In the five years that the modern NASL has been in existence as a standalone league, the Golden Glove award has gone to keepers on Canadian teams three times. Montreal Impact keeper Evan Bush won it 2011, and FC Edmonton’s John Smits won it last season.

But, it’s got to pain people in Ottawa — and at NASL offices — that the final won’t be held in Ottawa. The semifinal at TD Place set a league record for post-season attendance, with 9,346 fans coming out. Had Ottawa hosted the final, the 10,000-tickets-sold mark would easily have been eclipsed.

Miller said that the Eddies knew coming into the game that the Fury was one of the best, if not the best, counterattacking sides in NASL. So, he was disappointed that the Eddies were caught on two counters.

The Eddies host the spring-season champion and overall NASL leaders New York Cosmos Sunday. The team said that there are only about 200 or so tickets left for that match. Then, the Eddies go on the road to face the fall-season leaders Ottawa Fury and then the Cosmos, again. With the Eddies just two points out of the NASL’s final post-season spot, this three-game swing could very well be the defining stretch of their season.

But what was striking about Sunday’s game is how much Fury coach Marc Dos Santos learned from this past spring’s Amway Canadian Championship loss to the Eddies, then used that knowledge to craft a game plan that neutralized one of the top offences in the league.

“Escape” is the appropriate word, because FCE keeper John Smits, making his second start in a row, made two outstanding point-blank second-half saves, to give the Eddies their first clean sheet of the season — in Cup or NASL play.

Up 3-1 after the first leg of their Amway Canadian Championship preliminary round tie against the Ottawa Fury, FC Edmonton’s players had a bit of a surprise prepared. Instead of bunkering and trying to protect the three road goals they scored in the first leg, they came out onto the Clarke Stadium turf looking to break the backs of their …

We saw this script again on Wednesday; the Eddies scored three goals in just over 11 minutes to transform a game that they were trailing to the Ottawa Fury 1-0 for the better part of 80 minutes. Instead, the Eddies will head home to Clarke Stadium for the second leg of the Amway Canadian Championship first-round series with a commanding 3-1 lead.

In the middle of the week, Lance Laing signed a contract extension that will keep him in Eddies blue and white into the 2015 season. And, on Saturday afternoon in the nation’s capital, he once again showed off why he’s become such a valuable part of the team.