When Ethan Gage left the Vancouver Whitecaps for Reading, the former Canadian U-20 Player of the Year had high hopes for his career. Instead, it was a disaster. He’s spent years in Scandinavia rediscovering a passion for the game, a passion that he’d lost in England...

Toronto FC's Jonathan Osorio — thanks to starting two games this week — has taken back the lead in our ranking of minutes played by Canadians on either MLS or NASL teams.

It’s the nature of Canadian soccer supporters to focus who is not on a roster rather than who’s on a roster.

With the Atlanta Silverbacks on a bye week, there was a chance that Kyle Porter, who has led the Canadian-minutes-played ranking over the last few weeks, would be overtaken.

But the best part of it was the colour commentary from the Maestro and the play-by-play work from his partner. Mad Bull, two man who never met a metaphor they didn’t like. And, even though Canada started off sluggishly, Canadian fans could ignore the quality of the soccer, and make the surreal viewing experience the focus of their chat.

Even though teams lost Canadians to international duty, the fact that so many other international players were also away opened up opportunities for our domestic players who usually ride the pine. The Impact started two Canadians in its 4-3 win over Chicago — and Wandrille Lefevre got a goal. The Eddies gave more than 300 minutes to Canadian players in their 1-1 draw with Minnesota United. Toronto FC gave starts to both Jonathan Osorio and Ashtone Morgan.

With his brace on Friday night against Belize, Tosaint Ricketts now has 12 goal in 43 appearances for Canada. That puts him at 0.28 goals per appearance, slightly better than De Ro’s standard. But, more interestingly, Ricketts has seven career goals in World Cup qualifiers; De Rosario had nine in his career.

Canadian national-team coach Benito Floro re-affirmed his belief in Kyle Bekker, but said that the return of veteran midfielders Atiba Hutchinson and Will Johnson meant that there was no room at the inn for Jonathan Osorio.

Tesho Akindele started for FC Dallas and scored on a penalty kick. Cyle Larin set the MLS rookie scoring record when the Orlando City striker notched his 12th goal of the season.

But, as more and more North American Soccer League players get the calls to play for their countries, that league should also be subject to the same scheduling scrutiny. In fact, you could argue that NASL teams are less equipped than the MLS teams are when it comes to dealing with games on international dates.