Forge FC captain Kyle Bekker retires after eight seasons and four CPL titles

HAMILTON — Kyle Bekker, the captain of Hamilton's Forge FC, announced his retirement from professional soccer on Thursday.

"When we started this journey in 2019, I don’t think I could have imagined what the next eight years would bring or how much this club and this city would come to mean to me," Bekker said in a release.

The 36-year-old midfielder from Oakville, Ont., is the only captain the club has known since the launch of the Canadian Premier League.

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"I’ve known for some time that this would be my final season, and I can close this chapter proud of what we built and the standards we established," he said.

Bekker's final season was disrupted first by a testicular cancer diagnosis and surgery, and later by a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his knee that ended his campaign in September.

"This was not the year that I thought it was going to be, in a sense," Bekker told The Canadian Press. "But I think it allowed me to take a step back, kind of take account for the entire career I’ve had."

He said he learned of the knee injury just two days before a six-month checkup that confirmed he remains cancer-free.

Bekker played 239 games for Forge across all competitions, scoring 27 goals and adding 32 assists. He led the team to four CPL championships, two Canadian Championship finals and the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League in 2021.

Head coach Bobby Smyrniotis, who first coached Bekker at the Sigma FC academy, said the captain has been the "heart and soul of Forge FC since the very beginning."

"I thought there was no better person who could represent what we wanted to do on the field and off the field for that next generation of players that we were bringing in here," Smyrniotis said.

Before his CPL career, Bekker played four seasons of NCAA soccer at Boston College and was selected third overall by Toronto FC in the 2013 MLS SuperDraft. He played 58 MLS regular-season games with Toronto, FC Dallas and the Montreal Impact.

Bekker said he told Smyrniotis and club CEO Scott Mitchell before the 2026 season that he planned to retire at its end.

"I made this decision when I was completely healthy," he said. "It’s something that I was sort of at peace with."

The team will honour Bekker with an in-stadium tribute, giveaways and special merchandise at its Oct. 12 home match against Inter Toronto.

Bekker said he plans to stay involved in soccer and has had conversations about his future, but nothing has been confirmed.

"I kind of always joked about going until the wheels fell off," he said. "There was just a feeling finishing the year last year, coming into this season that it felt like the right time for me."

With files from The Canadian Press, CBC News and paNOW