“If we finish in the same position next year, third from the bottom, I’ll be out of a job,” said Miller. “No one needs to tell me that.”

On Monday, FC Edmonton’s brass brought in each of its players for face-to-face end-of-season meetings. And, on Tuesday, the club announced the status of all its players who were under contract at the end of the 2013 season.

“It was an absolute circus,” Miller said of the pre-game festivities in Fort Lauderdale. “We go off the field at 20 minutes past to get ready for the game, we’re ready to go at 7:30 and we’re waiting for almost half an hour. Anyone involved in professional football knows that’s too much time to wait.”

Nurse was named the FC Edmonton player of the year by his teammates. He was named the NASL player of the month for August. He scored three times for the Eddies in the fall season and also had a marker in the Amway Canadian Championship semifinal against the Whitecaps.

Miller said the club is already in advanced negotiations with one or two players, but he wouldn’t reveal the identity of either of them. But he said deals with the two new players in question could be close.

Now that Yallop is back in the realm of the employed, he join San Jose coach Mark Watson (and Yallop’s former assistant) as Canadian coaches in MLS. Now add to that the fact there are three Canadian coaches currently employed in NASL: FC Edmonton’s Colin Miller, San Antonio Scorpions interim boss Alen Marcina and Ottawa Fury head man Marc Dos Santos. Yes, we include Dos Santos because, even though the Fury won’t begin NASL play till 2014, Dos Santos is already working to identify players and hire his staff.

Crews worked to clear the snow off the artificial pitch in the morning but, by 2 p.m. kickoff, there were patches of ice that could clearly bee seen on the surface. According to Environment Canada’s Weather Office, the temperature at kickoff was -2C, but it felt like -8C with the wind chill. With members of the Canadian national women’s team in attendance ahead of their game Wednesday against South Korea, Clarke Stadium offered a home-field advantage that needed the words “frozen tundra” to do it justice. For the final home game of the season, FCE finally did have a distinct advantage over the opposition.

Canadian striker Michael Cox could not come to terms with FC Edmonton on a new deal and will look for other opportunities in 2014.

The weather forecasts are calling for some rather inhospitable conditions for FC Edmonton’s final home game of the season.

“Before the game, I talked to (commissioner) Bill Peterson and I told him no way there’s going to be a trophy presentation tonight,” said Miller. “I told him ‘have you booked a flight for next week?’”