Canadian Premier League Finals

The Canadian Premier League Final is the annual championship game of the Canadian Premier League (CPL), the top level of Canadian soccer. It is played as a single match hosted by the winner of the first semifinal against the winner of the second semifinal at the conclusion of the league's annual playoff. The finals winner is awarded the North Star Cup trophy and earns a berth in Round One of the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

The CPL uses a playoff tournament following the regular season to determine its annual league champion, a method common to every other major North American sports league. This format differs from most soccer leagues around the world, which consider the club with the most points at the end of the season to be the champion. Since 2023, the league has honoured the regular season winners with the CPL Shield. Neither the CPL Shield or the North Star Cup are to be confused with a further national championship, the Canadian Championship which brings together teams from multiple leagues in a knock-out format. All three competitions provide direct entry to the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

The inaugural finals were played as a two-legged tie on October 26 and November 2, 2019 in which Forge FC defeated Cavalry FC. Forge FC is the most successful team in finals history, winning a second title in 2020, a third in 2022, and a fourth in 2023.

Format

Different formats and methods of qualification have been used for each of the first five CPL seasons.

2019

The 2019 finals were contested between the winners of the Spring and Fall seasons. The championship was contested as a two-legged tie, with each team hosting one leg at home. The winner was determined by aggregate score but if the aggregate score was tied, the team with the most away goals wins the series. A penalty shoot-out was the final tiebreaker.

2020

The 2020 season saw the end of the split season format, with the 2020 finals scheduled to be contested between the top-seeded regular season team and the winner of a playoff between the second and third-placed teams. However, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the season format was scrapped and replaced with a single-site tournament with a two-stage regular season. The 2020 final was contested in a single match between the two top-seeded teams from the four-team second stage.

2021–2022

The 2021 season brought in a new four-team single leg knockout playoff with the two first round winners advancing to the final. The higher-seeded finalist hosts the single leg game. If a match is tied at the end of normal playing time, extra time is played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and, if necessary, followed by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners.

Prior to the start of the 2022 season, the league announced that playoff semi-finals would switch to a two-legged format but that the final would continue to be played as a single match hosted by the higher-seeded team.

2023–present

Beginning with the 2023 season, the league introduced a five-team Page playoff format. The league retained this format for the 2024 season.

Results

Records and statistics

Finals wins

Champions records in CONCACAF competitions

From 2019 until 2021, the CPL champion earned Canada's berth in the following year's CONCACAF League. Since 2023, the champion has qualified to CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Scorers

Trophy

Since 2023, the winning team has been presented with the North Star Cup. The trophy was designed by ÉPICO Studios, a design agency that had previously designed trophies for the Copa América Centenario, CONCACAF Champions Cup, CONCACAF Gold Cup, CONCACAF Nations League, and MLS Cup. The North Star Cup replaced the North Star Shield which had been awarded from 2019 to 2022.

Venues

Discipline

Yellow card suspensions

Rules concerning yellow card accumulation in regular season and playoff games and its impact on suspensions in the finals have changed over time. In 2019, yellow card accumulation in regular season games resulted in a suspension of Forge FC defender Bertrand Owundi for the first leg of that year's finals. However, when the format changed in 2020, the finals had appeared to have become exempt from suspensions.

The CPL's 2022 Competition Guidelines established that the league's "Championship matches" would be exempt from any yellow card accumulation suspensions and that a fines would replace any suspensions. Although the league later announced changes to yellow card suspensions and their impact on playoffs games on the eve of the 2022 playoffs, this change did not affect the rules for the final.

Red card suspensions

In the final match of the 2019 Canadian Premier League fall season, Dominic Samuel of Forge FC received a red card for two cautionable offences, and was subsequently suspended for the first leg of the finals. Forge FC would suffer a similar fate in 2022 when their captain Kyle Bekker was sent off in the second leg of the 2022 CPL semifinals against Cavalry, and prevented him from participating in the final against Atlético Ottawa.

Players sent-off in the finals

See also

• Canadian Championship finals
• MLS Cup

References