CPSL Press Conference Tuesday May 12, 1998.
A press conference was held earlier today at The Soccer Centre in Woodbridge. 11:45am.
Bill Spiers chaired the meeting.
There are four teams from the CNSL and four new
teams that had joined the OSA.
For the regular season each of the eight teams will play home and away once each 7x2=14.
For the Cup competition each team is put into one of two groups and play home and away in each group. 3x2=6. The two top finishers in each group cross over and play each other A1 vs B2, B1 vs A2
Group A.........Group B
Glen Shields......York Region Shooters
London City.......Mississauga
North York Astros..Toronto Olympians
Toronto Croatia....St Catharines
Michael DiBiase league commissioner (and City of
Vaughan politician) outlined how the league was
interested in having in the future a year end
playoff with CPSL divisions in BC and Quebec.
I must have been daydreaming but he mentioned
they may build a 20000 seat stadium on the field
outside especially if Toronto gets the Olympic
Games.
The league hopes to expand in the future by
bringing in the exCNSL squads Supra and Italia
and other cities Kitchener, Ottawa, Windsor?
There are three major sponsers this year.
Adidas (uniforms)
Labatt's (resources)
Coffee Time (schedules and promotions) [Coffee
Time was a sponser of Toronto Rockets of the APLS
in 1994] They are a rival to Tim Horton Donuts.
There were representatives from each franchise.
Later I asked David Benning of GlenShields
about stocking his team with alumni players from
their youth league. Well maybe in two years but
for now they have players from all around Toronto.
I have a phone number to each team now so all
those potential players who e-mailed me and I
directed them to the OSA website could contact
me for individual team contacts.
I asked Bill Spiers if he knew who would be on
the Ontario Selects team that would play Canada's
Under 20 team after the Canada Macedonia game but
they're not really part of this league although
there is some overlap.
I'm thinking the National team is young enough
for this game so how will the under 20's be
stocked unless we see Brad Parker play 180
minutes.
Another factoid from David Benning from GlenShields is that they plan to have the same team uniforms as their junior teams and hope to encourage quite a turnout. (sorry I don't remember if it was his team or another that would admit any junior player in uniform with free admission).
The former press conference was over in 20 minutes then it was time for questions but one on one as they mingled with the press. I only recognized Alf DeBlasis and a TLN crew, David Bailey from Canada Kicks, and Stan Adamson from The Soccer News.
A buffet of sandwiches, vegetables and sweets was provided.
The Lynx were practising on the indoor field below. They also took their team picture. It looks like they'll go with a black uniform with yellow markings. The shirts look like a truck tire rode over one sleeve and down the other. I thought I saw Dwayne DeRosario but it was Terry St Louis. Also recognized Phil Ionardi and Rick Titus thanks to the names on their uniforms and the Lynx owners were onfield too. I may take in less CPSL games this year because many of the teams have Sunday night games. There aren't too many direct conflicts with the Lynx games who play mostly earlier in the evening but realistically there's only about an hour to spare.
Most teams have their youth teams playing throughtout the week so Sunday evening was the most convenient.
Wednesdays...St Catharines, and Toronto Croatia.
Fridays......London City
Sundays......York Shooters, Mississauaga, Glen
Shields, Toronto Olympians, North York Astros.
Rocket Robin
robing@clo.com
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