breakdown National cups The Canadian Championship is the primary domestic cup in Canada. It was established in 2008 to determine the nation's representative at the CONCACAF Champions League. The tournament is organized by the Canadian Soccer Association and is open to fully professional Canadian teams (playing in American or Canadian leagues) and the winners of the Canadian regional pro-am leagues. The winner of the Canadian Championship is awarded the fan-created Voyageurs Cup which predates the tournament. The Challenge Trophy is Canada's national men's amateur championship. It has been contested since 1913. Professional leagues background By the mid-1960s, there were four major leagues across Canada including the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League (1961–1967). From west to east, the other major leagues were the Pacific Coast Soccer League (British Columbia), the Western Canada Soccer League (Alberta, Saskatchewan and eventually Manitoba and British Columbia), and the National Soccer League (Ontario and Quebec). In 1968, Canadian soccer turned its attention to the cross-nation North American Soccer League that initially featured professional teams in Vancouver and Toronto. Over the next 15 years, the professional league also featured teams in Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal. After the collapse of the original North American Soccer League, and Canada's participation in the 1986 FIFA World Cup the original Canadian Soccer League started operations as a nationally based CSA sanctioned Division 1 league. When the original CSL folded in 1993, three Canadian teams moved to the American Professional Soccer League (APSL) where several had played preseason games and competed in post season tournaments. Later in 1993, Major League Soccer (MLS) beat the APSL and won the USSF's competition for U.S. Division 1 status. Canadian teams continued to participate in the APSL and subsequently with the United Soccer Leagues merger in the A League / USL-1. FIFA did not allow the U.S. Division 1 sanctioned league to include foreign teams which was why the APSL was never officially recognized as Division 1 before MLS. MLS would eventually expand into Canadian cities with existing U.S. Division 2 teams. Newly created Toronto FC joined MLS for the 2007 season, whereas the existing Toronto Lynx self relegated from the USL-1 and began playing in the amateur-only USL Premier Development League. The owners of Vancouver Whitecaps FC of the USSF Division 2 Professional League formed a team that joined MLS in 2011, and the owners Montreal Impact of the North American Soccer League created a