The Canadian Premier League Finals is the annual championship game of the

Canadian Premier League The Canadian Premier League (CPL or CanPL; french: Première ligue canadienne, links=no) is a professional men's Association football, soccer league in Canada. At the top of the Canadian soccer league system, it is the country's primary nationa ...

(CPL), the top level of

Canadian soccer In Canada, soccer is the most popular sport in terms of participation rate. According to FIFA's Big Count, almost 2.7 million people played in Canada in 2006. Professional soccer in Canada is played in the Canadian Premier League and Major Leag ...

. As of the 2021 Final, it is played as a single match hosted by the higher seeded team. The winner is awarded the North Star Shield trophy and from 2023, will earn a berth in the

CONCACAF Champions League The CONCACAF Champions League, known officially as the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons, is an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF. The tournament is contested by clubs from North Ameri ...

. The CPL uses a playoff tournament following the regular season to determine its annual league champion, a method common to every other major North American sports league. This format differs from most soccer leagues around the world, which consider the club with the most points at the end of the season to be the champion. The inaugural Finals were played as a

two-legged tie In sports (particularly association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum o ...

on October 26 and November 2, 2019 in which

Forge FC Forge FC is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Hamilton, Ontario, that competes in the Canadian Premier League, the top tier of Canadian soccer. The club plays its home matches at Tim Hortons Field. Forge FC joined the CPL in 2019 as ...

defeated

Cavalry FC Cavalry Football Club, is a Canadian professional soccer club based in the Calgary metropolitan region of Alberta. The club competes at the top of the Canadian soccer league system in the Canadian Premier League, and plays their home matches at ...

. Forge FC is the most successful team in Finals history, winning a second title in

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

and a third in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Format

Different formats and methods of qualification have been used for each of the first five CPL seasons.

2019

The 2019 Finals were contested between the winners of the Spring and Fall seasons. The championship was contested as a

, with each team hosting one leg at home. The winner was determined by

aggregate score There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the ''single elimination'', the ''best-of-'' series, the ''total points series'' more commonly kn ...

but if the aggregate score was tied, the team with the most

away goals The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

wins the series. A

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pen ...

was the final tiebreaker.

2020

The 2020 season saw the end of the split season format, with the 2020 Finals scheduled to be contested between the top-seeded regular season team and the winner of a playoff between the second and third-placed teams. However, as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the season format was scrapped and replaced with a single-site tournament with a two-stage regular season. The 2020 Final was contested in a single match between the two top-seeded teams from the four-team second stage.

2021–2022

The 2021 season brought in a new four-team single leg knockout

playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

with the two first round winners advancing to the Final. The higher-seeded finalist hosts the single leg game. If a match is tied at the end of normal playing time,

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

is played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and, if necessary, followed by a

to determine the winners. Prior to the start of the 2022 season, the league announced that playoff semi-finals would switch to a two-legged format but that the Final would continue to be played as a single match hosted by the higher-seeded team.

2023

Beginning with the 2023 season, five teams will qualify for the playoffs which will use the Page format.

Results

Records and statistics

Finals wins

Champions records in the CONCACAF League

From 2019 until 2021, the CPL champion earned Canada's berth in the following year's

CONCACAF League The CONCACAF League was an annual continental club football competition organized by CONCACAF as its second-tier continental competition. It was announced on 8 May 2017. The competition uses a knockout cup format with each round having two leg ...

Scorers

Trophy

The winning team is presented with the North Star Shield. It is a solid crystal circular shield engraved with the league's logo. The shield sits atop a maple wood base. The winners and finalists are also presented with gold and silver medals respectively.

Venues

Discipline

Yellow card suspensions

Rules concerning

yellow card Yellow card may refer to: * Yellow card (sport), shown in many sports after a rules infraction or, by analogy, a serious warning in other areas * Yellowcard, an American alternative rock band * Yellow Card Scheme, a United Kingdom initiative conce ...

accumulation in regular season and playoff games and its impact on suspensions in the finals have changed over time. In 2019, yellow card accumulation in regular season games resulted in a suspension of Forge FC defender Bertrand Owundi for the first leg of that year's finals. However, when the format changed in 2020, the finals had appeared to have become exempt from suspensions. The CPL's 2022 Competition Guidelines established that the league's "Championship matches" would be exempt from any yellow card accumulation suspensions and that a fines would replace any suspensions. Although the league later announced changes to yellow card suspensions and their impact on playoffs games on the eve of the 2022 playoffs, this change did not affect the rules for the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

Red card suspensions

In the final match of the 2019 Canadian Premier League fall season, Dominic Samuel of

received a red card for two cautionable offences, and was subsequently suspended for the first leg of the

Finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

. Forge FC would suffer a similar fate in 2022 when their captain

Kyle Bekker Kyle Edward Bekker (born September 2, 1990) is a Canadian professional soccer midfielder, and team captain, for Forge FC. Club career Youth Bekker was born in Oakville, Ontario and began his youth soccer career with the Oakville Blue Stars, ...

was sent off in the second leg of the 2022 CPL semifinals against

Cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...

, and prevented him from participating in the

Final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

against

Atlético Ottawa Atlético Ottawa is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Ottawa, Ontario. The club competes in the Canadian Premier League and plays its home games at TD Place Stadium, TD Place. The team was founded in 2020 by Spa ...

Players sent-off in the finals

References

{{Soccer in Canada

Annual sporting events in Canada Recurring sporting events established in 2019 Soccer cup competitions in Canada