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Pacific FC, Cavalry FC get date for first round of Canadian Championship

Opening-round match to be played April 20
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Pacific FC and Cavalry FC will square off in the opening round of the Canadian Championship. TRISHA LEES, CANADIAN PREMIER LEAGUE

Tom Petty sang about the ­waiting being the hardest part. Pacific FC and Cavalry FC of Calgary will know what that feels like when they play the final game of the opening round of the Canadian Championship on April 20, at 7 p.m. at Starlight Stadium.

The 14-team competition, for the Voyageurs Cup, is the Canadian equivalent of the FA Cup in England. It features all 11 Canadian pro soccer teams — three in Major League Soccer and eight in the CPL including PFC and Cavalry — and the champions of the semi-pro League-1 B.C., League-1 Ontario and Première ligue de soccer du Québec.

The match-ups were drawn last week and the game dates and times announced Tuesday.

Kicking-off the opening round on April 18 will be a couple of upstarts hoping for the kinds of giant-killing upsets that seem to punctuate cup competitions around the world. Première ligue de soccer du Québec-champion FC Laval will be hoping for such a moment against defending CPL-champion Forge FC at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton while Ontario League1-champion Vaughan SC Azzurri will harbour the same longshot dreams that night against MLS club CF Montreal at Stade Saputo. So too will the League-1 B.C. champion TSS Rovers of Burnaby when they meet Valour FC of the CPL at Swangard Stadium on April 19.

“One-off cup games are where anything can happen,” says PFC head coach James Merriman.

The other April 19 games are all-CPL match-ups with the HFX Wanderers of Halifax travelling to the nation’s capital to play Atletico Ottawa while expansion Vancouver FC travels to the Greater Toronto Area to take on York United. The first round concludes with Cavalry coming to the Island for the lone game scheduled for April 20.

This is the second time PFC and Cavalry have met in the first round with the Calgary club winning 4-1 on two-game aggregate in 2019. The competition is now single-game elimination.

The Cavalry-PFC winner will meet the winner of the Valour-Rovers game in the quarter-finals, to be played May 9-11. The semifinals are scheduled for May 23-25 with the final in June on a date to be determined.

Defending-champion Vancouver Whitecaps and 2022-finalist Toronto FC, both of MLS, have earned first-round byes and will join the tournament in the ­quarter-final stage.

The 2023 Voyageurs Cup champion will play in the 2024 CONCACAF Champions League, the winner of which advances to the FIFA club World Cup.

Pacific FC’s biggest moment in the Canadian Championship was its memorable 4-3 quarter-final upset of the Whitecaps at Starlight Stadium in 2021 before a 2-1 semifinal loss to another MLS club, Toronto FC, at BMO Field.

The Tridents were beaten last year in the first round by fellow CPL-rival York United on penalty kicks at Starlight Stadium.

“That has made us really hungry for this year’s competition,” Merriman said.

CORNER KICKS: As the fate of the cup draw would have it, Cavalry FC has a previously-scheduled CPL game three days later at Starlight Stadium against PFC.

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com