Oh yeah! we Played a Game Last Night!

So the Whitecaps played last night, and should have pulled off a victory had it not been for a fishy play at the end of the first half that saw Carolina be awarded a penalty in the dying seconds.

Carolina came out strong to start the first half put on a wee bit of pressure in the first five minutes but after that the first half was dominated by the Whitecaps playing with the ball in the Carolina end. Strong game all around for the caps as guys like Johnny Steele and Martin Nash consistently pushed the ball into the box with lovely service. In the 31st minute on one of these such runs up the field Johnny Steele played a lovely ball on to a streaking Zurab Tsiskaridze, as the defender caught up to the ball on the left wing, he struck a low hard cross into the box and Ansu Toure flicked a cheeky little back heel into the goal.

As the half was drawing to a close Carolina's keeper punted a ball out of his box and an airborne Tsiskaridze was undercut by a Railhawks player at half, the play continued on and eventually led to Nelson Akwari bowling over Carolina's Etienne Barbara in the 18 yard box. A penalty was awarded and Barbara converted on the free kick.

After that the best chances of the second half came from a Marcus Haber header in the 53rd minute and then another head by Phillipe Davies in the 65th. Not a whole lot else happened in the later stages, Doudou came in for Ansu, in a Toure for Toure substitution, only to be involved in a head on head collision almost immediately after entering the pitch.

A draw while not ideal still keeps the Caps on top of the table.

The next home game from the men will be on July 8th almost a month away! the Residency Team will play Friday and Sunday this week up at SFU I urge you to come up and check it out. I will be announcing the Friday game but will not be at the Sunday game so maybe you guys could keep ME updated on that one!

The Women's next game is at Mcleod Athletic Park in Langley, on June 27th. They will be facing The Pali Blues from Los Angeles. I would imagine we will finally get to see the recently signed Kara Lang, who will have just graduated from UCLA. She actually was a member of the Pali Blues last season so hopefully she will be able to knock a couple past her former club and win one for the good guys

New Kits to be unveiled today

The Vancouver Whitecaps will be Introducing their new uniforms at a press conference today in Downtown Vancouver at Bentall Building 5. According to the Vancouver Sun we should expect to see communications giant Bell smeared across the front. Neither the club or representatives from Bell would confirm this to be true.

From what the rumour mill is spitting out its going to be Bell though. They have offices in the building and lets be honest It would fit their colour scheme, mind you not everyone is into kit porn like I am.

Supposedly Martin Nash and Kara Lang will be modelling the new kits in just under an hours time. 10:30 am pst.

The whole shindig will be streamed live on the Whitecaps website.

Quick Hitter

The Whitecaps Women played a home game not this past weekend but the weekend previous, against the Colorado Force FC, they were a little short handed as many of their recent signings were with the Canadian National Team in Norway. We did get a chance to see the Defensive brilliance of Robyn Gayle and the brute force of striker Melissa Tancredi. Kaylyn Kyle set up both Tancredi's and Martina Franco's goals and had a strong game defensively in the middle of the pitch.

I didn't get a whole lot of time to watch the game as I was running around the stadium making sure things were in order but the Whitecaps Women looked to be the better team on this occasion.

Later in the week they travelled to Colorado to play the rubber match in this head to head series and drew 0-0.

They went on to play the Colorado Rush earlier this week and again drew, this time to the tune of 1-1.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Yesterday the Vancouver Whitecaps finally made the plunge, they went from always being a bridesmaid to finally being the bride. Now that the 'Caps officially have crest to plaster on everything imaginable. I'm picturing posters in a bin at hmv much like TFC have everywhere in Southern Ontario. It will truly be an exciting time these next 8 months as we head into the MLS Kick Off next year. The new logo while many have called it bland and boring, minimal and stale I like it. I mean I really like it!

Monday night I couldn't sleep. Much like Christmas eves of years gone by, as I imagined the new features of that seasons EA Sports NHL release (Oh the off balance Joe Sakic wristers and Pavel Bure between the legs dekes!) . It was incredibly lame I know, but that's just who I am. As has previously been documented, I am drooling over every suggestion of potential kit sponsor (EA Sports has recently been tossed into the mix). Supposedly that information will be coming in the following few days.

Yeah it's pretty minimal but atleast it finally makes sense. Ok so here's where I offically out myself as being raised in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). I came here and really I don't care much for the mountains, their not something that really effect my day to day life. I rarely climb them and snowboarding just isn't really my thing but I love the Ocean. I love sitting on the grass at Kitsilano Beach, with all the 'roid monkeys, and off work strippers and waitresses and other show ponies... and It dawned on me one day, while having a discussion with a Aussi tourist that there is no surf at any of Vancouver's beaches. I knew the answer right away, that were in an inlet and Vancouver Island blocks the oceans waves. Then I started working for the Whitecaps. Hanging the banners around the stadium every Saturday having that white crested wave starring me in the face, I really started to get annoyed with the whole idea of the clubs image was a lie. Yeah ok I'm a weirdo, but so to are many other fans apparently. The minions have spoken and the waves are gone. Apparently when looking for new ideas and input on the new crest the big wigs talked to the little people from office staff to volunteers and even the fans (imagine that!)

The idea of Cypress, Seymour, and Grouse (I'm assuming that these are the North Shore Mountains depicted) standing strong like Knight, Akwari, and Big Z (feel free to replace any one of these with Greg Janicki, or Jay Nolly for that matter) really makes me proud to be associated with this club.

The Navy blue kits will look sharp and I am glad the chose to go that route, the league already has enough teams with Sky Blue, or Royal Blue uniforms.

Enough on that though, The PDL game last saw the Caps lose 1-0 in a very hard fought battle with Ya-Kim-A (not YAH KEEM AH as I was told) Their keeper made a brilliant save on a penalty midway through the second half that was taken by Dever Orgill. A great result I would say considering they played several Honduran trialists, and an unsigned keeper.

I will be tweeting live from tonights game in my usual if i see it i'll tweet it style.

I'll do a post game review. Finally get around to writing my thoughts on the women's first game of the season, and a few other things.

Paradigm Shift

So we tied another game against a Canadian opponent.... the general consensus around the city is "meh". I've been asking soccer fans around the city how they feel towards the Whitecaps season thus far and indifferent seems to be the resounding answer. They can't score, they don't win any games, the same things my incredibly ground breaking blog has been saying for the last month.

Its got me to thinking though. Ok, so we draw AC St. Louis, and Crystal Palace Baltimore, not really great teams. But maybe we need to readjust the frame on this picture.

We also tied Toronto FC, twice! by all accounts and measures they are the best team in our country. They play in the highest level of competition and are the reigning champions in our National tournament. While TFC have been scoring franchise highs in goals for this season, they have also been scoring franchise lows in goals against. Bear with me for a second. While we all love to rag on the team from "THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE", they are one of the best teams in MLS this year. They are unbeaten at home in all competitions and Stefan Frei with his defensive back line haven't really been letting anybody score as of late. So in all reality 0 goals for and 0 goals against against TFC is a fairly good record. Despite what you want to think about the teams Toronto fielded against the Cap's they didn't score either...

Our other Nutrilite opponent, Montreal, are the reigning USL D-1 Champions. Now whether they have taken this tournament seriously over the last two years remains to be seen. But they have clearly made their League fixtures a priority over this span. We remain one point ahead of them in the League standings and have now finished 4 points clear of them in the Voyageurs Cup. 3 times this year we've drawn even against last years champions. Not really that bad.

Previously I had made comments about how "We need to hold people accountable for their actions" and I think what irked me was the way Team President, Bob Lenarduzzi was quoted in the press. I found the context made it sound like he was complaining about the Impact time wasting, and how it may have cost his club another championship. But tilting the frame has made me realize that first we need to look at where the quote is coming from. This is our man, he bleeds BLUE and WHITE, you call the Whitecap's Offices on Water St. and HIS voice is the automation. He calls himself Bobby and almost expects you too as well. When he says that he "can't understand" why Montreal as a team wouldn't want to give their faithful the best on field product to watch, its not that he's complaining or crying. He's confused, and please don't take that to mean that he's slight of intelligence, what I am saying is he literally doesn't get that mentality, it's not how he played the game, it's not how he runs his club. Like I said if you stabbed the man he would bleed blue and white.

The one thing we can't take away from these guys is they have been trying. Everyone, whether its been Janicki playing with a bandaged up brain, or Wes Knight with a sore leg. It could be Martin Nash with a strained back (and you know he would play every minute if Teitur would let him) , all the way to call ups like Cornelius Stewart and Doudou Toure emptying the tank the last couple weeks desperately trying to stay up with the big club. Even if you could see how many laps Hirano was doing before and after games while he was getting back to match fit. It really is something when you look back on all of it.

Maybe we all need to take a step back and have a sip of our coffee's and really think how lucky we are to be watching this club, in their last year at Swangard, in their last year before making the jump to the MLS. Yeah maybe their not tearing it up like they did last year but they are in every game. That's the last I'm going to say on that.

The Whitecaps PDL team plays tonight at SFU if anyone feels like checking it out. "The kids can play, let me tell ya!" I watched them beat on a very good Victoria Highlanders team to start the season off in the Coast Capital Cup. A game where Doudou Toure potted a goal! the Game starts at 6 I believe I will be there at 3 getting the inside scoop. I hope to see a couple of you out there. I will provide a post game review of the game and I will also post a review of the Women's Game from this past weekend. As I hadn't had a chance to get around to it.

One last note I know I said I was going to post a note about the format of the Nutrilite Championship and its future but really if you want to see the current discussion on it I urge you to check out the 24th minute blog. Duane Rollins posted a very insightful blog on it and if you can't beat em, link em! my dad always used to say!

ok he never said that but he would if he was tech savvy.

here's the link for anyone who can't find it on their own.

http://www.24thminute.com/2010/05/what-to-do-about-v-cup.html