Forge forced to forgo preferred home game so Tiger-Cats can play
The Ticats are 6-0 this season, and the Forge 7-0-1 since late July at Tim Hortons Field
Tim Hortons Field was built, by mandate, to be busy.
The multi-use east end stadium has lived up to that and its most active year to date has been extended by a couple of games because of the success of its two premier tenants: The Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Forge FC.
The Ticats have won all six of their home games this season.
And, since late July, Forge FC has seven wins, a tie and no losses at Tim Hortons Field.
The first-place Tiger-Cats have clinched a home playoff game — most likely, the Canadian Football League East final on Nov. 17 — while the Forge’s 3-0 victory over Pacific FC on Saturday afternoon at Tim Hortons Field puts the pro soccer team into the two-game final of the Canadian Premier League’s debut season.
Forge will finish either first or second in the CPL’s fall season. Forge will then meet spring champion Cavalry FC in the opening leg of the championship Saturday, Oct. 26, in Hamilton with the second leg set for Calgary’s Spruce Meadows, Nov. 2.
With five games remaining, no other team can pass both the Forge and Cavalry so all that is left to be determined is which of the two finishes first in the autumn standing.
Hamilton currently leads Calgary by two points.
The winner of the fall title was supposed to have first choice of which leg they’d host. Teams will almost always choose to play the second leg at home.
But, because the Ticats’ final regular-season game is scheduled for Nov. 2 at Tim Hortons Field against the Toronto Argonauts, that date wasn’t available.
So, even with a first-place finish, the Forge couldn’t have hosted the second leg.
The CPL talked to Calgary and
Hamilton team officials Saturday and all sides agreed to a Hamilton-first league final.
This isn’t the first time that a conflict with the “other football” has hit Forge FC in a major series against Cavalry FC.
In the second round of the Canadian soccer championship, Hamilton had the right to choose which game to host, but the second leg had to be played in the middle of the first week of June. The Ticats played a pre-season home game on June 6 — also against Toronto — and there would not have been time to convert the stadium to its CFL configuration. So Forge FC hosted the first leg, which they lost 2-1, and then played to a 1-1 draw in Calgary on June 4, sending Cavalry FC into the third round, where they beat the Vancouver Whitecaps.
With their playoff berths, Forge FC and the Tiger-Cats will have combined to play 29 games of professional sport at Tim Hortons Field in 2019