From 2008 to 2010, the Canadian Championship was played as a round-robin tournament between Canada's three professional soccer clubs: the Montreal Impact, Toronto FC, and Vancouver Whitecaps FC.[1] In 2011, the addition of FC Edmonton to Canadian professional soccer meant that a league format would require each participant to play six matches instead of four, something that was unpopular with the participating clubs' players and staff.[2] The round-robin format was also responsible for the controversial end of the 2009 Canadian Championship, which brought about further demand for a change in format, where a team could not suffer due to the results of a match between two other teams.[citation needed] The addition of a fourth team also meant that they could instead run the competition as an even two round tournament with no team requiring byes. It was decided in 2011 that the competition would be reformatted to have a two-legged semifinal round, of which the winners would then face each other in a single match final hosted by the higher seeded team.[citation needed] Before the beginning of the competition, this format was slightly amended once more so that the final would also be played over two legs.[3]
As more Canadian teams were created and gained access into the Canadian Championship in the late 2010s, all rounds including the final would start to be played as a single match starting in 2021, with the host team being determined by draw at the beginning of the competition.[4]
In 2024, Canada Soccer brought back the usage of two-legged ties for the quarter-final and semi-final rounds, but the final remained as a single match.
Toronto FC are the most successful team in the finals, having won it six times.[n 1] Since its inception, a non-Major League Soccer club has only reached the final once, due to a revised competition format for the shortened 2020 season where the Canadian Premier League automatically gained a berth into the final.
Despite playing in five semi-finals, FC Edmonton were never able to reach the finals during their eleven seasons of professional soccer.
^ abToronto FC have won the Canadian Championship final 6 times. They have won the Canadian Championship a total of 8 times, as two titles were won during the usage of the round-robin format. Similarly, CF Montréal have won the Voyageurs Cup, which predates the Canadian Championship as a whole, a total of 11 times, but have only won 4 finals.
^As of the 2024 season, the finals have only been held in the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.
^Match was originally played on May 25, but had to be abandoned in the 60th minute and postponed due to severe weather.
^The 2020 Canadian Championship final was played in the summer of 2022, due to scheduling difficulties in the 2020 and 2021 seasons associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
