It is unique to soccer, the only sport in which pro teams of different levels play each other in annual national Cup competitions. You would never have seen the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL play the old Victoria Salmon Kings of the ECHL. But Pacific FC of the Canadian Premier League will play the Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer for the third and fourth times since 2021.
The dates have been set for the two-legged, total goals Canadian Championship semifinals for the Voyageurs Cup with the two-time defending champion Whitecaps coming across the strait July 10 at 7 p.m. to play the Tridents at Starlight Stadium in the first leg. The return leg will be Aug. 27 at B.C. Place Stadium.
The other semifinal, between Toronto FC of MLS and Forge FC of the CPL, will be played those same nights at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton and BMO Field in Toronto, respectively.
The winner of the PFC-Whitecaps semifinal will host the single-game Voyageurs Cup championship final at a date to be announced in September with the Canadian champion advancing to play in the 2025 CONCACAF Cup.
The Voyageurs Cup is Canada’s equivalent of the FA Cup in England and Copa del Rey in Spain.
“This is what football is all about and what makes it so special,” said PFC managing-director Paul Beirne.
“These games really mean something with something at stake. For us, they represent one of three doors in which to get to the CONCACAF Cup [the CPL regular-season and playoff champions also advance to the CONCACAF Cup].”
The Voyageurs Cup is the only opportunity for Canada’s three MLS teams to get into the CONCACAF Cup to play the top club teams of the U.S., Mexico, Central America and Caribbean.
The Whitecaps and PFC have met twice before in the Canadian Championship and follows the Tridents’ pulsating 4-3 single-game format quarter-final win in 2021 and the Whitecaps’ 3-0 single-game format semifinal victory last year, both played in front of sold-out crowds at Starlight Stadium.
Advance tickets for the July 10 PFC-Whitecaps semifinal first-leg game at Starlight Stadium go on sale today with the general-public sale beginning Wednesday.
The Tridents needed a goal at the death in injury time from Trinidad and Tobago-capped Reon Moore, and then seven nerve-pounding rounds of penalty kicks, to survive a first-round Cup upset bid by Burnaby’s TSS Rovers of League1 B.C., and PFC then beat Atletico Ottawa of the CPL in a two-legged quarter-final.
CORNER KICKS: PFC’s Moore scored in both Trinidad and Tobago’s CONCACAF 2026 World Cup qualifying games last week, a 2-2 draw against Grenada and 7-1 victory over The Bahamas. Moore, who has 10 goals in 28 appearances for Trinidad and Tobago, and fellow T-T World Cup qualifying call-up Steffen Yeates of PFC, are both expected back in the Tridents’ line-up for Friday night’s CPL game in Winnipeg against Valour FC.
