A second-place finish in Group A to go with a no-fear sort of performance against both Costa Rica and Honduras will continue to stoke the still small hope that Canada is, indeed, heading in the right direction under head coach Octavio Zambrano.

So, what to do for an encore? The 2017 Canadian Championship final will go down as one of the best in the history of this tournament. And, for the second year in a row, Toronto FC won the championship on a last-gasp goal.

The timing was impeccable. On the same day that Canadian national-team coach Octavio Zambrano revealed his 40-man provisional roster for the upcoming Gold Cup, came news that Edmonton-raised teenage phenom Alphonso Davies has got the citizenship test out of the way and will have a Canadian passport very soon.

The final shots on goal? Impact 10, Whitecaps 2. Yes, it finished 5-4 on aggregate, and one more road goal would have given the Whitecaps the tie; but, wow, this second leg wasn’t close.

The second stage of the Canadian Championship got underway Tuesday, as the three MLS teams got into the fray. The first legs provided plenty of talking points:

Just the thought of corner kicks will give Impact supporters nightmares throughout their offseason. All three TFC goals in regulation time of the second leg came off of corners that Montreal couldn't deal with.

At the 67-minute mark, the score was 3-0 for the Impact, the Big O was rocking, and it was looking like the second leg at BMO Field was going to be nothing but a formality — a wake by the lake

“We expect a very defensive game on their part, and we’ll get ready for that,” Giovinco said through an interpreter as part of an MLS conference call previewing the conference final.

And, the Ottawa Fury go down as the most Canadian-friendly NASL or MLS team in North America. Canadians played an average of more than 347 minutes per game for the Fury.

Three Canadians made their NASL or MLS debuts this past weekend.