But Thanksgiving Monday’s national club championship final between Royal-Select Beauport and Edmonton Scottish was a compelling Cup final, the kind of game you’ll talk about years from now. Beauport, down to 10 men, triumphed over a Scottish side laden with former NASL and USL players.

Scottish features former FC Edmonton forward Chris Lemire and defender Chris Devlin, a former Edmonton Aviator and co-coach of the Edmonton Drillers than won the CMISL indoor title this spring. There are plenty of ties between FC Edmonton and players in the Scottish lineup, which made this incident so odd.

“We had two training sessions and this team was put together on a bit of a shoestring,” said Drillers’ coach Kevin Poissant. “We sort of flew by the seat of our pants. But that’s OK.”

The Edmonton Drillers are playing to be the internationally recognized Canadian champion of indoor soccer on Saturday. But it's not like they will show up to the game as a well-oiled machine. In fact, they are holding their first practice on Tuesday night.

Calgary United FC captured its second consecutive Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League Championship Saturday, and punched its ticket to the North American Arena Soccer Championships in Cincinnati, with a 9-3 trouncing over the rival Edmonton Drillers.

A diving goal-line clearance from the Edmonton Drillers’ elder statesman has given the club a massive lead in the Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League standings. Calgary United held a 4-2 lead in the third quarter of Saturday’s tilt at Edmonton’s Soccer Centre South and was simply dominating the game — outchancing, outpassing the Drillers. Calgary’s Arthur Paszkowski looked sure to make it a 5-2 game; on a break, he rounded Drillers’ keeper Jay Vetsch and rolled the ball towards the open goal. But Chris Devlin, who spent the 2004 season in the USL with the Edmonton Aviators/Edmonton FC franchise, hustled back, threw himself at the goal line, and got enough of the ball to deflect it just wide. That play energized the Drillers; the team scored three unanswered goals in the third to take a 5-4 lead, and went on to a 7-5 win.

The Edmonton Drillers scored three goals in a 55-second span to snatch a win out of the jaws of defeat. Trailing 8-7 with less than three minutes left in regulation at home to Calgary United in Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League action Saturday, the Drillers took advantage of a goalkeeping error to turn the game on its ear — and came out with a 10-9 win.

They were shorthanded in a 7-6 season opening loss in Calgary; but the Edmonton Drillers will be at full strength for their 2011 Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League home debut this Saturday, The Drillers will play a doubleheader against Winnipeg Alliance. Drillers head coach Kevin Poissant said that because the CMISL was late in releasing the schedule, it was hard for the team to find enough players to send a competitive squad down to Calgary. The fact that kickoff for that game was set for 2 p.m. local time on New Year’s Eve didn’t help matters.