Gold Cup schedule: Convenient sort-of “home” matches for Western Canadians By Steven Sandor Posted on March 13, 2013 3 0 788 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Twitter and the Internet have been ablaze with news of the Gold Cup schedule. Canada will open the tournament with a match against Martinique July 7 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Then, July 11, Canada will get awfully close to the border when it faces Mexico in Seattle. The group stage will wrap when Canada will face Panama, the team that knocked it out of the last Gold Cup, in Denver on July 14. Luckily for Canada, the game against Mexico takes place in Seattle, which offers Canadian fans the best chance to cross the border and see the match, as it’s a nice short jaunt from Vancouver. As well, Canada avoids playing Mexico in Los Angeles, a venue which basically gives El Tri a home game. As well, no team would want to face Mexico in the altitude in Denver, which would again be a major advantage for the team in green — as most of its players are accustomed to playing in the thinner air. The Denver match is good for Canada as it will see our team facing a side that doesn’t normally play at altitude. For Canadian fans, especially those in the West, it’s a convenient tournament. There are enough Canadian expats in Los Angeles to fill the Rose Bowl — if they all cared about cheering the soccer program, that is. As Douglas Coupland wrote in Souvenir of Canada, “Canada’s fourth-largest city is Los Angeles. More Canadians live there than in Ottawa or Calgary or Edmonton or Winnipeg or Quebec City.” It’s amazing how much Canadians, especially those Manitoba and West, treat going back and forth between Southern California and Canada as easily as we’d talk about a short road trip between Edmonton and Calgary. It’s not uncommon to hear chatter in a coffee shop in Vancouver or Edmonton or Calgary about Los Angeles traffic, and the best ways to handle it. Canadians talk about going to Disneyland or Legoland or Sea World in San Diego with the same kind of ease as heading to the cottage for the weekend. California, for some strange reason, speaks to Canadians maybe even more so than it does to, well, Americans. Seattle is close to Vancouver and Gold Cup games that have been previously played there have featured healthy representations of Canadians fans. Since the Canadian men’s national team doesn’t play games outside of Toronto, this is a bit of justice served, a chance for fans out west to actually see their team play. And Denver is a hub, so direct flights aren’t difficult to find. Heck, even Edmonton has a direct Denver flight.
