Marin Vucemilovic-Grgic has proven to be an exciting striker in the CSL and in typical fashion opened his 2015 season with a hat-trick for London City in a 3-3 tie with new club Scarborough SC at the Soccer-fest opening day games at the St.Joan of Arc ground in Maple on May 9. Winner of the CSL MVP award, Vucemilovic-Grgic, 28, from Split, Croatia, entered the CSL with Toronto Croatia and was a member of the championship-winning team of 2011 and 2012.
The CSL welcomed Toronto Atomic FC into membership early 2015, a team with a distinctly Ukrainian flavour headed by Ihor Prokipchuk who took his Toronto Selects academy organization into professional soccer. The team played its first game against Niagara United on May 9, winning by a 3-0 score and Atomic went on to defeat London City 4-2 a week later. Oleksandr Semeniuk was the First Division side’s leading goalscorer with 10 and the first season appearance of the Toronto-based team is a reminder to us of the Toronto Ukraina presence in the National Soccer League, a forerunner league of the CSL in the 50s and 60s when the Ukrainian side won the championship five times.
While SC Waterloo failed to take advantage of yet again advancing both teams to the CSL Championship Finals, this time on their home ground on October 25, they must be congratulated for getting there. Waterloo reached the finals with both teams in 2013 as one of the more recent teams in the CSL and took a dramatic leap in profile when they won both the CSL Championship and the Second Division Championship that year. They then appeared in the CSL Second Division Championship Final in 2014, losing to Kingston FC Reserves. That the team from Southwestern Ontario appeared in five of the six finals played in the last three years is a remarkable achievement. Just to top things off, SC Waterloo reserves won the Second Division standings in the season just ended.
Serbian White Eagles had the distinction of clinching the first playoff berth in the First Division with a 2-0 victory over London City on September 6 and the Serbian White Eagles reserve team took the last playoff spot in the Second Division with a 3-1 victory over Toronto Croatia reserves, a rare Thursday game in the CSL on October 1.