The Ottawa Fury has not only won three NASL matches in a row, the club is spiking in terms of minutes on the pitch it is providing to its Canadian players.

In Saturday’s win in Jacksonville’s 40-plus C heat (with the humidity), the Ottawa Fury gave 464 of a possible 990 minutes playing time to Canadians. Canadian Carl Haworth scored the second goal of the game in a 2-0 win. And, with that, Ottawa not only leads all NASL and MLS teams in terms of giving minutes to Canadians, the Fury …

So, despite all the good Canadian news from the Whitecaps, after the team's two matches this past week, its season-long average of minutes played by Canadians per match dipped below 90. That means the Whitecaps average less than one full 90 minute session for a Canadian player per game. And that puts them far behind the four other Canadian MLS and NASL sides.

In Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Colorado, the Whitecaps didn’t have a Canadian in the starting lineup, and didn’t have a Canadian come off the bench, either. That’s not the only depressing news when it comes to minutes played by Canadians in the major North American leagues. The Montreal Impact only had three minutes played by a Canadian this past weekend — Patrice Bernier in a substitute role.

At this time last year (MLS Week 8/NASL Week 4), 26 Canadians had seen the field for their MLS or NASL clubs. This year, 32 Canadians have played in MLS or NASL games so far this season.

This past weekend, the Edmonton teenager made his pro debut, playing 80 minutes in FC Edmonton’s 1-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Yet, this week, we’ll announce a change in the way we do things with our power rankings. We will track the minutes played by Canadians in USL. But, to make sure fair is fair, the USL numbers are not tracked on the same list as MLS and NASL.

Going into a game against a powerhouse like Mexico, you know Canada’s going to have precious few chances — so, to have any hope at all the conversion rate has got to be decent. Canada had three very good looks; Boakai misplayed the ball, Petrasso hit a poor penalty and Thomas's effort was close, but high.

Thanks to a slew of new signings and culling of Canadian players from the first-team lineup, Jonathan Osorio is now the only player from this country who can realistically hope for a regular starting job on Toronto FC...