Atletico Ottawa win blizzard-hit CPL final featuring "icicle kick"
(Fixes typo of Cavalry in paragraphs four and six)
Atletico Ottawa secured a Canadian Premier League final victory unlike any other, a snow-globe spectacle amid a swirling blizzard featuring what online media outlets dubbed an "icicle kick" from Mexican midfielder David Rodriguez.
Hosts Ottawa beat Cavalry FC with a 2-1 extra-time win in Sunday's title decider in temperatures of minus 8 degrees Celsius (46.4°F) with snow so heavy that play was halted every 15 minutes to clear the lines, and goalkeepers used shovels to carve out their boxes.
There was a 60-minute delay after normal time ended to plow the pitch.
Cavalry struck first when Fraser Aird, playing in short sleeves, converted a penalty in the 33rd minute, celebrating with a snowy knee slide.
Rodriguez scored the breathtaking equaliser seven minutes later, with his stunning bicycle kick that thundered off the underside of the bar and into the net.
Rodriguez was not done, as he chipped the ball over Cavalry goalkeeper Marco Carducci in the 107th minute to seal his place in Canadian soccer history.
"I came to the locker room and I was excited. I saw it was snowing, and I was like 'It's going to be a good day,'" Rodriguez told reporters.
Cavalry veteran Sergio Camargo said the snowstorm made for conditions unlike anything he had experienced.
"I had experience playing in snow in my college years," Camargo told reporters. "But nothing like that, where the snow was that thick and that difficult to dribble and manipulate the ball. It was the factor for both teams, so not an excuse. Just another addition to what was a very memorable final."
Atletico Ottawa are a CPL franchise of Spanish side Atletico Madrid and were founded in 2020.
