The 2016 Men's League1 Ontario season was the third season of play for

League1 Ontario League1 Ontario (L1O) is a semi-professional men's association football, soccer league in Ontario, Canada. The league began play in 2014 and is sanctioned by the Canadian Soccer Association and the Ontario Soccer Association as a pro-am league ...

, a Division 3 semi-professional soccer league in the

Canadian soccer pyramid The Canadian soccer league system, also called the Canadian soccer pyramid, is a term used in soccer to describe the structure of the league system in Canada. The governing body of soccer in the country is the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), w ...

and the highest level of soccer based in the Canadian province of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. This season saw the return of all but one of the teams which completed the previous season, as well as the addition of five new teams for the men's division.

Changes from 2015

Five new teams joined the men's division for this season.

Aurora United FC Aurora FC was a Canadian semi-professional soccer club based in Aurora, Ontario. The club continues to operate as a youth soccer club. The club was founded in 1964 as a youth soccer club and added its semi-professional club in League1 Ontario in ...

North Mississauga SC North Mississauga Soccer Club is a Canadian semi-professional soccer club based in Mississauga, Ontario. The club was founded in 1982 as a youth soccer club and added its men's semi-professional club in League1 Ontario in 2016. The team plays ho ...

North Toronto Nitros North Toronto Nitros is a Canadian semi-professional association football, soccer club based in Toronto, Ontario, Toronto, Ontario. The club was founded in 1980 as a youth soccer club and added its men's semi-professional club in League1 Ontario ...

, Toronto Skillz FC added new entries, while

FC London FC London is a Canadian semi-professional association football, soccer club based in London, Ontario, London, Ontario. The club was founded in 2008 and plays in the League1 Ontario men's and League1 Ontario (women), women's divisions. The team pl ...

moved over from the Premier Development League. One team (

ANB Futbol ANB Futbol was a Canadian semi-professional soccer club based in King, Ontario. The club was founded in 2007, as a soccer academy, and added its semi-professional club in League1 Ontario in 2014. The club was one of the ten original founding m ...

) from 2015 did not renew their license, resulting in a 16-team competition and a change from a single-table format to a two-conference format. The league's cup tournament for the men's division will be a single-elimination competition; eliminating the group stage seen in previous editions. On June 16, 2016,

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BM ...

entered into a partnership with the

Windsor Stars Windsor TFC is a Canadian soccer team based in Windsor, Ontario, that was founded in 2004. They have competed in the Canadian Professional Soccer League (CPSL) and Canadian Soccer League (CSL). Throughout their tenure in the CPSL/CSL, Windsor ...

wherein the latter would become a "regional satellite club" of the former, who would in turn provide technical and coaching development. As part of the agreement, Windsor would become known as "Windsor TFC" in the future. The agreement does not affect the participation in L1O of either the Windsor Stars or the

TFC Academy Toronto FC Academy, also known as TFC Academy, is the youth academy and development system of Canadian Major League Soccer club Toronto FC. The academy has divisions from U14 to U19 and includes over 110 young players. The senior academy team is ...

team.

Teams

Standings

Each team played 22 matches as part of the season; two against every team in their own conference, and one against every team in the opposing conference. The top team from each conference met at the end of the season to determine the league champion and face the PLSQ league champion in the Inter-Provincial Cup.

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

League Championship

The league champion is determined by a single-match series between the top-ranked teams from the western and eastern conferences.

L1 Cup

The cup tournament is a separate contest from the rest of the season, in which all sixteen teams from the men's division take part. It is not a form of playoffs at the end of the season (as is typically seen in North American sports), but is more like the Canadian Championship or the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

, albeit only for League1 Ontario teams. All matches are separate from the regular season, and are not reflected in the season standings. The cup tournament for the men's division is a single-match knockout tournament with four total rounds culminating in a final match at the end of July, with initial matchups determined by random draw. Each match in the tournament must return a result; any match drawn after 90 minutes will advance directly to

kicks from the penalty mark A penalty shoot-out (officially kicks from the penalty mark) is a tie-breaking method in association football to determine which team is awarded victory in a match that cannot end in a draw, when the score is tied after the normal time as well ...

instead of extra time.

Round of 16

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Final

Inter-Provincial Cup Championship

The Inter-Provincial Cup Championship was a two-legged home-and-away series between the league champions of League1 Ontario and the

Première ligue de soccer du Québec The Première ligue de soccer du Québec (PLSQ) is a semi-professional soccer league created in 2012. The Quebec Soccer Federation operates both men's and women's divisions at the pro-am tier of the Canadian soccer league system. The league is p ...

– the only Division 3 men's semi-professional soccer leagues based fully within

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. ''CS Mont-Royal Outremont won 3–2 on aggregate''

Statistics

Top scorers

Source
League1 Ontario
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Top goalkeepers

Minimum 540 minutes played. Source
League1 Ontario
/small>

All-Star Game

On July 25, the league announced the rosters for the first-ever all-star game, to be played between the eastern and western conferences. Eighteen players for each team were selected by coaches and league officials, and each roster contains at least one player from each team in their respective conference. Due to the unavailability of some players, the league released updated rosters for both western and eastern teams on August 2.