It’s the opening day for our 2025 TSS Rovers season. Canada’s only supporter owned football club, playing in the newly rebranded BC Premier League take to the field tonight away to Burnaby FC. We are fielding a very new team of men’s players, moving on from the past four years where we were a destination for many players wanting to get in the shop window thanks to our record of participation in the Canadian Championship. We were pipped at the last minute for the league title last year when Langley scored the winner on a last kick penalty in the last game of the BCPL season to secure the championship. So we aren’t in that tournament this year. As a result we are a mix of seasoned hands like Ali Zohar, now in his fifth year with our team, and young talent that has a chance to step into the spotlight. A number of player’s from our club’s U21 side will make the jump to the first team this year, including Ronan Ward, a promising young striker that blew away the competition for Golden Boot in the Vancouver Metro Soccer League U21 division.
On the women’s side, our team of warriors who secured their first ever Metro Women’s Soccer League championship this season will start the season together and will be joined by a number of veterans returning from University play in Canada and the USA. We have always finished 4th in the past four years, but we’re all very optimistic that this group can better that. Not an easy task when they are playing against the Vancouver Rise academy, and Altitude FC, a team made up largely of the national champion UBC Thunderbirds. Chemistry counts, and a season of holding on to top spot right up to the final game in the MWSL gave them much needed experience of that pressure to win. Winning it was a vindication for our approach that emphasizes development and style of play. The points followed.
There is nothing like opening night of the season to get the blood pumping. It feel like Christmas Day.
When I look around at the other sports teams I am emotionally invested in, the scene is bleak. The Toronto Maple Leafs are well out of the playoff race despite a good win on Monday. Tottenham Hotspur are facing relegation and with seven games left in this season they have appointed Roberto de Zerbi to replace Ange Postacoglu, Thomas Frank, Igor Tudor. Spurs are on the verge of suffering the worst punishment a Premier League team can endure. My son pointed out to me last night that a little under a year ago, we were at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium watching them beat Southampton 3-1, relegating the Saints in the process. That was only four Premier-League-wins-at-home ago. Dreadful.
Meanwhile The Vancouver Goldeneyes fell victim to the Montreal Victoire who set a PWHL points streak record and secured a playoff spot with a 3-0 win over our local women. The talk of tanking has stopped, becasue the PWHL, in all their wisdom have implemented the solution to the problems of rewarding the worst team with the perverse incentive of selecting the best available player in the draft. I’m just new to the league, so it was only this week when I was told about the Gold Plan, which ranks teams eliminated from the playoffs by how many points they acquire at the end of the season. This is the answer to the bizarre feature of North American sports where the worst team gets the biggest prize in terms of new talents.
On the pitch the Vancouver Rise are getting ready to start their season with two former Rovers in the side. Kirstin Tynan is back at keeper and Mia Pante has come home on a loan spell from Italian giants AC Roma, where she wasn’t getting a lot of playing time. I’m looking forward to them making a serious run at repeating as playoff champions.
On the men’s side, the National team played its final two friendlies before the World Cup during this break, finishing with two draws. They played Iceland to a 2-2 result on Friday and on Tuesday drew Tunisia 0-0. Former Rover Joel Waterman started both games. Our centre back positions have some tough competition and Joel survived the test. But once Bambino and de Fougerolles are healthy, he’ll need everything in his talent locker to get a start in the World Cup.
Bosnia and Herzegovina awaits. (Mi dispiace per la vostra perdita, amici miei italiani)
Vancouver Goldeneyes 0 – 2 Boston Fleet
The Boston Fleet have made a remarkable turnaround this season. From missing the playoffs last year, they had a chance to go to the top of the standings tonight if they could pick up three points against the Vancouver Goldeneyes. With Aerin Frankl in net, recording her sixth shutout of the season, they won and went to the top of the table.
Vancouver can’t beg for a win lately. They are on a dismal run of form right when they can’t afford to be losing games. They won last week but in their last seven games they are 1-6. Still, they sit only six points out of a playoff spot and in every game they keep looking like a team that is willing themselves to make it. Tonight they had a dominant third period, chasing a 1-0 deficit that was afforded by Kluge’s tipped puck in front of Campbell in the second period. The Goldeneyes were relentless in front of goal but Frankl is that good. In a small league like this, with the quality the PWHL has, you know the goalies are going to be the best eight players in their position in the world and goals are hard to come by. Of course it doesn’t help that Sarah Nurse takes a mugging on a regular basis and the refereeing was a little iffy. The third period penalties to Nurse and Thompson were marginal, and didn’t impact the score sheet, but they broke the momentum.
The game was in Lowell, Mass., but you knew it was pure Boston every time the crowd chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A” when Nurse and Thompson were sent to the box.
The Vancouver hockey media, who only ever know what it’s like to lose, are starting to write about whether the Goldeneyes should start tanking to improve their chances at a good draft pick (I’m looking at you Steve Ewen, you absolute muppet). This is what passes for punditry in some North American cities, where fans who advocate this line of thinking start to accurately express what the league incentivizes. The idea that professional athletes would ever tank a season to get a better draft pick is bizarre. The idea that women playing pro hockey in a league they have only ever dreamed about would take their foot off the gas for a second is an insult to all of them. Fans calling for their teams to lose every game at the end of the season are generally unpleasant to be around and shouldn’t be trusted.
The PWHL is a great league. It is intense, condensed, and hosts the best players in the world. These are athletes at the top of their game, seizing the brass ring, and testing themselves against the best competition in the world. It’s a great thing to watch and I’ve finally been bitten by it. Sarah Nurse and Sophie Jaques have stolen my heart for this team. I went along to my first game two weeks ago and it was brilliant.
It’s amazing to watch how quickly women’s professional sports have become normalized. Where before it seemed like there was a glass ceiling to overcome, the rapid establishment of the PWHL and the NSL here in Canada has shown that it was just gas lighting all along. There never was a ceiling, just a group of millions of people looking for women’s pro teams to get behind. Build it, treat it properly, and all of a sudden, we just have a normal world where people pay good money to watch women compete as professionals.