Does this count as a graph/chart? I was gong to put it in the football thread, but Canadian football isn't
that important and I've written plenty about it there already, a place that doesn't get nearly as much traffic as here either.
Here's the bracket for this year's edition of the
Voyageurs Cup AKA The Canadian Championship. It's a bit out of date, but that's okay
The winner of this tournament gets a chance to represent Canada in the CONCACAF Champions League, where the best teams from North America & The Caribbean compete for a chance to be called the best in the region.
For the longest time this tournament was a bit of a joke, with only 3 or 4 professional clubs in the whole country that could enter. That's because Canada is a very geographically spread out country, with most people living in a 100km or so strip near the American border. It's very expensive to set up a national league of any sort, so for a while we didn't really have that many professional teams..
That's all changed with the introduction of a new professional Canadian soccer/football league (The CPL). As a result there are now 13 clubs in this year's edition of the Voyager's Cup - the most ever. It still seems very tiny compared to something like the English FA Cup, but from a Canadian pov it's a great improvement over the 3-5 teams we had in this tournament for a while there. And with the CPL set to grow, and lower division leagues coming into existence and growing as well, this number is only going to grow going forward.
Another exciting addition recently were 2 new clubs from lower divisions - the champions of Ontario and the champions of Quebec. You will find this year's entrants on the right-hand side of the bracket: AS Blainsville, and Master's Futbol Academy
The main excitement for me as a fan is that you now have a lot more of a chance of a "minnow" to take out a much larger/richer club. That's already happened this year with Pacific FC eliminating the Whitecaps in the quarter final. Keeping in mind that the salary of a MLS side is about 10-20 times larger than an average CPL club, it is a big upset.. and in this particular case also a bit of a derby - Pacific FC's home is on Vancouver island, while the Whitecaps' home is just across the bay in Vancouver the city. Toronto FC squaring off against York United (they rebranded - the above graphic shows their old logo) is another derby - in this case both clubs are more or less based in the same city (Toronto).. although technically York United represents the entire York region (which is just north of Toronto proper).
Exciting times ahead for Canadian football, with our national side representing well on both the male and female side.
The reason this tournament is known as the
Voyageurs Cup though, is because the trophy/cup itself is named after the fans.
The Voyageurs are the main supporters group that shows at home and away matches with flags and banners, sits behind the net and makes a lot of noise.. It was the fans that came up with the idea for a cup, and so it ended up named after them