You couldn’t ask for a better table setting. Break out the fine china, silver cutlery and linen napkins. The Paton brothers will be serving dinner, and the menu includes a smorgasbord of significance.
When arch-rival Cavalry FC comes into Hamilton Stadium Saturday afternoon (4 p.m. TSN, OneSoccer), not only will it be a stunning 38th time in seven-and-a-bit years the CPL’s two historically definitive franchises will go head-to-head, but it will be the first time that they’ve each won their opening two games of the season and the first time they’ve seen each other since the Cavs defeated the Hammers 1–0 in last year’s Contender Semifinal, denying Hamilton its seventh trip to the CPL championship game.
And it will be the first time—ever—that Cavalry midfielder Harry Paton (27) and Forge defender/midfielder Ben Paton (25) will play an official game against one another since they first took up soccer 20 years ago in Kitchener.
The brothers have played with each other in youth soccer, with Ross County in Scotland’s top pro league and most recently last season with Forge, when Harry arrived from Europe in September, six months after Ben crossed the Atlantic to Hamilton. But against each other? There’s a first time for everything and this is it.
“I think it’s going to be pretty surreal,” Ben Paton said Monday. “I was just thinking about it the other day; just doing the handshakes before the game, it’s going to feel kind of weird seeing Harry on the other side.
“We were supposed to play a couple of times against each other in the Scottish Premier League (when Ben was still with Ross County and Harry was at Motherwell) but then I got injured, and it didn’t happen.”
The two brothers, who are very close, talk to each other almost every day and there’s been a lot to discuss after the first two weeks of the CPL season.
Ben, playing a variety of roles, was the best player on the pitch through much of Opening Day and scored the second goal of Hamilton’s thorough 2–0 victory over Atlético Ottawa in the 68th minute, confidently volleying home a redirect from Antoine Batisse after Tristan Borges’ penetrating corner kick. He also made a couple of tackles on defence and won six of his nine duels. Then he picked up a “hockey assist” on Sunday in Langley, BC, as his tough shot forced a sprawling save by Vancouver FC’s Callum Irving, which left a fat rebound for Maxime Filion’s winner in the 90th minute of an entertaining 1–0 Forge win.
Harry has scored the winning goal in both of Cavalry’s victories, 2–1 at Pacific and 3–1 home to Ottawa to get his tenure in Alberta off to a roaring start. Against Pacific he completed 35 of his 40 passes, created a pair of scoring chances, and won nine of his 17 duels.
And when the CPL announced its initial Team of the Week for the 2026 season there was Ben Paton listed as one of the backliners and Harry Paton as one of the midfielders.
“That was pretty cool,” Ben says.
Although they are likely to start on different sides of the turf Saturday, Ben on the left of the Hammers’ backline, Harry on the far side of the Cavs’ midfield, there could be stretches when they are assigned to mark each other.
“Potentially,” Ben says. “He’s been playing more through the middle but he’ll probably creep over to my side at one point. The way I’ve been used the last couple of games I’ve been kind of playing on the inside as well.”
Saturday’s game is labelled as the Rivalry Game and you might call it a Sibling Rivalry game if the Patons weren’t such a two-man admiration society, although no quarter will be given or asked on the weekend. This is the most antagonistic head-to-head battle in the CPL and has remained consistently so since their very first meeting, a 2–1 Calgary victory in the fourth week of the league’s inaugural season. It features the league’s two most successful coaches in Tommy Wheeldon Jr. and Bobby Smyrniotis, who have vastly different approaches and coaching styles, but who both believe deeply in what the CPL has to offer, who both create a distinct team identity, who both are masters at creating a buy-in mentality and who both recognize before the league even started that togetherness, and having core leaders with experience, would be the keys to getting the jump on all the other new teams.
Naturally, they’re projected to be among the leading contenders again this year. Because, well, they always are.
“I think Cavalry and Forge is the biggest rivalry in the CPL,” Ben Paton says. “I’ve been watching their games, obviously, especially with Harry playing there and they look like a good side again this year. I think they’ll be our main opposition this season. It will be a very good test this weekend.”
His brother told the Calgary Herald’s Todd Saelhoff after Sunday’s win that he’s somewhat recalibrated his game with the Cavs. He was one of the team’s major pickups in the offseason, along with goalkeeper Nathan Ingram and defender Amer Didić. Like Forge, they already had some proven veteran talent in the fold.
“With the formation we’re playing, Tommy’s allowing me to get off the pitch and get in those attacking areas,” Paton told The Herald. “A lot of my play over the years goes a little bit unnoticed. You know … a lot of hard work, winning the ball back — recoveries — playing and starting the attacks … and this staff has been really good with helping me improve that side of my game.
“It’s great (to score those goals). It just shows that the hard work behind the scenes is working. But for me, it’s more about like the team performance.”
Ben says Harry can play from one end to the other, creates chances, “makes things happen”, wins tackles and his best attribute is his energy on the field.
“Wherever he is, he’ll be orchestrating everything: just a machine really, that’s probably the best way to put it. The setup in Calgary suits his style of play very well. He’s a very box-to-box midfielder. And you can see it in the games; he’s not only going forward, he’s also tracking back when he tackles. Tommy is more of an English kind of manager, not just in how he plays but how their schedule is set up. That was why Harry was a bit more drawn to going there. He also had Tommy as his U-17 Canadian National Team coach and I think that played a part.”
Ben, too, is a versatile athlete and can play almost anywhere on the field; range from box to box, stay home on defence at left back, move into a midfield role on attack, and create and—as we saw on Day 1—finish chances. He says it helps that he’s been given a little more license to move forward from left back as the team moves higher up the field.
The brothers started inflicting their talents on each other in the backyard when they were young, and continued through Kitchener coach Mario Halapir’s seven-year-old rep team when Ben was permitted to practice with his older brother. Harry was recruited at age 15 to England’s strong Fulham Youth Academy then joined Hearts’ youth academy in Scotland before graduating to senior ranks and over 200 career games as a pro, 165 of those in the Premiership. Ben went to northern England and Blackburn’s youth academy, got up to the U-23s and practised with but never suited up for the first team, then turned pro with Ross County when he was 21.
This won’t be the first time a Hammer has been in a lineup against his brother: Forge Original David Choinière and CF Montréal’s Mathieu Choinière met each other in the Canadian Championship and Khadim Kane’s older brother Mamadou Kane was on Vancouver FC’s roster during Khadim’s first Forge start in 2023.
But it’s the first head-to-head that any brothers have previously been Forge teammates, and it’s likely to happen at least three more times this year.
And it’s the first time the Patons’ parents will see them go at each other beyond the Kitchener backyard and during training.
“It’s been the talk around our house for a while now,” Ben says. “I think my parents (Tara and Alan) are really excited. It’s our first-ever professional game against each other and they’ll be there to see it.”