Bandwagon comes home

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/05/2019 (2648 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So, here we go. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you ready for the Canadian Premier League to be part of the Canadian sports landscape? For Winnipeg’s entry in the fledgling division, Valour FC, to assert itself in this city’s sports conversation?

Because it’s here. Today. Down at the stadium, where proper football lines are already mingling with their gridiron cousins on the field. The bandwagon has arrived in our town, and while it’s already packed full of soccer fans old and new, most of whom will have awakened bright and early this morning to watch matches broadcast from England, Italy, Germany and Spain, there’s still plenty of room for the curious, the skeptical and the uninitiated to climb aboard and join the party.

“Come on, come on! We are one!” the rhythmic CPL anthem thumps. Yes, there is a CPL anthem, courtesy of Once a Tree. You’ll hear it if you’re attending Valour’s home opener this afternoon against FC Edmonton at Investors Group Field (5 p.m kick-off), or if you happen to watch on One Soccer, the league’s new streaming service. Yes, there is a CPL streaming service. There are so many new things, in fact, that it’s all rather dizzying for soccer fans in this country.

Canadian soccer isn’t supposed to have new things, nice things. That’s not what we’re used to here. We’re far more accustomed to leagues and teams that come and go, to infighting between governance bodies, to a men’s national team that over-promises and under-delivers. That’s our comfort zone. Or, it was.

What a difference a week makes — a week, it’s true, that was the culmination of years of hard work, feasibility studies, cynicism, hope, brave investment and more hard work. Last Saturday morning, the CPL had yet to stage a match, and here we are seven days later with an anthem, a streaming service, a tweet from the prime minister, attention in the overseas press, a first goal, a first result, a first win and an entertaining product that is already justifying the match atmosphere many supporters have poured themselves into. Oh, and a hometown hero.

On Wednesday, in Valour’s debut against Pacific FC on Vancouver Island, Winnipeg’s own Dylan Carreiro thundered a heavy, emphatic winner with 12 minutes remaining, delivering a first-ever victory in the team’s first-ever match.

He will, no doubt, savour today’s encounter in front of partisan fans in the CPL’s biggest stadium, fans who will also be treated to the all-action playmaking of Barnsley, England’s Stephen Hoyle, who so impressed Wednesday in Langford, B.C.

Neither Carreiro nor Hoyle were particularly known quantities outside a limited set of hardcore fans until Wednesday night, but that was then, that was last week, last month, forever ago, before both players and their teammates had played, won and travelled back to Winnipeg to take the franchise bow. And won’t that be something.

Winnipeg is ready for this. Nervous for this. Excited for this. Naturally, there is also some skepticism, which is to be expected and is generally healthy, anyway. Will the price points work? Will investors remain committed if the project goes through a rough patch? Will families be able to experience Valour FC with the comfort and affordability with which they can take in a Goldeyes game? Because it’s them, and not the hardcore support, who will determine the success of this enterprise this summer, next summer and the summer after that.

Today, however, is a day to put aside those questions and wholeheartedly partake in the hype machine. Go to the game, if you aren’t already, or watch it online. Anyone who has attended a soccer match, such as a 2015 Women’s World Cup encounter, at Investors Group Field knows just how good the world’s biggest sport looks in our stadium. Like really, really good.

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And, you know, it looks good in Winnipeg as a whole, just as it has in the rest of Canada this week, this historic, paradigm-shifting week.

“Come on, come on! We are one!” Here we go.

jerradpeters@gmail.com

Twitter: @JerradPeters