Bobcats to host 2027 men’s soccer nationals

The wait will be much shorter than last time for the Brandon University Bobcats to host another national championship.

Less than 18 months after BU welcomed the top U Sports men’s volleyball teams in the country to the Wheat City and ran the table to their first national title, the Bobcats men’s soccer team was named host of the 2027 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association championship on Thursday.

It’s BU’s third national tournament, after staging the 2016 women’s volleyball one.

“This is an incredible opportunity. It gives us more motivation and fire as a team to improve as a group, work harder on those off-the-field things, scouting, preparing,” said Bobcats head coach Diego Rodriguez Jr., who helped BU win its first Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference title as a player in 2019, and defend the crown in 2021, becoming the first MCAC team to attend nationals.

“Every player, when they start their college career, university career … is looking forward to going to nationals and competing at nationals. With us having a straight pass, it gives us a bit of an advantage in that we have a more direct (path).

“But at the end of the day, we all have to prepare as the season goes on to make sure we do a good job at the national level.”

BU’s soccer program is the youngest of five in the MCAC, only joining in 2014, but has risen to become one of the best and a threat to win year in and year out.

The league was granted full status in the CCAA in 2021, and is finally up on the rotation to host nationals, which will run Nov. 10 to 13, 2027.

“It’s really rewarding. We had no idea where this was going to lead back in 2014. The prospects didn’t seem that great then of joining the CCAA and that became a reality,” said BU athletic director Russ Paddock.

“Getting to travel with the team, going a couple of times, made the idea of hosting this possible. We’re super excited to be the first Manitoba school to do so.

“It’s been a gradual process to increase the competitiveness of the team and the league. That’s kept going and it’s still a challenge. There’s lots of small schools in the CCAA and some massive ones. It’s still a challenge to give yourself a chance to win but we continue to develop each year and hope to have a good showing in November 2027.”

Paddock knows BU can lean on the experience of hosting the 2025 U Sports volleyball tournament and the strong group of volunteers who stepped up to make that event a success.

It’ll be a little bit more complicated, since the tournament will take place on the artificial turf at the Canada Packers Sports Complex on Veterans Way, rather than at the Healthy Living Centre field, as the chances of the natural grass pitch holding up through four games per chilly November day are slim.

It’ll be just the second post-secondary national soccer championship held in the province, after the University of Manitoba Bisons women hosted the U Sports one in November 2017. They played all the matches indoors at the Winnipeg Soccer Federation South facility conveniently located on campus.

The eight-team tournament features the winners of British Columbia’s PacWest, Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, MCAC, Ontario Colleges Athletic Association, the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) and Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association, along with one wildcard and the host.

While the Bobcats have been to nationals a few times now, they haven’t finished higher than seventh. They earned their first victory on the national stage in 2023, defeating the University of King’s College 3-2 in penalty kicks to avoid last place.

Their outlook for a year from now will depend on plenty of unknowns as a 10-player recruit class finds their way through the 2026 campaign.

A few of them will see big minutes this year, and a bunch more will need to step up in 2027 as more seniors move on.

Rodriguez Jr. noted the idea of recruiting transfers with more experience is a possibility, but it’s not his main focus.

“All of them have the potential to play at the national level,” Rodriguez Jr. said of his young corps. “Recruiting-wise, we’re going to try to make our team as strong as possible but also have in mind that we want to stay consistently competing at a national level, not just a one-year thing. At BU, we’re ready to take the next step and become a competitive team at nationals.”

The MCAC season begins on Saturday as Brandon hosts St. Boniface at the HLC field. The men kick off at 1 p.m., with the women to follow at 3:15 p.m. Admission is free for the opener.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com