After years of rumours [mbv] it seems like Vancouver is going to get an Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise.  Granted it’s at a slightly low point for the MLS, after the David Beckham experiment which was meant to prove that soccer in America was on its way to becoming as much of a force as it is in Europe has failed.  Beckham’s decided he prefers playing in the semi-retirement league that is Series A in Italy and is paying out of his own pocket to stay there.

 Meanwhile what this means for the Whitecaps we’re not sure.  The ownership group of the new team is largely the same as that of the Whitecaps with owner Greg Kerfoot heading the group that paid the $35 million dollar fee for an MLS franchise, but it seems like it’s not a sure thing that the new team will be called the Whitecaps and there’s clearly not enough soccer support to keep the two teams going in Vancouver. 

The new team will play in BC Place as opposed to Swangard, because if you can’t sell out Swangard you’re might as well go big and not sell out  BC Place.

The example of Toronto FC [mbv] shows that a Canadian city can support professional soccer, but the population and demographics are a lot different in Toronto than they are Vancouver.  The success of the new MLS team is hardly a sure thing, on or off the pitch.

Of course now this also means that there’s no way that we’ll ever get any sort of media accreditation for the Whitecaps.  While the team is great at calling me back to renew my season tickets, they’ve never once returned an email or a call about press accreditation for covering the Whitecaps games.  Any of the photos for the posts on the team I’ve taken have been with a camera that I’ve learned how to smuggle into games.

As a former (damn economy) season ticket owner I hope the new team succeeds.  I do think Vancouver hast the potential to support another major league sports franchise in town, and this will certainly be less of a fiasco than the Grizzlies were, and I am very eager for some higher level soccer to be played in town.  Even if there will be no David Beckham.  Even if I have to assemble my camera in a washroom stall so that I can cover the games.

Pictured: Toronto FC goalkeeper Greg Sutton shouts at his defenders during a scramble in the box.

Despite being a long time season ticket holder for the Whitecaps I tend not to blog about the team on a point of principal, since the organization has failed to answer several requests for media passes.  This post is an exception to the rule.

Every year the Whitecaps try to organize a friendly match for fans that brings a top level team into Vancouver.  Last year saw the Major League Soccer (MLS) team LA Galaxy and David Beckham play the Caps at GM Place and yesterday they brought in the Toronto FC Canada’s only MLS team.  Without the star power of Beckham the match stayed at the Whitecaps’ usual home field Swangard Stadium in Burnaby.

The Toronto FC is one of the success stories of the MLS.  Where many teams fail to fill stadiums, even with Beckham now playing in the league, Toronto FC’s stadium have been jammed packed with fanatical fans since the first game.  Without major stars, the only starter that I recognized yesterday was former Newcastle United player Laurent Robert, they’ve built a devoted fan base and despite a lack of on-field success have been a model for MLS teams in America and a beacon of hope for a potential Vancouver franchise.  For more on the stellar success of the Toronto FC check out both my post on the club [mbv] and the excellent article in the London Guardian by Globe and Mail journalist John Doyle [lg].

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Old skool cylon … too old

Originally uploaded by Erwin Boogert.

One of the least talked about aspects of the current writer’s strike in Hollywood is how that’s affecting the local film industry. Already hard hit by the rising Canadian dollar, which makes filming in Vancouver less appealing than it used to be, now productions are shutting down as they run out of scripts to film [cdc].

Thousands of Vancouverites either work on these shows or in a production capacity around the shows, so there’s a lot of people who are going to be out of work for the next few months. That could be even longer if the actors follow this strike up with one of their own, and if the networks just decide to skip this television series and we all spend the next year watching America’s Next Top Dancing Celebrity Fourth Grader.

Smallville is probably going to be the last to shutdown around the end of January with Bionic Woman, Battlestar Galactica and a good chunk of Vancouver’s other shows have already shut down. I guess this puts on hold my dream to be Edward James Olmos’ stunt double.

Note: Yes I know the photo is from Toronto, but it seemed to fit.

With David Beckham and the LA Galaxy coming into town to play a friendly game against the Vancouver Whitecaps it’s time to learn a little bit about football. So in the run up to Tuesday’s game, tickets still on sale [wc], I’m going to take this oppertunity to write about the sport I love. Today then, five things you should know about soccer.

Real Madrid at the Bernabéu

1) It’s called football

Our football, the one with the forward hand passing and the dog fights, is known as American football in the rest of the world. Soccer is football in the rest of the world. Which makes sense since a) football was football before American football was football and b) American football has more in common with rugby than football. Typically as Canadians we side with the rest of the world on things like invading Iraq, spelling colour and having a Parliment but for this we do what the Americans do. For the rest of this post, and in the future, we’ll be calling it football.

2) Forget the World Series, football is the true global game

Barcelona’s Camp Nou

In Canada we get excited when our collection of NHL professionals beat the collection of NHL professionals assembled by the eight or so other nations that give a shit about hockey. I love hockey, but it’s really a northern European sport. Russia, the Finnswegians, America and Canada are about the only people who care about it. Football is still largely dominated by the top European clubs, but it’s played on all corners of the earth. The Europeans might sign the paychecks but increasingly players are coming from Africa [yt], Asia [yt] [yt] and other areas that hockey, baseball, basketball and American football have not touched.

It’s not a new thing either. The most famous pre-Beckham footballer is Brazil’s Pele [yt], though Maradona comes pretty close [yt].

Is there more after the jump? You bet there is, and you really want to see number 4.
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Oh Canada!

Originally uploaded by kompot.photo.

With the attendance success of the newly formed Major League Soccer franchise Toronto FC, which received a very nice write up in the Guardian today [lg], the question is what does this mean for Canada’s other major soccer loving cities. With Vancouver proving during the recent Under-20 World Cup that it can transform Swangard into a major soccer centre, with temporary rafters vastly increasing the capacity beyond the standard Whitecaps seating, we should at least be on the radar for the league.

The Toronto FC has proven that the multi-cultural makeup of major Canadian cities, including Montreal and Vancouver, is such that a “minority” sport can still get the sort of support that the more established national past-times do. Sure the FC aren’t about to start outselling the Leafs, but their 20,000 seat stadium has been sold out for every game and that looks like it’s going to be the case next year too despite a fairly crap year on the field.

With the Whitecaps moving to a new modern, and larger, stadium downtown [vwc] the question is will that help the MLS decide that Vancouver is ripe for expansion? We’re already on the list [wp]. The other question is what will that mean for the Whitecaps, since it’s not likely that Vancouver can support two professional soccer teams.

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Talking adverts in Vancouver

Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Has anyone seen Nokia these billboards around town yet? Do they work? From Wired.com [wn]:

The Finnish cell phone company has implemented a bus stop advertisting campaign that has Canadian commuters talking…to each other. The poster, which features a photo of Nokia’s new Solo push-to-talk phone, shows off the mobile’s walkie-talkie feature by actually allowing commuters to talk to other commuters standing at other bust stops in different cities in real time, just by pushing a button. The campaign is under way in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary.

Last night on SNL during Weekend Update they stated the fact that Beckham has joined the LA Galaxy, “which does in fact exist”.

Yes, there is major league soccer [MLS] in the United States and just a little while ago, it made its way to Canada with the inclusion of Toronto FC. It joins other teams in the league such as Kansas City, New England and yes, the LA Galaxy – just to name a few.

Our local soccer club, the Vancouver Whitecaps, is a part of the USL and we won the championship a couple months back [MBV]. With that in mind, there’s talk of an MLS game being played here in Vancouver in the not-so-distant future.

“The fact that there is an MLS team in Toronto means he will be visiting Canada,” [Bob] Lenarduzzi said. “I think, in general, it’s good for the game in Canada. I think it’s going to benefit the game just by the exposure that the Beckham signing has generated. There’s going to be a build-up to when he arrives in July and his first game will generate a huge stir.” [EdmontonSun]

I actually caught a DC United vs Real Madrid exhibition game in Seattle last summer [Ms604] so the idea of MLS coming to Vancouver for such an event isn’t too much of a stretch. I’m just wondering if we’re going to have a nice fancy new stadium anytime soon [MBV]. Would moving the Whitecaps to the MLS be the next step?

“Our first commitment is to the USL, in particular because we have some solid ownership and a real core that want to take the game to the next level,” Lenarduzzi said.

“Having said that, we want to be playing in the best league in North America within five to 10 years.” [EdmontonSun]

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Tackling the ball not the man, originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

So I went to the Vancouver Whitecaps home game against the Toronto Lynx tonight. Took some photos, bought a hot dog and a coke. It was fun, and I’m now convinced totally that the season ticket package I bought was well worth it [mbv].

It was a close game for most of the 90 minutes, with the Whitecaps managing to hang onto a first half goal for dear life. Thanks to some first class goaltending by Josh Wicks Vancouver managed to keep their one – nil lead until finally putting the game out of reach of Toronto [mbt] by scoring a second goal in the dying minutes.

A full recap can be found on the team’s official site [wcfc].

If you’re a soccer/football fan in Vancouver and have not yet gone to see the Whitecaps I definitly recomend it. It’s good football, and the price for a single game is such that it’s a good way to spend an evening and you won’t lose much money if you don’t like it.

However it’s quite unlikely that you won’t like it if you are a footie fan.

I blogged about buying season tickets to the Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club [wcfc], Vancouver’s soccer team and today is my first game  [mbv].  So tonight after work I’ll be taking the Skytrain from Metrotown to Patteson station and then walking to the corner of Kingsway and Boundary for some footie action.

The game is against the Toronto Lynx, whom I can only assume are rivals to the Whitecaps on par only with the Seattle Sounders and Hitler.  Okay so I’m not particularly well informed about the club yet, but I’m looking forward to the game and catching up a bit on the team and the league that they play in.  I’m not quite ready to start using the word "we" to refer to the team, as in "We’re already near the top of the table."  For now rather than inserting myself into the team when talking about them I’m going to be a bit more objective.

The Canucks have hurt me this season.  No more identifying with sports clubs for me.  At least until it looks like we’re going to win something.  Errr….  I mean them… the Whitecaps.

*This is a cross post between my own website [js] and Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv].

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The Apple Store, originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Apple’s having a special press event today in California, to release some new top secret products [il]. When Apple releases new stuff they tend to show up at the local Apple Store that day, or a few days later.

The closest Apple Store to us is in Seattle. Toronto has one, don’t you think it’s time Vancouver got one? Then I wouldn’t have to wait for my new toys to show up in the mail.