There’s a bit of symmetry to all of this.
After Forge FC’s 0-0 draw with longtime rival Cavalry FC at Hamilton Stadium Saturday afternoon the Hammers still haven’t surrendered a goal.
Their three straight clean sheets are two short of the CPL record for most consecutive shutouts to open a regular season and, as fortuitous scheduling would have it, Forge puts its streak on the line on Vancouver Island Sunday when they visit Pacific FC, which happens to hold the league record of five straight. That was established at the outset of the 2024 schedule and the fifth and final shutout of that run was a 0-0 draw with Forge, also in Langford.
Pacific earned its first point of the season with a 2-2 draw in Halifax Saturday afternoon.
Forge now travels to Starlight Stadium for a Sunday game (6 p.m. OneSoccer) against the Tridents who picked up their first point of the season Saturday afternoon when Bul Juach danced and nutmegged his way through a trio of HFX defenders to rescue a 2-2 draw seconds before the final whistle of stoppage time in Halifax.
Pacific had been red-carded down to 10 men at the time, a foreshadowing of what would occur in Saturday’s second CPL game when Forge defender Rezart Rama absorbed his second yellow card of the match and was thus ejected in the 56th minute, forcing Hamilton to play one man short for more than half an hour.
But Forge, for the second time in as many home games, did not allow a shot directly on net, dropping into a five-man backline with counter-attack possibilities and plugging key centre-field gaps.
Dimitry Bertaud was his usual athletic, sure-handed self in the net, and Cavalry’s Ben Paton had a good chance from directly in front to go over the bar, but Forge manufactured some of their own chances, and forced veteran Nathan Ingham—who was voted the player of the match—to make several excellent saves, particularly when the teams were at 11-aside.
“We played 30 minutes with 10 men but we’re disappointed because if you look at the chances from the beginning to the end, we probably had six or seven good chances, and they got one (Ben Paton), with us down a man.
“But like, I always say, every point you get early on in the season is going to help as you go along. Sometimes you look at it as a good learning moment….playing down a man. We got players in to reinforce them and I thought they did a great job.”
Underscoring their commitment to defensive play, Forge made 11 pass interceptions—to none for Calgary— on the windy, damp day which also had moments of sunshine.
It was not only the club’s third shutout of the young season, but in their last 31 CPL games, dating back to a 1-0 win over Calgary in the 2025 season kickoff, Forge has racked up 16 blank sheets.
Both teams argued that they could have had a victory but both also had their own reasons for being satisfied with just a single point; Forge because of being a man down, Cavalry because Hamilton Stadium is a difficult environment for visiting teams.
“I had to make some saves early on, but we found a rhythm,” Ingham said. “Coming on the road, we got some chances and we’re happy with the point.”
Cavalry and Forge FC remain tied atop the league table with seven points from three games but Inter Toronto (formerly York United) is only two back, with a game in hand.
“It’s hard to re-create the conditions of Hamilton Stadium,” Cavalry head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. said. “We’re still training indoors. So, I thought they started better than us then we got into it, started to find the free man. They defended very well and after the sending-off they changed formations: they’ve got good players who are experienced and know how to suck the life out of a game.
“We started throwing in more and more attackers to try and win the game. If you said at the start that you would take a point away from home and have zeros, we’d take it. I think I sat here last year and we lost 1-0 and (then Forge keeper) Jassem Koleilat was the man of the match. Today it was Nathan Ingham. He made big saves, which is why we signed him.”
Forge now embarks on its second west-coast flight of the early season to play Pacific, who’ve performed better than their 0-1-2 record might indicate, but have struggled at times to hold a lead.
Pacific missed the playoffs last year, partly because of injuries and mainly because they had the least forceful attack in the CPL, scoring barely a goal per game.
Juach, who scored well in Australia’s second tier, should add some depth to the attack, and so should the return of forward Alejandro Díaz, who won the Golden Boot in 2022, Pacific’s championship year. He spent the last three years with Vancouver FC and with Norwegian side Sogndal. Ronan Kratt, who is returning from an ACL tear suffered early last year, is an exciting forward who is still playing his way into game condition.
Pacific lost 2-1 at home to Cavalry FC and 3-2 to expansion team Supra du Québec’s 3-2 victory in the Laval-based franchise’s inaugural home match, so they’re averaging two goals per game. An interesting road challenge for a Forge team which hasn’t yet allowed a goal.
HAMMERS AND NAILS
How rare was this?
During Saturday’s post-game coaches’ conference it was mentioned that CPL scoreless draws are uncommon in Hamilton.
It was only the third time the Hammers and their opponent have not scored a goal in a regular-season CPL game in the seven-plus years of the league’s history. Both the previous double clean sheets occurred in the same season.
Saturday’s nil-nil result was the first league goal-free game at Hamilton Stadium in nearly three years, with Calgary also the opponent that day (Sept. 9, 2023). Earlier that year Ottawa and Hamilton also tied 0-0 at the stadium.
In fact, the Forge have played only seven league-play scoreless draws in their history, now three at home, and at York and Pacific in 2024 and in Halifax (2023) and Ottawa (2022).
Forge FC has been shut out by other teams but as Smyrniotis pointed out, since their inception, the Hammers like to attack and play on the front foot, and love to attack so they tend to score a lot of goals.
Kudos to Bekker from the opposition
Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr.’s first order of business at his post-game press conference was a shoutout to Kyle Bekker whose testicular cancer diagnosis was made public last week. The two have been key components of the CPL’s best rivalry since its inception.
“Kyle Bekker has been an incredible player for this league,” Wheeldon said. “And what he’s done off the pitch is as important as what he’s done on it. We witnessed it ourselves with Marco, so our support is with Kyle.”
Marco Carducci, who was Cavalry’s goalkeeper for the team’s first seven seasons, was also treated for testicular cancer in 2022. Once he heard about Bekker’s similar situation Carducci, now with HFX Halifax, reached out to the Forge captain. On Saturday, Bekker thanked him publicly for that support, emphasizing how important it was to him.
Two weeks ago we talked to Bekker about his medical situation; to view and listen to our intimate, frank, and sometimes humorous, discussion with “Bekks” click here.
Rookie Bourgeois rises to the situational challenge
With Forge down to 10 men for the final half hour or more, Bobby Smyrniotis made some tactical changes but also made some key substitutions, including bringing in veterans Mo Babouli and Brian Wright, and both were excellent in occupying defenders and closing off some vulnerable alleys.
But the head coach also used 23-year-old rookie pro defender Maxime Bourgeois for the final 26 minutes, after using him for a total of seven minutes in the first two games. He made his presence felt, not only marking Cavalry attackers but in pressing the Forge attack in the final third of the pitch.
Smyrniotis has shown a lot of trust in Forge sophomore striker Maxime Filion—who was aggressive especially on headers in the box—and Bourgeois who are both playing on a CPL U SPORTS contract.
Smyrniotis says he tells players “to make my job as difficult as they can” by being fully prepared to play in every game, whatever the circumstances, and present their case for being a regular lineup player.
“He can play the game, he’s got ability,” Smyrniotis said of Bourgeois. “Technically he’s a really good player. He’s got a lot of energy, he loves defending, he loves getting forward and he’s not a guy who gets out there and thinks about something that’s gone well or something that hasn’t gone well and that’s a great mentality to have in these situations. It’s a testament to the work he’s put in in pre-season and early in the season to make himself somebody who’s not just a player but compete for a position and do well.”
CPL getting worldwide attention over offside rule trial
When it was announced that the CPL would be the trial league — the only one in the world — for the proposed modified “daylight offside” rule being considered by FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, predictions were that the eighth-year Canadian league would gain a lot of worldwide attention.
The predictions were right.
The concept was analyzed in soccer broadcasts, podcasts and newspaper/website articles around the world and on Sunday, The New York Times wrote a lengthy piece about Pacific’s 20th-minute goal against the Wanderers in Halifax that would have been offside under the old rules. It was challenged by Halifax players but withstood because there was no visible space between Lorenzo Callegari, the last HFX outfield player between Diaz and goalkeeper Marco Carducci, and scorer Alejandro Díaz’s back foot.