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Cavalry FC

Oddball

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Calgary's new professional soccer team is starting to become a little more concrete. They have a name, if you haven't guessed: Cavalry FC.
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http://cavalryfc.canpl.ca/

I'm not really a devoted soccer fan by any stretch, but I've gotta say I really like what I'm seeing from Spruce Meadows around the development of the team. The name is perfect. It brings together Calgary's equine heritage and military pride along with a little wordplay cal - ga -ry and ca - val - ry. It also avoids the tendency to pretend you're a European club with affected Engrish naming conventions (e.g. Real Salt Lake, Sporting Kansas City, Montreal Impact, etc.) while still not just slapping an often meaningless but exciting noun or verb on in the typical North American sense (i.e. every professional Football, Hockey, Basketball & Baseball team in NA) and finally not just copping out to the banal safety of city name + FC (e.g. Edmonton FC or Toronto FC).

I think the colour choices and logo are great too. The Green keeps them from falling into the Red-White-Black(-Yellow) trap that's all to easy to lean on, but the others are still there in a lessor role, because for better or worse, they're our colours. The logo is also clean and full of relevant local symbolism. Las Vegas' ownership group probably paid about 100 times as much for their recent designs and probably got 100 times less in my opinion.

I think Spruce Meadows really put their best foot forward on this. I'm impressed. Maybe having another show in town, even if it's just a side show, will encourage the Calgary Flames ownership group to up their game a bit. Here's hoping their launch and the league's launch as a whole will be a swimming success next year. At this rate, I might be there opening day.

EDIT:

This Herald article has some details of the stadium they'll be building. The space being converted is the "Meadows on the Green." Which you can find at the bottom centre of this map.

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The stadium will apparently be convertible between being an equestrian venue and a soccer pitch. With about a 2 day turn around time. They're looking at between 5,000 and 7,000 seats from what I've read and that they'll be playing on a natural grass pitch. The Blue Jays don't even get that.
 
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I though Spruce Meadows was looking to move from their current location...

Good news about the team I guess, but can the CPL really be successful with MLS and USL already operating in Canada?
 
I'd never heard of Spruce Meadows relocating. I'm interested if there's anything concrete to back that up. I could see how the growth of the city could be cramping their style, but they've got quite the facility there. I can't see how you could move it? Maybe they're building some more facilities with yet more breathing room from the urbanized reaches of the city?

One thing I really like about the CPL that I've read is that it will operate on the club system more like European soccer rather than the franchise system like other North American pro-sports. I think that allows for better long term growth of the game. The USL only has two teams in Canada, Toronto FC II and the Ottawa Fury and apparently the Fury could be looking at joining the CPL. It's also expressly the development league for MLS rather than a full fledged league of it's own, so I don't see it posing too much threat to what the CPL is trying to put together. As for MLS, you're probably right that it'll grab up the spotlight, but only being in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver means that there's a lot of empty space in which to grow the game.

I've heard MLS described as a Ponzi Scheme where the expansion fees from new clubs are the only thing that really keeps it afloat, so who knows what things will look like in a few years.
 
The talk about them moving was a rumour a few years back, a quick google search shows it's been an ongoing rumour for a while, and they keep saying they aren't going anywhere. I thought we had heard something more concrete on SSP back when the rumours came up. Anyway, it's a great facility and would be very tough to move it.

Anyway, hope it works out with the team and league.
 
I've heard MLS described as a Ponzi Scheme where the expansion fees from new clubs are the only thing that really keeps it afloat, so who knows what things will look like in a few years.
It's a funny league...kind of reminds me a bit of Lacrosse, the way some teams have strong attendance and some downright terrible. 16 of the 23 teams are averaging NHL arena type attendance or less, which isn't great when you're only playing 17 home games a season.. What's concerning is the downward trend on attendance across the board.

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