Tough Loss at Home Gives Cascadia Cup to Portland

Tonight's match at Swangard was one of the best games the 'Caps have played all season. The atmosphere in the stadium was incredible, it always seems to get that way when the visiting fans are good and loud. Many people will point the finger at the officials for the unfortunate result at tonight's game, some may even have the audacity to blame Greg Janicki, for taking a red on a poor tackle on the leagues leading scorer. Janicki was running hard to catch Ryan Pore who was sprung on a breakaway he then cut across right to left and got Janicki to make contact and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

It is always tough to blame the refs because they aren't really playing the game but they surely had an impact on the evenings fixture. There were a couple of questionable calls or even non calls for that matter. Including a Portland hand ball in their own box and a penalty was given to Ryan Pore, even though upon further review you can see that Pore wasn't actually in the box when the foul occured. Jay Nolly sprawled out to make the save but just missed a perfectly placed ball. A few minutes later Nolly ended up getting caught out on a crossed ball and after a bit of a scramble Portland was able to hammer home the winning goal. But lets try to focus on the positives here because there were lots of them tonight.

Nizar Khalfan had a heck of a game up front creating all kinds of chances as did Cornelius Stewart. Khalfan took advantage of a fortunate cross for Phillipe Davies in the first half and blasted a shot to the short side on Portland's keeper to give the Whitecaps a lead early in the second half. Dispite what I would refer to as his only mistake this year, Jay Nolly made a couple of brilliant saves, as we have come to expect from him this year. The usual supects on the back line all had strong games and same up the middle.

It was a tough loss but you can't win them all... or even tie them all too bad our first home loss of the season had to come to the hated Portscum Timbers. I guess they were due seeing as they hadn't won at Swangard in 6 years. Tomorrow I am supposed to be getting my burger from Malould Akloul, he says just a burger no frosty, it was worth a shot to try.

Malould Akloul owes me Lunch!

So as some of you may know I get the pleasure of hosting many of the Whitecaps half-time events and contests. This affords me the opportunity to interact with all kinds of people. So last Wednesday when the 'Caps hosted Miami I had a very special interaction with a couple of the players which is quite a treat for someone who is a fan above all else. So I'll paint the picture for you.

I was going over the script of our contest (kicking a ball blindfolded from 30ft at 10 bowling pins) with some of the other interns from the club and we were not really successful in our attempts at knocking the pins down. Actually almost everyone missed the pins completely. If you happened to catch the actual contest at half-time the results were much the same.

So we tried and we tried. Testing moving the kicking position closer, not using a blindfold, etc, etc; then Teitur came out and in his infinite knowledge told us we would be far more accurate if we didn't take any lead up steps and just stood there and kicked the ball from a standstill position. Then he kindly demonstrated by covering his eyes and from 30 ft away. STRIKE! every pin! He did it on multiple occasions.

As our pregame set up of the stadium progressed some of the players decided that they were going to give it a shot. So Chris Williams and Mr. Akloul had a go as we watched and I politely informed them of Teitur's earlier success.

This created a situation where the always entertaining Malould Akloul challenged me to do it and if I knocked em down he'd buy dinner. So I stepped up and covered my face with my arm. The result is displayed to the Left. Since Wendy's is a sponsor I think I deserve a Classic Triple and a Large Frosty.