The snowy Canadian Premier League final, which featured a blizzard and an audacious bicycle kick, has generated over one billion views, according to a spokesperson for the league.
Scenes from Atlético Ottawa’s 2-1 win over visiting Calgary on Sunday went viral on social media, with David Rodriguez’s incredible game-tying goal generating the bulk of the buzz.
The league’s director of communications Laura Armstrong told CBC videos of the final reached 786 million people in the first 48 hours, and has since topped one billion views with coverage in 174 countries.
She described this moment “lightning in a bottle” for the CPL, which typically doesn’t gain the same level of international attention as North America’s Major League Soccer.
“We’ve had a lot of people reach out from across the world trying to understand more about our league, which is phenomenal,” Armstrong said. “In terms of engagement and reach, I think we can pretty safely say it was the most viewed (CPL) match.”
#TheMoment an ‘icicle-kick’ helped win Canada’s premier league final
As snow fell heavily at TD Place stadium in Ottawa, Rodriguez struck an overhead bicycle kick that hit the underside of the crossbar of the Cavalry goal and fell behind the goal line.
The goal quickly became known online as the “icicle kick.”
“It was an incredible goal on a pretty memorable night,” Armstrong said.
Rodriguez scored his second goal of the game in extra time to secure the dramatic victory for Atlético.
Canada men’s head coach Jesse Marsch, who was at the game, says he received “between 20 and 30 texts” from people in Europe about the CPL final.
Some had questioned whether the game should have been played in blizzard conditions, but Armstrong said the league prepared a contingency plan.
An orange game ball was used and additional corner flags were planted along the sidelines in an attempt to improve visibility.
The match was also paused throughout the night to allow crews to clear snow from critical areas of the pitch including the 18-yard boxes in front of the goals.
“Ultimately, it’s a matter of protecting the integrity of the competition while also understanding that it was a final and there wasn’t going to be another opportunity to play that game,” Armstrong said.
“So we wanted to sort of walk that fine line of making sure that everybody was safe and everybody was happy on the field.”
