The playoffs, play-offs, postseason and/or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of September. In other team sports, like association football or basketball, it is generally from August or September to May although in some countries - such as Northern Europe or East Asia - the season starts in the spring and finishes in autumn, mainly due to weather conditions encountered during the winter.
There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the single elimination, the best-of- series, the total points series more commonly known as on aggregate, and the round-robin tournament.
A wild card is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that fails to qualify in the normal way, for example by having a high ranking or winning a qualifying stage. In some events, wild cards are chosen freely by the organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference.
The Brooks Bandits are a junior A ice hockey team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL). They play in Brooks, Alberta, Canada, with home games at the Centennial Regional Arena.
Rugby union is a moderately popular sport in Canada; it is quite strong as a participation sport, particularly in several hotspots like British Columbia, Atlantic Canada, and Ontario but does not attract the same level of spectator support yet, likely because the CFL's popular brand of Canadian Football is still similar to rugby in many ways, whilst also being the gridiron game. Rugby Canada is the administrative body for rugby union in Canada. Every province also has its own union.
The Stanley Cup playoffs is an elimination tournament in the National Hockey League (NHL) consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series to determine the league champion and the winner of the Stanley Cup. Eight teams from each of the two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season points totals. The final round is commonly known as the Stanley Cup Finals, which matches the two conference champions.
The MacTier Cup is the name of the championship for the top senior men's rugby league in Canada.
The RFU Championship, known for sponsorship reasons as the Greene King IPA Championship from 2013–14, is the second tier of the English rugby union league system and was founded in September 1987. The twelve-side league was known as National Division One and in 2009 changed from semi-professional clubs to fully professional. The 2019 champions were London Irish, winning automatic promotion to Premiership Rugby.
The Americas Rugby Championship, often informally called the Americas' Six Nations, is an annual international rugby tournament between six North and South American nations: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the United States and Uruguay. Originally competed by various interlocking combinations of club, second-tier national and top national sides, the current international tournament has the top national sides competing. The current format provides these top national teams with additional test matches to be counted in the World Rugby Rankings.
National League 2 South is a level four league in the English rugby union system. It is one of two leagues at this level, with its counterpart, National League 2 North, covering the north of England. The format of the league was changed at the beginning of the 2009–10 season following reorganisation by the Rugby Football Union.
Atlantic Rock, also known as the The Rock, are a Canadian rugby union team based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. The team plays in the Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC) and is intended to draw most of its players from the rugby unions of Canada's five Eastern provinces: Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island (PEI) and Newfoundland & Labrador.
The British Columbia Bears are the senior men's representative rugby team for British Columbia. They were founded in 2009 to compete in the Americas Rugby Championship against other representative teams from Canada, Argentina, and the United States. In their inaugural season, the Bears went undefeated in round robin play against other Canadian teams and only fell to the Argentina Jaguars in the ARC Final.
The Ontario Blues are the senior men's representative rugby team for Ontario. They were founded in 2009 to compete in the Americas Rugby Championship against other representative teams from Canada, Argentina, and the United States. In their inaugural season, the Blues suffered narrow losses against British Columbia and the Wolf Pack before defeating the Rock to advance to the Canadian Final. The Blues would again lose to BC, but defeated the U.S. Selects in the bronze medal match.
The 2009 Americas Rugby Championship season was the inaugural season of the Americas Rugby Championship. The season featured a Canadian division with four teams representing provinces or regions of Canada, along with international A sides from the U.S. and Argentina.
The Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC) is an amateur rugby union league located in Canada, partially funded by the World Rugby. It is the highest level of domestic rugby in Canada. There are four representative teams from regions across Canada, competing for the MacTier Cup. The regular season goes from August to September, and there is no postseason. The CRC was started in 2009 by Rugby Canada. The league continues to grow each year, with further games being added to the schedule, and the format having changed in each of its first three years, making the league more competitive and a prospect of becoming professional one day.
The 2011 Canadian Rugby Championship was the 3rd season of the Canadian Rugby Championship. No Canada Selects team would be chosen because there was no ARC season that year, due to the Rugby World Cup being held the same year, in which Canada participated.
The McGill Football Club represents McGill University athletics teams in U Sports and is based in Montreal, Quebec. Nicknamed the Redmen until May of 2019, the program is one of the oldest in all of Canada, having begun organized competition in 1874. The team won its first championship in 1902 and since then have also won in 1912, 1913, 1919, 1928, 1938 and 1960 prior to the inauguration of the Vanier Cup in 1965. McGill appeared in the Vanier Cup final in 1969, 1973 and 1987, with the Redmen finally winning the title in the 1987 game. McGill plays out of Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, where the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes also play. After a controversial student campaign in late 2018 that accused the traditional “Redmen” name of being offensive to Canadian First Nations communities, the longstanding men’s varsity nickname was dropped by the university. As of May 2019, the team has been temporarily renamed “the McGill University Football Club” pending an eventual rebranding.
The 1936 season was the second season for the Calgary Bronks and it saw the team play a full schedule in both the Western Interprovincial Football Union and the Alberta Rugby Football Union. The Bronks finished 3rd in the WIFU with a 1–5 record while they fared much better in the ARFU with a 6–2 record and a first-place finish. It was by virtue of the finish in the ARFU that the Calgary Bronks made the WCRFU playoffs.
The 2017 Major League Soccer season was the 22nd season of Major League Soccer, top division of soccer in the United States and Canada. The regular season began on March 3, 2017 and concluded on October 22, 2017. The MLS Cup Playoffs began on October 25, 2017 and concluded with MLS Cup 2017 on December 9, 2017.