When Woobens Pacius left Hamilton, he was the leading goal scorer in Forge FC history. When he came back, he reminded everyone why.
The 24-year-old Quebec native is now with Major League Soccer’s Nashville SC and got a fluke opportunity to return to his old stomping grounds early last week when Atlético Ottawa had to move its opening leg of the Champions Cup to Hamilton Stadium because their own ballpark is under construction.
After clawing his way up through two seasons of loans and demotions and onto the Coyotes’ active roster by working on his shortcomings and enhancing his strengths, Pacius started, and starred in, Nashville’s road portion of the first Cup round, scoring the opening goal and coming close on some other chances. He was even better Wednesday night in Nashville, scoring a goal, adding two “hockey assists,” dominating the middle and playing the entire 90 minutes as his club won 5-0 for an aggregate 7-0 destruction of the reigning CPL champions.
He was almost obligated, historically, to score against Ottawa, against whom he made his Forge debut on an August day in 2021 and scored his first two pro goals 17 days later. And he helped Forge beat Ottawa in the 2022 CPL final, the same season he had a streak of seven goals in six games, scored the fastest goal in Forge history—striking in the first two minutes—finished fourth in CPL scoring, and had 13 goals across all competitions, including scoring in both legs of the playoff semifinals against Cavalry FC.
After the following season, and another league title, he left for Nashville, with 26 CPL goals and 32 across all Forge competitions. Those stood as franchise marks until Tristan Borges surpassed them in 2024.
Borges was in the audience at Hamilton Stadium on Feb. 18, watching his former teammate score against Ottawa.
“I didn’t know he was there but some of the guys texted me about it,” Pacius said. “I’m happy Tristan was able to pass me and I hope he’s going to score more this season and keep that record for a long time. He deserves it.”
Pacius and Borges are two of the most glittering examples of what the CPL, and Forge particularly, have meant to the pyramid of Canadian men’s soccer. The league became the final piece, filling the massive gap that had existed between the national team at the top and the nationwide popularity of the game at the age-class level. Prior to the CPL, the elite pathway was almost slapdash, with promising athletes often leaving the country at an early age for European academies, and that was if they and their families had the savvy, and a reliable agent, to chart that route. Others, not seeing an opportunity, or buried in Montréal, Vancouver or Toronto academies attached to an American league, which at the time didn’t appreciate Canadians as domestics, left the game or abandoned their full-pro hopes.
But the CPL provided a career target, with dozens of full-time jobs on the field—and hundreds more off it—for Canadians, TV time, maximum training, usually good experienced coaching and repeated exposure to a multitude of scouting eyes. And for an increasing number, a place in soccer’s long-held economic system of identifying players young, developing them, and selling them to teams in higher, or at least higher-paying, leagues. As those players’ careers were accelerated or relaunched, more potentially elite players, like Forge’s new goalkeeper Dimitry Bertaud, queued up to replace them.
Borges had played youth soccer with TFC, then moved to a Dutch first division team’s youth academy, then, knowing the CPL was to begin the following season, rolled the dice and joined the semi-pro Sigma FC, run by Bobby and Costa Smyrniotis. He made Forge in 2019’s inaugural season, won the CPL’s Golden Boot and Player of the Year Awards and was transferred to OH Leuven in Belgium. That considerable financial benefit to both Borges and the Hammers caught the Canadian soccer community by surprise, came at least two years before any such successes were anticipated and accelerated interest in Forge and the developmental potential of the CPL. He returned on loan in 2021, was then re-signed and has retained his all-time franchise status ever since.
After Borges, Emery Welshman, Manjrekar James, Kwasi Poku, Malik Owolabi-Belewu, Ali Hojabrpour and Rezart Rama, among others, parlayed stints with Forge into moves up soccer’s steep ladder and more opportunity.
Pacius, who grew up in Terrebonne, QC, spent five years in CF Montréal’s academy but when they wanted to assign him to their U-23 side, he bolted for Forge. By the time he left for Nashville after less than three full seasons, he’d left an indelible mark.
“I’m 100 per cent happy I bet on myself,” he recalled last week. “It’s going pretty well. Bobby had a big influence on me. It was not always easy but he did a really good job with me and I’m grateful for what he did. He kept working on my work off the ball, how to move, and how to defend. It started with him.”
Smyrniotis recalled in an interview with Hamilton Sports Group last week that Pacius hadn’t played in more than a year when he got to Hamilton because of injuries and that others had written him off. “But I remember his first couple of training sessions here, with his technical ability and knack for putting the ball in the net, I thought ‘this kid’s got fantastic potential and if he continues to work hard, the sky’s the limit.’”
But the acclimatization to MLS was a long process and he suffered ankle injuries, and it was tough to crack an attacking formation that included superstars like German midfielder Hany Mukhtar and Briton Sam Surridge, who finished second in MLS scoring last year behind only Lionel Messi. He was sent to Huntsville FC in MLS Next Pro on loan in 2024, then was loaned to second-tier Tampa Bay Rowdies last season. But he had eight goals in 17 games for Huntsville, and 14 scores in 29 Rowdies’ games, and kept working on his defence.
After a great training camp he made the active roster this year, scored the first goal in the Atléti game in Hamilton, had eight minutes off the bench in last Saturday’s MLS opening win over New England, and then completely owned the centre of the box Wednesday night against, again, Ottawa.
His series-opening goal against Ottawa—the only one Nashville would require, as it turned out—was a deft touch that he hit with enough overspin that it was assumed to be deflected … until replays showed it fought its way untouched into the net.
“We needed that goal and to score in Hamilton where everything really started for me was amazing,” he said. “There were defenders right there and after that it was just instinct. You shoot the ball in a way you think you can score.
“I’ve always done well against Ottawa and when I scored my friends texted me and said, ‘It was already written!’ They knew I would score in that game. It’s my job to score goals if it’s Ottawa, or no matter who else.”
Pacius is much bigger, heavier and thicker through the chest than he was in his Forge stint, important in a very physical league like MLS where so many central defenders are tall, quick and unapologetically physical.
“I was young here and I’m older now, more gym time, more strength,” he said. “It’s a different level and you have to really focus. I’ve been learning how to play the way it’s played in this league. Obviously as a striker you want to have the ball, but you also have to do the defensive stuff and that’s what I’m working on.”
His head coach BJ Callaghan said that by broadening his game Pacius has earned his way onto the game-day roster and hints there will be more and more minutes despite the highly-paid firepower up front.
“I’m really proud of him,” Callaghan said after the game in Hamilton. “He’s put in a lot of work. It’s not been an easy task for him. His pathway shows that he’s been resilient. Obviously he can score goals, he got 32 in the Canadian Premier League, 14 in Tampa, and we think he can do it here.
“We know he can score; that’s his primary job, which he did tonight. But it’s also his work off the ball, meeting our defensive line. I thought he was really selfless tonight; he’s really bound to be a more complete player.”
Both of Pacius’s parents emigrated to Montréal, qualifying Pacius to play internationally for Haiti and he joined fellow former Forge Garven Metusala in the final qualifying round for the World Cup, although he didn’t make it off the bench. He’s hoping he’ll be named to the squad when Haiti joins Scotland, Brazil and Morocco in a very challenging Group C at the World Cup in June.
“It’s a big achievement in my career,” he told USLChampionship.com. “When you’re a kid you always dream about playing in these international games. I grew up in a Haitian household. To be able to represent our family’s roots is special.”
It’s also special to be playing and training with MLS legends such as Surridge, Mukhtar and Cristian Espinoza.
“That feels really good,” he said. “Players with experience, MLS all-stars, especially the forwards. I’m happy we’re having success so we can have success with our young players in the future.”
That would, of course, include him.