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AFL Canada
- Thread starter The_Wookie
- Start date
- Tagged users None
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This weekend sees the AFL Canada Club Championship arrive in Toronto.
Played across Saturday and Sunday the championship will see the following teams compete:
Atlantic Pirates
Calgary Kangaroos
Grand River Gargoyles
Hamilton Wildcats
Quebec Saints
Toronto Dingos
Toronto Eagles
Toronto Rebels
The competition will be streamed at the following links:
Day 1:
Day 2:
Fingers crossed the tournament is a success and is the start of an annual tournament that travels around the country.
Played across Saturday and Sunday the championship will see the following teams compete:
Atlantic Pirates
Calgary Kangaroos
Grand River Gargoyles
Hamilton Wildcats
Quebec Saints
Toronto Dingos
Toronto Eagles
Toronto Rebels
The competition will be streamed at the following links:
Day 1:
Day 2:
Fingers crossed the tournament is a success and is the start of an annual tournament that travels around the country.
I had to look up who the "Atlantic Pirates" were and glad to see Nova Scotia represented.
But where are the powerhouse Vancouver clubs?
It's been a great year for the Atlantic! Halifax and Cape Breton have been pretty steady fixtures for a while now, but the addition of teams in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island has been great for regular competition.
I would put that down to the AFLBC competition being their main focus (plus travel).
AFLBC and AFLO having full competitions means these tournaments have less importance to their clubs.
This tournament is essentially superceding Canadian participation in the USAFL Nationals, which has more often than not been teams from cities without major leagues (mostly Montreal and Calgary).
I would expect more Vancouver (and less Ontario) participation when the tournament is played on the West Coast.
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Would have to agree with this comment - especially on the travel.
Even after a long season here in AFLO another full weekend of games is a lot.
Injuries late in the season will hurt teams full complement of players.
Great to see it coming in as something different to the USAFL Nationals. Dingos looked at gaining entry for this year, however the qualification process was going to make it to difficult (playing matches against US teams as an example) and also with the US/CA relationships it was dropped.
If Canadian teams could enter the USAFL with adjusted qualification requirements (for example play 60% the season - would be minimum 6 games in AFL) then feel it would be a great experience and really showcase the football talent in North America.
Hopeful that next year sees some international competetion resume between CA and the US.
BigBrainUSA
Debutant
- May 2, 2017
- 89
- 85
- AFL Club
- Hawthorn
I'm gonna preface this by saying two things - 1) this is my personal observation and in no way reflects that of the USAFL as an organization and 2) I love that our Canadian friends play in our tournament.
The primary purpose of the USAFL Nationals is to determine champions of the USAFL for that season. Canadian teams have always been treated as "guest teams".
I feel like if there's going to be a combined/international event like the Champions League over in Europe, it needs to be separate from either country's Nationals.
Totally fair and reasonable comment! It certainly would detract from determining the champions of USAFL for that season.
Nationals is extremely well run and the support it gets externally and internally is impressive.
I am sure AFL Canada is looking to emulate that with the Championships that they run, and potentially with a bit more lead time in organising it will grow in scale and participation next year.
Would love if between the two organising bodies they could work out a way to get a "Champions League" style tournament run.
Maybe it involves the Winners (and Runners Up) from the previous years events/competitions (Include individual leagues and Nationals/Canada Champs) and is played as a opener to the following season.
The first step would be for Canada to get a national event.
Like the one they had earlier this month?
Give link.
We were literally discussing the men's championship at the top of this page.
And I asked "where are the powerhouse Vancouver clubs?"
This is not a national event. It's missing the West coast clubs.
The first step would be for Canada to get a national event.
It's still a national event. It still had teams from Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, and a team representing Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick.
BC teams were invited and opted not to go. Would've been great to have some BC representation, but it's still a national event.
I think the AFL Mens Champs was a first pass at creating an national event, and it went as well as could be expected with short planning and turn around time. I think everyone who participated would have loved for the Vancouver teams to have travelled, and only they will know why they decided not to.
If the tournament was hosted out West, we will not know how the Eastern teams would travel, and could be having the same conversation except reversed.
It will take some time for any national event to gain the signifigance to clubs that the USA Nationals has.
Until then it is up to AFL Canada and the clubs to promote and drive the success of these sort of competions/championships.
Have the Dingos discussed whether they'd make the trip for a western tournament?
We did chat about it briefly on the day. I would like to think that we would, but would all depend on timing.
We even saw that post a long season (10 regular games over summer plus 3 rounds of finals in Sept) players were burnt out & injured and our numbers for the Champs dropped from 24 with reserves if needed to 19.
I do think a lot of the lads would love to play out West, especially in places like Banff. Footy with the Rockies in the background in much different to Humber College!
Completely fair. Footy fatigue is brutal when considering cross-country flights and accommodation.
Has there been any mutterings of where a western tourney would be held? Banff would be a great backdrop, but I assume Vancouver would be the best option logically.
It is great in the AFLO to have a 10 game 18-a-side regular season stretching from End of May to End of August.
Yet once the season ends I think everyone is ready for it to be done.
So the timing of a National Champs really does need to be looked into.
Weather in Toronto that weekend was great, however the following weekend - not so good and would have been a miserable experience.
Nothing yet has been discussed, at least to my knowledge. Would assume Vancouver makes the most sense. However have no insight into ground availabilty and the like.
Yes, and the next step is going to be creating a truly national event.
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No, and the next step is going to be creating a truly national event.
I think everyone involved in the event understood that missing a large number of teams, particularly the Vancouver teams, took some gloss away from what was a great step in the right direction.
Out of interest, what would your suggestion be for creating said truly national event? Timing? Location? Format?
I think the biggest issue is just the fact that Ontario and Vancouver clubs have just played full seasons - and that those leagues are their focus.
It's not a bad problem to have. Having two such important leagues outside of Australia is impressive.
The leagues are just in a weird limbo. Too big for another tournament to be their focus, but not yet big enough for bigger clubs to have the players and resources to commit to both.
So I guess the best solution is just greater depth, but that's not a quick fix.
BigBrainUSA
Debutant
- May 2, 2017
- 89
- 85
- AFL Club
- Hawthorn
The difference in the National competition is that, because of American geography, the league grew up around the National carnival. In Canada, the local leagues came first (particularly AFLO), and that's become the priority up there. There were regional leagues here - the CAFL, MAAFL, EAFL among them - that were around for a while but have faded away as stronger teams didn't want to get bogged down by inferior local competition. Why play a D3 team twice when you can get on a plane and play a D1 team.
For the time being, I think the best seed in starting a national Canadian carnival would be to do it 9-a-side. That gives you more real estate to have fields, and you don't need to have as many resources on the club side because, at most, you only need 13-15 people to make up a full compliment. Then you build it up and either have a full-side comp side by side, or you rebrand this event into an 18-a-side comp.
For the time being, I think the best seed in starting a national Canadian carnival would be to do it 9-a-side. That gives you more real estate to have fields, and you don't need to have as many resources on the club side because, at most, you only need 13-15 people to make up a full compliment. Then you build it up and either have a full-side comp side by side, or you rebrand this event into an 18-a-side comp.
I think reduced numbers is a great approach. 18-a-side is a big hurdle early on.
Also opens up the location options. Can pretty well be played anywhere with a soccer pitch.
On a side note, I think that's also why the bigger leagues haven't seen any new successful clubs in a while. There's been interest from a few locations, but 18-a-side is a big jump from nothing.
I would love a 9-a-side, or even 7-a-side AFLO men's second division. Would be easier to get men's teams from Etobicoke and the Blues back into the fold, then teams from the likes of Kingston and London would actually have a chance to field a team.
Exactly and the next step is to get those West coast teams attending.
Proportionally it's "the best teams from across Canada" to "teams from most of Canada".
Well I think the league has done well to get this far and but disappointed in that it fell a little short.
There must be a reason that not one club from the West didn't attend.
A very long time ago I suggested that what is needed in North America are national leagues, not Australian style, not even American style, but a series of playoffs of the premiers requiring only a few games.
Now everybody knows that even with a severe pyramid system there is a cost barrier (and in the U.S.A. there is climate issues) but the ability to have a national opens up tremendous marketing opportunities.
I am really disappointed that Australian Football has gone off the boil after Covid from the AFL's perspective
and until that changes i cannot see a pathway to success that isn't unbelievably hard work.
