VANCOUVER, B.C. - A week ago, the Vancouver Whitecaps were all set for the first leg of their Amway Canadian Championship semifinal series at FC Edmonton.
The players had traveled and the team had been picked – then came the snow. A lot of it. So much snow, that the game at Clarke Stadium was postponed, turning Wednesday’s match between the teams at BC Place – which was initially meant to be the decisive second leg – into the first leg of the tie (10 pm ET, Sportsnet One in Canada, MLS Live in the US).
Though Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson had already told his players who was starting in that first leg, he was forced to slightly modify his plans for Wednesday’s contest after defender Tim Parker and midfielder Cristian Techera played significant minutes in Saturday’s 3-0 win against Philadelphia and the dynamic of hosting the first leg came into play.
"It has changed because of what happened at the weekend," Robinson said. "So our personnel will change now. It will change as well slightly because we might approach it slightly differently than we would the first game. It's not ideal, but we're a good club. We've got four 45 minute periods and we've got to try and make sure that we try and win all of them."
Robinson has already stated that a number of his fringe players will get a run out against Edmonton, each given a chance to stake their claim to an MLS spot. One of them will likely be veteran striker Robert Earnshaw, who knows a key for Vancouver on Wednesday will be just how quickly the unfamiliar unit gels on the pitch.
"It makes it difficult because you can have a lot of training sessions and train together a hell of a lot but once you get out into a game situation it is totally different," Earnshaw said. "It sometimes takes a little bit of time and that's one of the key things we have to make sure that we do good at.
Last week's postponement was just the latest in a strange series of events that have befallen the Whitecaps in their quest to lift their first Voyageurs Cup. Whether it was a thunderstorm that forced a game Vancouver was leading to be abandoned, freak results or just plain old goal difference, the Whitecaps – who are 0-for-7 in the Canadian Championship since the tournament began in 2008 – have been a bit snake-bit in the competition.
With all that has happened, is there a feeling among the Whitecaps that they are cursed in the tournament?
"I hope I can prove that wrong this year because that would be nice," Robinson said with a smile. "It's not been ideal for us. I've been fortunate enough to win it [as a player with Toronto FC], so I have won it, so I'm not cursed. It's something we want to address. We haven't won it but we want to try and win it and we'll go full guns blazing to go and try and win it. So if we don't win it, maybe we are cursed!"
