As if there weren’t already a deluge of competitive celebration, rivalry intrigue, historic excellence and just plain visual enjoyment to Forge FC’s season opener against, of course, Cavalry FC.

Then along comes another consequential development, adding even deeper layers of meaning to The Hammers’ Saturday (5:30 p.m.) lid-lifter

at Hamilton Stadium against the Cavs: it’s the first of the five Canadian Premier League games TSN will broadcast in April in conjunction with streaming service OneSoccer.

All five will involve either Cavalry or Forge, or both, and there’s important substance in both the choice of teams and the timing of the broadcasts. TSN recognizes a good story when it sees one, and there’s no shortage of dramatic tales in Hamilton vs. Calgary. Between them, they’ve won five of the CPL’s overall titles, with Forge owning four, they are the only two teams to represent the league internationally, Forge has been in the league championship final all six previous seasons and their 33 head-to-head battles over that stretch are by far the most in any national premier division. And, flatly, they respect but don’t like each other.

It is also a blunt recognition that 2025 is a colossal year for Canada Soccer, CPL, Canada Soccer Business-which owns the CPL and OneSoccer—and for TSN, which holds the broadcast rights to the 2026 World Cup.

The sport, and the league, will be everywhere, all the time. On so many levels, 2025 and 2026 are essentially the same year, inseparable from soccer in this country, and in this city.

“Since the inception of this league there’s been a date that we’ve been working toward,” says Forge captain Kyle Bekker.

“And there’s no denying this…it’s 2026. We’re just trying to lay the groundwork brick by brick, just keep growing this thing the right way; making jumps when we can make the jumps, with everyone just trying to play their part. The entire soccer ecosystem of this country needs to grow and I think you’ve seen massive strides in the past couple of years. And it’ll continue this year, hopefully, with a big push going into 2026.”

Anything good for Canadian soccer is good for soccer in the Hamilton catchment area. If you are proud of your brand, spread it to everyone as pervasively as you can. Sadly, you could argue that Forge, Cavalry and the CPL are better known in Monterrey, Mexico City and Panama than they are in Moose Jaw, Orangeville or Owen Sound and the TSN connection can provide a healthy counter-balance to that.

TSN and OneSoccer should be a complementary tandem: each of them increasing the interest in the other.

The CPL, and Forge, have been on over-the-air TV before. CBC carried the league championship final game last year and in the inaugural season of 2019. But this is a large step forward, with a different accent.

“TSN is Canada’s sports leader, a sports network for sports fans,” says Matt Afinec, President and Chief Operating Officer of business Operations for Hamilton Sports Group, which owns the Forge and Ticats.

“So having the CPL and Forge available to sports fans on the TSN platform is a huge, huge win. It’s a great opportunity to highlight our league and our team.

“At the end of the day, it’s still a young league and we need to showcase the quality of the product, the quality of the players, to the largest audience possible. It’s how we’re going to grow casual interest in what the CPL is doing for Canadian soccer and Canadian soccer players.”

Depending upon how you do the math, the CPL is either in a Year 5 or a Year 7. One of its greatest accomplishments was to somehow find a way to follow up a tremendous debut season by managing to play the next year—the shortened “Island Games”—squarely in the heart of the pandemic. That impressed a lot of influential soccer people in all the right places. But it also meant that the CPL was in essence starting again in Year 3, because live games had been absent from all but one (the Winnipeg 2021 bubble) of its home markets for over 600 days. OneSoccer kept the flame burning and both it and the league will benefit from the TSN collaboration.

“We’re entering a period where soccer has never been more top of mind than it will be for the next 16 months in this country, with what’s to come with the World Cup,” Afinec says. “That heightened sense of presence for the game of soccer will indirectly have a great benefit for the CPL as a whole and Forge, directly, in terms of people just being so aware of soccer.

“The people who support this club— our supporters club, our season’s seat holders—are super passionate about the product, the players, about the purpose of the league.  For us to grow we have to continue to get more people involved, more people who understand the presence of the game.

Forge FC 2025 Season: Ticket Packages & Everything You Need to Know

“So drawing interest from the casual sports fan will be very important as we approach 2026, starting in 2025.”

That resonates with Head Coach and Sporting Director Bobby Smyrniotis and with his captain.

“Growing up you watch the games on TV and there’s something that comes with that, it’s special,” Bekker says. “TSN is a massive network in this country so it’s pretty cool to be aligned with a company like that.

“People across this country can tune in and see the product we have. That’s massive; it’s what you want. You’re playing on the biggest stage, you want to play in these important games, and as a player, you want those games on TV, for sure.”

Smyrniotis adds, “I think it’s great the exposure this league gets on a national platform with TSN, most importantly for the players. This is an exciting league with exciting players and this is another piece in the growth of the game.”

While the away games might be more important to the core supporters of the team —“it gives them a better opportunity to follow us during the season,”  Smyrniotis theorizes—broadcasting some home games to the uninitiated is important too.

“I think it’s good to have both experiences on broadcasts,” Afinec said. “The value of the home match is that people can experience in their home what we know is a great atmosphere for soccer at Hamilton Stadium. It’s loud, it’s fun and I think that will translate well onto the broadcast.

“This is a material step in the growth of our league.”

That growth began long before either the Forge or CPL had drawn their first breaths. Caretaker Bob Young and managing partner Scott Mitchell were working on it as long as 15 years ago, and both are major influencers not only in the southern Ontario market but in the national and international soccer spheres.

It’s worth reminding everyone, yet again, that a nation cannot be a Men’s World Cup host if it does not have a certified professional Premier League. So, without the CPL there would be no World Cup 2026 in Canada, and without Hamilton Stadium, and the groundwork of Mitchell and Young, there would be no CPL.

Instead, we’re just a couple of days from the opening of the most significant 15 months in Canadian soccer history.

And how fitting that it kicks off with the two franchises which have established the high and unprecedented bar—in distinctly contrasting ways—for a league that has defied the odds and is about to reap the benefits.