2023 Canadian Championship
Soccer tournament featuring professional teams
Football tournament season
| Championnat canadien 2023 (French) | |
|---|---|
| Tournament details | |
| Country | Canada |
| Date | April 18 – June 7, 2023 |
| Teams | 14 (from 5 leagues) |
| Final positions | |
| Champions | Vancouver Whitecaps FC (3rd title) |
| Runner-up | CF Montréal |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 13 |
| Goals scored | 35 (2.69 per match) |
| Top goal scorer(s) | Sunusi Ibrahim (3 goals) |
| George Gross Memorial Trophy | Julian Gressel |
| Best young player | Ali Ahmed |
← 2022 2024 → | |
The 2023 Canadian Championship (French: Championnat canadien 2023) was the sixteenth edition of the Canadian Championship, the premier men's domestic cup competition in Canadian soccer, and the 22nd competition staged to determine the winner of the Voyageurs Cup. It was a knockout tournament with all eleven professional men's soccer teams in Canada, from Major League Soccer and the Canadian Premier League, competing, along with the champions of the three semi-professional League1 Canada competitions. The tournament marked the first Voyageurs Cup campaign for FC Laval, TSS FC Rovers and Vancouver FC.
This tournament was notable for the TSS FC Rovers' performance, as they made the quarter-finals in their debut appearance by upsetting Valour FC in the first round. In doing so, they became the first non-professional team in the history of the competition to advance past a fully professional opponent.
Format
The winner of the 2022 Canadian Championship, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, and runner-up Toronto FC, both received byes to the quarter-finals. The remaining 12 teams began the competition from the first round in April.[1] Qualification to the Canadian Championship for 2023 was automatic for Canadian teams within Major League Soccer and for all teams within the Canadian Premier League, Canada's tier-one national league. The 2022 champions from the three regional pro-am leagues of League1 Canada (League1 Ontario, PLSQ, and League1 British Columbia) also qualified.[2]
The 2023 Canadian Championship determined a place in the continental 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament.[3][4] If the winner had already qualified for the Champions Cup via berths in the 2023 Major League Soccer, 2023 Leagues Cup or 2023 Canadian Premier League, the place would have gone to the runners-up in the final, and then to the "higher-ranked" semi-finalist based on league points totals,[5] if the runners-up had also already qualified.[4]
Matches in the 2023 tournament were each played as a single 90-minute match with additional time. If a match ended in a draw, no extra time was played, and the match went straight to a penalty shoot-out to decide the winner.[6] Each team competing in the tournament could select up to 30 players to their tournament roster. If a player already nominated to a team's tournament roster was transferred to a competing team during the tournament, they were disqualified from further play in the tournament.[6] For each match, teams could select up to 18 players for a match roster, while their starting lineup had to include at least three Canadian players. Both teams could make up to five substitutions and two concussion substitutions throughout the match at up to three stoppages of play, excluding half-time.[6]
Teams
- Vancouver teams:
- TSS Rovers
- Vancouver FC
- Vancouver Whitecaps
- Toronto teams:
- Toronto FC
- Vaughan Azzurri
- York United
- Montreal teams:
- CF Montréal
- FC Laval
2023 Canadian Championship (Canada)
