The Canadian Premier League has many unique qualities.

Canada’s geography forces clubs to take long flights and road trips, even when playing interprovincial rivals. There are multiple time zones and weather patterns. Teams meet four times a season — not including potential rematches in the playoffs and Canadian Championship — resulting in an increased level of familiarity with players, tactics and venues.

As the league enters its fifth season, the importance of teams having players in their lineups who have experienced all of these idiosyncrasies has never been more evident.

A quick glance at the 2022 league table shows just that: three of the top four teams in the league in terms of experience (CPL matches played prior to that season — including midseason signings) also held those same positions in the standings.

There are certainly outliers to this, most notably Atlético Ottawa, who finished top of the table with limited CPL experience, and York United, who missed the playoffs despite a wealth of players who have spent significant time in the league. In their case, however, injuries and transfers were a factor, as Roger Thompson, Max Ferrari, Michael Petrasso, Diyaeddine Abzi, Lowell Wright, Mo Babouli, Paris Gee and Oliver Minatel combined for 62 per cent of York’s CPL experience, but just 20 per cent of minutes played.

Ottawa, meanwhile, brought in four players with significant CPL experience during the 2021 offseason between Ollie Bassett, Max Tissot, Nate Ingham and Keven Aleman, and those four combined for 101 appearances, almost 20 more than the aforementioned York group. Ask Ingham how important that group of players was to Ottawa’s worst to first run in the CPL last year, and he wouldn’t mince words.

“It’s literally the most important thing, I’ve preached about it all year long,” the Ottawa goalkeeper told the CPL Newsroom podcast last year. “We have a lot of guys who have played a lot of MLS games, who have played important USL and NASL games, and have won championships, been to playoffs. These are the type of things that allow you to win these tight games. Our last five games have been in five different time zones, you’ve been on the road a ton … Nobody knows how to handle it unless you have done it, and we have a lot of guys who have done it.”

Ottawa have doubled down on this strategy this off-season, bringing in five players with CPL experience. Entering this year they are now the second most experienced team in the CPL.

As the league continues to develop, this will be a more common occurrence; this off-season alone 25 players moved clubs within the league. Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé, who himself moved from Halifax Wanderers to York United for this upcoming season explained why his familiarity within the league will help him to hit the ground running with his new club.

“Obviously being in the league for the past two years makes it easier because you sort of know guys who you’re going to be with,” said Gagnon-Laparé. “Even though you haven’t played with them you know them from just playing against them. There is a sort of respect that builds up through the years when you face the same opposition so many times as we do in the CPL.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is expansion side Vancouver FC who, working with a blank slate, added the most CPL experience this off-season. Callum Irving, Kadin Chung, Rocco Romeo, Marcus Simmons, Elliot Simmons, Gabriel Bitar, Mamadou Kane and Shaan Hundal have a combined 285 CPL appearances. Aside from Ottawa, Valour and York also added a significant amount of league experience over the past few months.

While they are the only club that did not bring in a single player with CPL experience this off-season, in fact only making one acquisition in total thus far, Forge’s 19 returning players still make them the leader in the category heading into the 2023 season with over 900 combined games of CPL regular season experience on the roster.

This past season, five players on the Forge team — Kyle Bekker, Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson, Triston Henry, David Choinière and Terran Campbell — made their 100th appearance as a CPL player in all competitions. That group in particular has been central to the dynastic success of the Hamilton side.

“[These players] are first and foremost important for the product on the field and making sure that any new players that come in, a lot of new guys are in their second year, are really held in check, focused and ready to go do this again because that is the fate of Forge FC,” said Forge head coach Bobby Smyrniotis. “Off the field, it’s important as we grow the brand. When you look at the brand, it’s important for our fans to have that close feeling to the players.”

While the league continues to celebrate those it is able to develop and move on to higher levels, the importance of these long-term players cannot be overstated. As Smyrniotis says, not only are the longer-term CPL players critical to success on the field but also to building its profile off the field and in the community — providing recognizable and consistent names for more casual supporters.

As the league continues to build, over the next five years and beyond, the significance of these foundational players will remain critical to its growth. Heading into the fifth season, it is worth keeping in mind what level of CPL experience each side has on its roster when prognosticating how they might perform in 2023.