{"id":23643,"date":"2019-04-26T14:44:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23643"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:44:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:44:44","slug":"york-9-fc-set-to-kick-off-inaugural-season-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/york-9-fc-set-to-kick-off-inaugural-season-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"York 9 FC set to kick off inaugural season this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fans of the green\nand black, the day is finally here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

York 9 FC is scheduled\nto face Hamilton\u2019s Forge FC this Saturday, kicking off the inaugural season for\nboth the club and the Canadian Premier League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temperatures are\nexpected to hang around the ten-degree Celsius range at Hamilton\u2019s Tim Hortons\nField on opening day, an unwelcome change of conditions for the fully-rostered\nYork 9 club, who returned from a conditioning stint in Punta Cana, Dominican\nRepublic last weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to get some\nsun on the face for the players,\u201d said York 9 coach Jimmy Brennan. \u201cIt does\nkind of rejuvenate you a bit after being indoors for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a whirlwind\nApril for the club, who unveiled their official kits on April 5, sporting the\nnine bright green stripes across the abdominals, representing the nine\nmunicipalities of York Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week also saw the\nleague strike a deal with CBC Sports to live broadcast ten of the CPL regular\nseason games, including Saturday\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CBC Sports\u2019 Scott\nRussell and Andi Petrillo will host CBC\u2019s coverage of the broadcast games.\nCommentary will be provided by longtime soccer broadcaster Gareth Wheeler, and\nformer Canadian international player Terry Dunfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, for the York\nclub, they return to Canada focused solely on what is happening on the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re in an intimate\nsetting where every day you\u2019re working with your teammates,\u201d said Brennan. \u201cYou\nstart creating bonds where you really get to understand one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Midfielder Joseph Di\nChiara added that the goal was \u201cto maximize as much field time as we can,\u201d\nafter spending time earlier in the preseason at Vaughan\u2019s Ontario Soccer\nCentre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re training\nat home, it\u2019s not the same as spending 24 hours for ten days straight where\nyou\u2019re eating together\u2026you do everything together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Forge FC squad followed\nsuit in heading to the Dominican to get in some exhibition games against local\nclubs, where Di Chiara said he got a chance to check out his upcoming\ncompetition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou try to improve\nevery day. Then eventually, when that day comes, you\u2019re in full flight. If you\nlook at the big picture and think, \u2018wow,\u2019 you maybe get a little overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brennan said he now\nhas his club focused solely on Saturday\u2019s match since returning home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the rest of the\nroster, Brennan and his team have finally put to paper the twenty names that\nwill represent this Nine Stripes this season, including eighteen Canadians.\nThose who have been following League1 Ontario play since its inaugural year a\nfew years back will recognize some friendly faces, including former Aurora FC\nplayers Morey Doner and Simon Adjei, as well as former Vaughan Azzurri\nteammates Austin Ricci and Colm Vance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 23,000 are\nexpected at Tim Hortons Field when the green and black take to the pitch on\nSaturday, a sell-out collaboration between the stadium and the league for the\nhistoric day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The York club will see its first home action on\nMay 22, when they take on AS Blainsville at York Lions Stadium.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For fans of the green and black, the day is finally here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-69l","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 11:54:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}