The Canadian Premier League announced on Thursday that Forge FC’s Bobby Smyrniotis has been named the 2024 Coach of the Year.

Smyrniotis was revealed as this year’s winner of the Owl statue on Thursday night at the CPL Awards show in Calgary. This is the first time he has won the honour, although he’s been nominated for Coach of the Year in all six CPL seasons.

The 45-year-old native of Scarborough, Ont. finally received the award after leading Forge to the 2024 regular season title, lifting the CPL Shield for the first time in club history.

The Hamilton side finished the campaign with 50 points, leading the league in goals scored (45) and goal differential (+14). Forge’s success was largely fuelled by an outstanding home record, as they went 11-1-2 at Tim Hortons Field and set a club record for both wins and points (34) on home turf.

Smyrniotis not only proved adept at guiding his team to overall dominance in the standings, but he also continuously got the best out of many of his players, leading to three of them — Kyle Bekker, Tristan Borges and Alessandro Hojabrpour — earning nominations for Player of the Year, while Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson was nominated for Defender of the Year.

The Forge coach also made the decision early in the season to convert fullback Kwasi Poku into a centre-forward, and where Poku went on to have incredible success. He earned a CPL-record transfer to Belgian side RWD Molenbeek in August, and made his debut for the Canadian men’s national team. Poku, 21, was also nominated for the CPL’s Best U-21 Canadian Player award.

Smyrniotis was voted the 2024 Coach of the Year by select media members and technical leadership from all eight CPL clubs, and voting was conducted based solely on regular season performance — which does not include Forge’s appearance in the Concacaf Champions Cup, nor their run to the semi-finals of the Canadian Championship.

The Forge boss won from a competitive field of nominees, defeating York United coach Benjamín Mora and Cavalry FC manager Tommy Wheeldon Jr. — with whom Smyrniotis will go head-to-head in the upcoming CPL Final, on Nov. 9 at Calgary’s ATCO Field.

As Coach of the Year, Smyrniotis was presented with the Owl statue, a unique piece of Inuit soapstone art, conceptualized by artist Palaya Qiatsuq and carved by Ruben Komangapik.

Smyrniotis has been head coach at Forge since the club’s inception, leading them to unparalleled success in Canadian football. The club has appeared in all six Canadian Premier League Finals, and has won four championships to date, as well as the regular season title in 2024.

Previous winners of the Coach of the Year award include Cavalry FC’s Wheeldon Jr. (in 2019 and 2023), Stephen Hart (2020), Pa-Modou Kah (2021) and Carlos González (2022).