakville or Blainville. Unlike last season FC Edmonton will not participate in this year’s tournament. Still, the expansion of the Canadian Championship to include another level of the Canadian soccer pyramid is something to be excited about, since there’s now a more concrete link between clubs.
Things could get even more exciting when the Canadian Premier League starts up.
To accommodate for the extra qualifying round, this year’s championship will wrap up much later than in 2017. Last year, TFC won the Voyageurs Cup on June 27. In 2018, they won’t even kick a ball in the Canadian Championship until mid-July, with the final coming in August.