![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
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Atl\u00e9tico Ottawa have claimed their first ever Canadian Premier League title, winning a chilly November thriller 2-1 in extra time over Calgary-based Cavalry FC.<\/p>\n
David Rodriguez scored the game winner in the 106th minute \u2014 his second of the night \u2014 on a pitch that had just been cleared of copious amounts of snow after regulation time ended with nothing decided.<\/p>\n
The two sides fought the conditions in Ottawa as much as each other Sunday night, with the battle for the North Star Cup taking place amid a mid-November snowstorm in the nation’s capital.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n The start of the game was delayed due to the snow. Crewmembers used snowblowers and shovels throughout the night to clear the lines at TD Place, with players occasionally pitching in to help.<\/p>\n Fans who braved the Ottawa cold, meanwhile, were warned to not hurl snowballs on the field.<\/p>\n Cavalry FC got the scoring underway when Fraser Aird netted a penalty kick<\/a> in the 32nd minute, but Rodriguez tied things up with a stunning bicycle kick<\/a> a few minutes later.<\/p>\n After the first 90 minutes, crews spent almost an hour clearing the field of the snow that hampered passes and limited scoring opportunities throughout the evening.<\/p>\n Midway through extra time, Rodriguez took a long ball from Manny Aparicio and chipped it past Cavalry goalkeeper Marco Carducci for his second goal.<\/p>\n Cavalry FC tried valiantly to tie it up in the dying minutes, but Ottawa’s defence held firm. When the final whistle blew, the home crowd \u2014 still sizable, despite the bad weather \u2014 erupted in ecstasy.<\/p>\n Speaking to CBC on the pitch after the game, Rodriguez called it a game he’d never forget. <\/p>\n He also said he couldn’t wait to celebrate with his teammates in the much-warmer locker room.<\/p>\n “This night was my night … I’m just happy with the coaches, with my teammates. [It’s] incredible,” Rodriguez said. <\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico had only made the final once before, in 2022, when they lost to Hamilton-based Forge FC.<\/p>\n Cavalry FC won the North Star Cup in 2024 and were trying to repeat as league champions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-273577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762752788_505_default.jpg\")
Atl\u00e9tico Ottawa goalkeeper Nathan Ingham carries a snow shovel following a break in play as officials work to clean soccer pitch lines at TD Place during the Canadian Premier League final on Nov. 9. (Spencer Colby\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762752788_385_default.jpg\")
Gabriel Mendes Antinoro kisses the North Star Cup after Atl\u00e9tico Ottawa’s 2-1 win Sunday night over Cavalry FC. It’s the first time Atl\u00e9tico has claimed the Canadian Premier League title. (Spencer Colby\/The Canadian Press)’This night was my night’<\/p>\n