Vancouver Canucks to Face Tough Competition as City's Sporting Schedule Undergoes Massive Change

There's no question that Vancouver is one of the best cities in all of North America, from the entertainment scene to some incredible restaurants and even their sports teams, including Vancouver Whitecaps FC, who are one win away from reaching the MLS Final with former World Cup champion Thomas Muller part of their squad.

With the Vancouver Canucks not off to a great start to the 2025-26 season and the CFL's BC Lions missing out on the postseason, a lot of the attention over the past month has been on the Whitecaps and this week, a major change coming from the MLS is set to affect every professional sports franchise in the city.

The MLS' current format see their regular season begin in the middle of February and wrap up in mid-October, with the postseason running until early December when the MLS Cup is handed out.

However, in order to align with leagues across Europe, Major League Soccer will be adopting a new schedule format which will go into effect starting with the 2027 season.

Last week, the MLS announced that their new scheduling format will see the league's regular season kick-off at some point in the latter half of July and go until the end of April, with MLS Cup Playoffs getting underway in May.

Along with that significant change, the MLS will have a mid-season winter break, which will run from mid-December to mid-February, which will come as a huge relief for teams such as Toronto FC, CF Montreal and Minnesota United FC due to weather conditions during those months.

The change to the MLS' scheduling format will be both good and bad for the sporting landscape across Vancouver as the BC Lions will now have the months of June and most of July to themselves.

But for the Vancouver Canucks, they're going to have to face some stiff competition in terms of popularity with their schedule set to overlap with Whitecaps FC starting in a couple of years.

While it'll be a nice boost to the downtown economy, especially if both teams are playing on the same day, fans of both clubs will have to make the tough decision on who to watch, which game to attend, etc. and in turn, could lead to lower attendance & viewership for the Canucks and even the Whitecaps too.