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TSS Rovers’ Sporting Director understands the challenge and the opportunity that lies ahead against Valour in the TELUS Canadian Championship.

Last year, ahead of TSS Rovers’ second Preliminary Round appearance in the TELUS Canadian Championship, the club’s Sporting Director Colin Elmes said, “You never know when you’ll get to do anything like this again.”

Fast forward another 12 months and the Burnaby-based team are making a habit of being involved in the road to the Voyageurs Cup, as they once again prepare for an opening-round match against professional opposition.

The familiarity doesn’t end there, with the Rovers’ opponents for this Wednesday’s matchup being Valour FC – the Canadian Premier League team that TSS famously knocked out of the competition at this stage back in 2023.

Adding to that the penalty shootout defeat last year against Pacific, TSS have not lost in 90 minutes during the Preliminary Round. But speaking to the League1 BC website ahead of the game, Elmes and the club will be under no illusions when they head to Winnipeg.

“Any time you jump up a tier in this game, you know what you’re in for,” he said. “When you go into these games, if you gun-sling with teams at this calibre and above, you are probably not going to be successful.

“As always in these scenarios, you don’t want to give up an early goal, and as the game plays out the nerves start to build if it’s still close. You have to approach these games in a pragmatic way; there’s a reason why they are playing in the level higher than us, so you have to respect that.

“Then it’s about margins and moments. I’m going to say our 3-1 runaway victory two years ago was a needle in a haystack.

“Since then we’ve come close, and another League1 team has beaten a CPL team on penalty kicks, so the idea that we’ll be 3-0 up at some point in this game is probably a fantasy – but you never know.”

Unlike previous years, TSS Rovers have had several regular-season matches to finetune themselves before their Canadian Championship clash. But they are also travelling much further away from home.

“We’re travelling via plane halfway across the country for the first time. We hosted in 2023 and then went to Victoria last year which isn’t very far, so this is a bigger step for us.

“The Valour people have been fantastic and super helpful to get us set up over on their side, so we are looking forward to jumping on the plane.

“If you’d said to me, ‘you got four league games before you got to Winnipeg, what do you want out of it?’ I’d say we got out of it what we wanted.

“Sure, we’d like to be undefeated, but the parity in League1 BC is more significant. Last year we won the league with 24 of the 36 points – the usual two points a game target – but I’d say it will be lower this year because teams will pinch points off each other as we go.

“The boys are fairly happy, and we won 1-0 last time out but if you watched it, it probably should have been five. We missed a penalty and missed a couple of other opportunities, but you move on.”

The goal scorer in the Rovers’ last league game against Unity was Michael Hennessy, who scored against Pacific in the Canadian Championship last year. Twenty-three-year-old Ivan Mejia has also hit the ground running this year, and his goal helped TSS beat Valour two years ago.

“There’s a key group of players here,” continued Elmes. “Mejia had some time at Vancouver FC and he’s back with us, as well as Ali Zohar who I think should have had a look at some point

“There are still some veterans here that have been around in all three games we have played at this level, but there’s less of them this time. There’s a youth infusion that brings both excitement and probably some naivety.

“The guys are excited, the group is tight, young, and you can’t underestimate these moments as they open doors.

“We’ve got two young players both turning 20 this year: Kian Proctor plays left-back, tall, unbelievable athlete, and left-footed so he’s a commodity and definitely one to watch; Michael Hennessy played through the Whitecaps as a youth player and scored our goal against Pacific last year. He’s had a good start to the season and scored a bunch of goals.

“There are more players who are chomping at the bit to get at this and prove themselves. The hard part is we can only take 18 to 19 guys and we’ve got 27 to 30 on the roster, but they know they are a big part of the season and, as always, they’ll just want to get back here again.”

Waiting for either TSS Rovers or Valour is a home tie against Vancouver Whitecaps, who recently beat Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami to reach the Concacaf Champions Cup Final.

If TSS do pass their tough test against Valour, it would schedule Whitecaps’ return to their old stomping ground which they called home for 23 years.

“If I wasn’t a person connected to any of this, I’d be going to that game, so we’d hope that there would be four or five thousand people there.

“And yeah, we might get our butts kicked, but to have that opportunity to host this derby at Swangard where the rivals used to reside – it would be a massive night for the club.

“The Valour game is hard enough, stepping up to the CPL is next to impossible and I’m not pretending that we are going to be able to solve that, but this opportunity is sitting there waiting for us.

“How much more motivation do you need?”