Atlético Ottawa woke up this morning knowing the two things last night could not tell them: who they play for the North Star Cup, and where. Ottawa beat Forge FC 3-2 at Hamilton Stadium on Saturday, November 7, to reach the CPL Final 5-4 on aggregate, and hours later Cavalry FC settled the other semifinal in Calgary. The full story of the semifinal itself, Nicolas Fleuriau Chateau’s hat trick and the two stoppage-time goals that decided it, is in iimiTV’s breaking report on Atlético Ottawa beating Forge to reach the CPL Final.
FINAL: Forge FC 2, Atlético Ottawa 3. Fleuriau Chateau scored in the 25th and 84th minutes, gave away the penalty Dan Nimick converted at 90+11 to level the tie, then won it at 90+13 with the first hat trick in CPL playoff history. By the end of the night, the defending champions had an opponent, a venue, a kickoff time and a prize they had already banked.
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How to watch: Cavalry FC vs Atlético Ottawa, Saturday, November 21, 2026, 3 p.m. ET at ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows, Calgary
TV (Canada): TSN, CBC
Stream: OneSoccer
Cavalry Beat Supra To Set Up The CPL Final Rematch
The second semifinal, played Saturday evening at ATCO Field, turned on the two Cavalry wingers. FC Supra du Québec arrived holding a 2-1 first-leg lead from Laval, and Cavalry erased it on 25 minutes: Ali Musse picked out Tobias Warschewski at the top of the box, his strike deflected into the path of Caniggia Elva, who took one touch and smashed it past Joakim Milli to level the tie 2-2 on aggregate, as the Canadian Premier League’s official match report records. Musse then lived the whole semifinal in five second-half minutes: Milli saved his 55th-minute penalty, the goalkeeper’s second straight penalty save against Cavalry in the tie, and on the hour Musse kept the ball through a crowd of Supra defenders and finished low for 2-0, 3-2 on aggregate. Supra’s Alessandro Biello was sent off at 90+9 minutes for shoving a ball kid as he chased a restart, and Cavalry were through.
The win sends Cavalry to a fourth straight CPL Final, and it flips last year’s script: Ottawa hosted and won the 2025 final in the capital, and this time Cavalry host the rematch at home. The CPL’s official highlights carry the night Cavalry booked their place:
Fleuriau Chateau: “We All Dream Of These Moments”
The morning after has also settled the words around the hat trick. “We all dream of these moments, right?” said a euphoric Fleuriau Chateau in his postmatch press conference, in the CPL’s official report of the match. “As a team, we don’t have any quit. The guys make it easy for me. Even from the first time, the first day I got to Ottawa, they’ve embraced me and allowed me to trust myself as a footballer. We’re a possession-based team, I’m a very direct player, so maybe on paper doesn’t fit exactly the mold, but we found a way to make everything fit.” The hometown forward scored in three different ways, a left-footed finish, a flying header and the tight-angle winner through Dimitry Bertaud’s legs, and the club marked the berth on its official Instagram account with the message “Ours To Defend”: Atlético Ottawa’s announcement on Instagram. OneSoccer’s clip of the 90+13 winner, posted by the league’s broadcast partner, is the goal that settled the tie on X.
Forge’s season ends at home for a second straight year, eliminated by Ottawa in Hamilton in a second consecutive playoff run. Head coach Bobby Smyrniotis was disappointed with how his side conceded two minutes after Nimick’s equalizer, but he pointed reporters to what Forge did win this fall, the TELUS Canadian Championship in October. “This is a team that does so much, that has done so much, continues to do a lot,” he said. “It’s a hard way to end the season for what they put into the season, how successful it’s been.” Forge, who made the first six finals in CPL history, now miss a second in a row, and the double that was alive on Saturday morning is gone. The CPL’s official highlights of the Hamilton semifinal are here:
The CPL Final Is Confirmed For Calgary On November 21
The CPL has confirmed Cavalry FC will host the 2026 CPL Final at ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows on Saturday, November 21, with kickoff at 3 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. local time in Calgary. The match will be broadcast live on TSN, CBC and OneSoccer, with pre-game coverage from 2 p.m. ET on TSN and OneSoccer, and the CPL Awards ceremony takes place two nights earlier, on Thursday, November 19, in Calgary. It is the third CPL Final played in Calgary, after 2019 and 2024, and the second in three years.
Tickets are already moving. Per the CPL’s announcement, seats are on sale now to Cavalry season ticket holders, Cavalry FC Insiders can buy on presale through Ticketmaster from Monday, November 9 at 10 a.m. local time, and the general public on-sale opens Tuesday, November 10 at 10 a.m. local time. Cavalry head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr., in charge since the league’s first season, is already leaning into the home memories and the weather jokes from last year’s snow final. “Last time we played [a CPL Final] at home, we got pretty good memories. So, nice that it’s a rematch of last year. Hopefully there’s no snowgate 2.0, and we have a good game,” Wheeldon told OneSoccer. “I’m proud of the lads because I think they were written off because of the way they ended the season, which I think we took personally.”
What The Morning After Means Next
The rematch carries a year of history into ATCO Field. The 2025 final in Ottawa was played in a blizzard and settled in extra time, 2-1 to Ottawa, with David Rodriguez’s bicycle kick through the snow, the “icicle kick,” going worldwide. This time the terms reverse, and they favour the hosts on almost every measure except the trophy itself: Cavalry won three of the four meetings between the clubs this season, outscoring Ottawa 11-5, they have not lost at ATCO Field in over a year, and their 36 home points this season set a CPL record, per the league’s playoff preview. Cavalry, who lifted the CPL Shield as regular season winners last month, are also chasing a piece of league history: no club has ever won the Shield and the North Star Cup in the same season.
One familiar face ties the two finals together. Nathan Ingham captained Atlético Ottawa to last year’s title in that snow, and this season he guards Cavalry’s goal: the man who lifted the cup against Calgary now stands between Ottawa and a repeat, in Calgary. Ottawa, meanwhile, have already taken one prize out of this run whatever happens on November 21. Saturday’s results confirmed three CPL clubs in the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup for a second straight year, and because Cavalry had qualified as Shield winners and Forge through the Canadian Championship, the championship berth went to third-place Atlético Ottawa. Back-to-back finals, a continental berth banked, and a hat trick that will be told for years: the defence of the North Star Cup now has a date, a place and an opponent, and all of them are in Calgary.
