Home Canadian Soccer Indoor Soccer CMISL in talks to bring indoor-soccer team to Vancouver

CMISL in talks to bring indoor-soccer team to Vancouver

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Indoor soccer in Vancouver may soon mean more than Whitecaps’ games at BC Place with the roof closed.

Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League president Mel Kowalchuk has confirmed that talks are ongoing to bring an expansion team to Vancouver.

But the picture isn’t clear. Kowalchuk wrote in an e-mail to The 11 that “it would be premature” to confirm that Vancouver will or will not have a team competing in the CMISL in 2012.

He said that, just a couple of days ago, the CMISL had taken it as a given that the Vancouver franchise would be ready to go for January of 2012, but he said some “glitches” have cropped up over the last couple of days — glitches which have put the deal in doubt.

The CMISL competes within the Professional Arena Soccer League, which has teams throughout the U.S. and Mexico. Some of those teams will play interconference games with the Canadian teams. Last season, the CMISL had just three teams, the champion Calgary United FC, the Edmonton Drillers and the Winnipeg Alliance. It’s the best calibre of indoor soccer that can be seen in Canada — but the league needs more than three teams to gain legitimacy.

Calgary was eliminated in the first round of the PASL playoffs.

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3 Comments

  1. Evan

    October 15, 2011 at 2:00 am

    Whatever happened to the Saskatoon Accelerators and Prince George? The league seemed to be on the rise a few years ago.

  2. Steven Sandor

    October 14, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Pretty well every pro or semipro league we see in North America plays the arena version of the game. The PASL has franchises in three countries. And the rival MISL plays with the boards, too. We can go back to the old NPSL or NASL indoor circuits.

    Fans on this continent still see “indoor soccer” as the game played with the boards. You’d need to change a lot of venues and the minds of a lot of entrepreneurs to go the futsal route.

    FIFA can tell anyone it wants that futsal is mandated. But the fact is, what small money there is in indoor soccer goes toward the arena version of the game.

  3. tanner

    October 14, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    Why would they not play Futsal the FIFA and CSA endorsed game that has world championships organized by FIFA?
    Not the other versions of indoor soccer that are not recognized.

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