There was no perfect way to have a Canadian Premier League season in the middle of a pandemic.
But after months of thorough conversation and deliberation, the growing national soccer league elected to go with a hub in Charlottetown for what is being called The Island Games. Players report to P.E.I. on Saturday and the first game will be August 13.
CPL commissioner David Clanachan set some time aside to explain what went into that important decision.
Question: First off, is this just an excuse for you to spend August on the Island and go to the beaches there?
Clanachan: Haha, I wish it was that easy. It was just that we were so impressed with what went on in Halifax last year with the HFX Wanderers; that became one of my favourite places to go to watch football. It was unbelievable. But no, we’re just very pleased that we can actually play our 2020 season. Being able to do it in P.E.I. will be great and hopefully we can show not only Canada but the rest of the world what the Maritimes are like and what P.E.I. is like.
Question: It’s obviously unconventional but is the silver lining that you’re also getting to expose the league to other people and markets by going there and also with the plan to televise it all?
Clanachan: For sure. Expansion’s a big part of what we’re doing. Even within the whole COVID-19 situation, we’re still having expansion discussions all the time with people. There are a lot of people out there that are really enthusiastic about the league. It’s not just the players and the coaches and the teams themselves that are excited about the league, it’s fans of the game who want to get on this train. They like what they’re seeing and the way we’re approaching it. And it is a true global and Canadians have always been in love with soccer but now they’ve got something of their own at a higher level to aspire to and I think that helps. We just need to make sure we do a good job with it.
Question: Without getting too far off on this tangent, with the distance between Halifax and Ottawa there is some geography in the middle that I’m sure you guys would like to fill?
Clanachan: Oh yes. I’ve been very clear about it. We would love to have a team in Quebec. We have to find the right partner and the right venue and the right city. But I’ve said this many times, it’s not truly a Canadian league until you’ve got somebody from Quebec in it. But we also won’t rush into anything and have to undo things. You want to make sure you do it the right way.
Question: So getting back to what we were talking about a minute ago, you were saying how important it was to keep the momentum going that you started last year. I guess this had to be the best way, under the circumstances, to not only keep the fans you recruited last year but also grow the league a little bit?
Clanachan: The answer is 100 per cent yes. We needed to maintain that momentum. We had a great what I’ll call ‘freshman year’ and going into our sophomore year we had big plans. We were bringing in a new team with Atletico Ottawa so there was already lots going on with that and we were making some changes to the league. All of that was coming along and then the crisis hits and everything comes to a standstill. But you can do one of two things - you can go to a corner and cry or you can come out swinging out and figure out what to do next. They key thing is we didn’t rush into anything that maybe we would’ve regretted. We took our time and we did it the right way. In one of the safest countries in the world, I think we found one of the safest places in the country to go play. We had two other conversations and proposals from Vancouver Island and from Moncton but the pieces all came together the best in P.E.I. We’re really excited about it. We all know the Maritimes are famous for their hospitality and warmth so I think people are really going to enjoy it.
Question: I’m sure you had to have some serious conversations with the players as well because this is a very big change for them too. Can we assume they were open to everything?
Clanachan: They had all the right questions you could imagine - about their safety, what were all the health and safety protocols, what about my family, what happens if I get sick. It was everything any average 24-year-old would ask. But at the end of the day, they were all 100 per cent positive about it and these are professional athletes so they live to compete and perform. They want to be out competing so they were excited more than anything. And the owners of the clubs, prior to us even going to the players, were 100 per cent unanimous about being able to get this done, otherwise we never would’ve been able to do this.
Question: If we’re looking for more silver linings here, this will be a major TV project so there’s a chance for growth there too. How much are you hoping to generate a bigger audience and also maybe get some coverage on some of the traditional Canadian networks?
Clanachan: We’ve got a great partner in OneSoccer, which is owned by MediaPRO. They’re one of the largest broadcasters of soccer on the globe, so we’ve already got a great partnership there because they produce the games as well. But the opportunity to work with some of the linear broadcasters is there as well. The other thing is because we’ve had time to work through all this and watch everything that’s happening, and the fact the world is changing so fast right now because of the pandemic, we have to grow. Whether that’s Zoom calls or Microsoft meetings on phones and computers or anything else like that, we’ve almost fast-forwarded five years in three months with technology. So now all of a sudden we’ve learned about a whole bunch of new ideas and cool ways of improving our (presentation). Now the entertainment value we can offer is right in our wheelhouse. The idea of cresting forward on entertainment and being more creative and engaging more, those are things we learned a lot about in a really short period of time. Now we have a lot of new ideas and it’s not just about people watching the sport they like the most, but also what is the most entertaining.
Question: I’ve heard about some of what the league is trying do with that, like overlaying images digitally in the broadcasts and manipulating the backgrounds; stuff like that. How creative are you planning to get with what you’re going to do in P.E.I.?
Clanachan: There’s so much fantastic stuff planned and the way we’re looking at it is there’s no such thing for us as a quick ‘No.’ We always ask ‘What would that look like?’ So for example, imagine if you were part of the Wanderers supporters club. Imagine being able to digitally insert The Kitchen (fan section) from that stadium, with all the people that are usually in The Kitchen. I’ve been at those games and watched games with them so I know what it’s like. That’s the kind of thing we’re looking at and I know all the people in The Kitchen would love something like that. So there are all kinds of things and the sky’s the limit, so to speak. But you’ve got to be able to afford it and it’s also got to be doable in the venue and format we’re dealing with; then you need to judge what people would think about it. Traditionally soccer has a pretty rigid structure, whether it’s FIFA, CONCACAF or Canada Soccer. But this year, like I said to somebody recently, you have to have a hall pass to try things you wouldn’t normally do. Like with the five substitutes rule we’ll have, which I think is a very interesting idea. It allows more players to play and puts the coaches in a more tactical position. Now the decisions a coach makes with five subs, there’s a lot more room to manoeuvre with only three when you have to hold somebody back in case somebody gets injured or sent off. Now there will be different tactics like whether you rest a player because of who you might be playing in the next game or whether you get somebody who usually only plays a little bit into a game to get him more time. There are so many different ways to experiment.
Question: Even with all that said, how much do you feel like people will watch just because they went so long without any live sports?
Clanachan: It’s the old story - we desire live sports because we know it’s exciting and because we don’t know how it ends. It’s not like watching a movie that you figure out in the first 15 minutes. A friend of mine said to me ‘David, you’ve got to get playing again because my kids and I are betting on which spider makes it to the top of the wall first.’ We’re just all really excited to get back to playing and watching games.
