Halifax United

The team is truly one that is from two teams uniting. There were two Canadian league teams in Halifax. They were competing with each other, and had a bitter rivalry, but the proximity of each other made it hard to attract talent. Both teams couldn’t sustain themselves with the talent split. The CFL announced a 10th team in Halifax to start play in 2019, and a new 22,000 seat stadium would be built downtown. Both soccer teams were losing a lot of money, and worked out a deal to merge the rivals in order to better the chance of surviving. They would begin playing in the USL in 2019 at the new stadium. After that, Halifax United were born.

The merging the funds and fields helped out the academy for the big team. A player that came up through the system for Halifax was the team’s first big player. In attack, he only had 5 shots not on target his rookie year, and scored a total of 22 goals. The city took notice, and started to come out every weekend to support both the soccer and football team. He became the first big name. The team didn’t do so hot, but had a lot of talent from the merger of the two teams. 5 new players were in the opening day starting XI the second year, including two players picked up from Ottawa and Montreal. Their superstar came out and had a hat trick in the first game. He went on to score 26 goals, a USL record. In the offseason, Halifax sold him to Montreal. He had been starting for the Canadian National Team, so his stock was rising and the deal was too good for United to refuse. That was the first deal in the history of the two franchises, who Montreal agreed to send their youth players to Halifax for seasoning. The team became stronger with the mostly Canadian talent. Many pro players from the Maritimes would play there to play in front of their home crowd. The former player led Canada to their first World Cup win in 2022 over Qatar. He was sold from Montreal to Everton after the 2022 season. Canadian soccer was blowing up, a lot of youth players came in, which would feed the team for years to come. The team had a miraculous run to the Canadian Championship finals in 2025, but lost to Montreal due to the deal not allowing their players to play against the MLS club. Halifax has no trophies, but they are always in the mix, and a scary team to play when they get hot. They’re an outside shot for promotion, but they are responsible for growing the game in Canada.

The crest shape was taken from nas’ Halifax team in his Canadian league. The colors are taken from the color of the Renault F1 team from 2007 or so. I thought I could do something cool. The crest has the fort shape, the kingfisher from the Halifax flag, and some more symbols from the same flag. I went navy on the home, and yellow and orange on the clash jersey. I wanted unique and colorful for them, and I think I accomplished it.