Football as an extreme sport: The Canadian Premier League final

When I was growing up, often in my neighbourhood playground, there were heated arguments between groups of kids who wanted to play cricket and those who wanted to play football, respectively. One of the many justifications regularly brandished in favour of football is the fact that it can be played in all weather conditions. I always thought that was kind of a rhetorical flourish. I mean, sure, football is immensely fun to play in the rain, unlike cricket, but all weather conditions?

Today, I saw something that might have been the perfect piece of evidence to quell all doubts that a six-year-old me had. Atletico Ottawa has defeated the reigning champions Cavalry FC 2-1 in extra time in the play-off final to take home their first Canadian Premier League title. And the match was played amidst a literal blizzard.

Canada lacked a country-wide professional football league for a really long time. They had only had it for six seasons from 1987 to 1992 before the launch of the Canadian Premier League in 2019. While it is difficult to draw a strict causal line, the Canadian national team’s recent successes have followed the founding of the CPL. And today, the Canadian Premier League has made headlines all across the world of football, enjoying its memorable day in the sun or more accurately, a memorable night in the hail.

The final match began in heavy snowfall, as the ground was covered with a thick layer of snow. The pitch markings were barely visible. There were heaps of snow by the touchline. This was football as an extreme sport. The gameplay appeared to be a slow-motion video in real-time. Amidst the snowfall, it was Cavalry who took the lead after being awarded a penalty kick just after the first half hour. Fraser Aird, the thirty-year-old Canadian who started his career at Rangers, coolly slotted home as he sent the keeper, who was wearing a cap, the wrong way. Aird celebrated with a knee slide in the snow. And during the celebration, he was pelted with snowballs from the opposition fans.

Ottawa was not to be thwarted, though. They pushed on, and around the 40th minute, they got a corner kick, which was poorly cleared. In came a lobbed pass from outside the area. Nobody could get their head to it, and the ball bounced on the ice-sheet before the Mexican David Rodriguez thought it was a great idea to attempt an acrobatic overhead kick with his back towards the goal from a distance of around thirteen yards. He was right. It was a great idea. The ball crashed in off the underside of the crossbar. It was an unstoppable finish. Out of the blue, Ottawa found themselves level as we were treated with a goal that looks scarcely real.

It was all square, and the blizzard seemed to only get stronger. The match had already been delayed several times due to the harsh conditions, and moreover, the game had to pause every fifteen minutes or so to make the pitch playable to some extent. Even the goalkeepers got in on the act with shovels to clear their boxes. If the conditions in the first half made playing football very difficult, in the second half, it was almost impossible. The ball was barely moving on the even thicker sheet of ice, and the strong wind was further complicating matters.

There were no goals in the second half, but not for any lack of trying. There were plenty of exciting passages of play, some of them entertaining for very unorthodox reasons, that kept the fans hooked to the bizarrely beautiful spectacle. Both teams got chances to score, with some desperate defending needed from both sides. An attack from the reigning champions saw a fantastic save and a goal-line clearance just twelve minutes from time.

Before the extra time could start, a snowplough had to be brought into the pitch to make conditions somewhat manageable. The conditions improved slightly during the extra time as the snowfall slowed down. Early in the second half of extra time came the decisive goal. David Rodriguez was afforded some space to run into as a forward pass was played. He reached the ball in the nick of time to score with a chipped shot over the onrushing goal-keeper.

A second awe-inspiring finish by the Mexican sent Ottawa fans into a frenzy. They held on to the lead with some composed defending, and after four minutes of added time, the referee blew the final whistle of an epic final match. Atletico Ottawa, owned by Spanish giants Atletico Madrid, had previously finished first in the regular season proceedings of the Canadian Premier League in 2022. This time, they won their inaugural CPL championship title. The kids in my neighbourhood who kept insisting that football can be played in any and all weather conditions are, very belatedly, well and truly vindicated.