Sunday, August 30, 2009
Colleges Off and Running
Another college season is upon us as Division 1 teams kicked off this past weekend. Among the Medford Strikers Xtreme alumnae, Dana Grimes scored in St. Peter's 2-0 win over Wagner, Kasey Makowski started both games for Canisius as the Golden Griffs went 1-0-1 on the opening weekend and Kayleigh Summers also started both matches for the St. Joe's Hawks, a 2-1 loss to Providence and 1-0 win over Bunghamton. In Division 3, Virginia Wesleyan is ranked #12 in the pre-season poll, Rowan #14 and TCNJ #22.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
WPS Coverage - a Long Way to Go
The New York Times, which usually provides thorough soccer coverage, and in fact ran a story about Arsenal's victory in the English Premier League, devoted all of four sentences to the play-off victory of Sky Blue, which is based in North Jersey. Sky Blue won the first ever WPS play-off match, 2-1 over the Washington Freedom before 4,217 at the Maryland Soccerplex. Seems like the league has a ways to go in media coverage.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Achtung! German Soccer Announcing
My copy of the German soccer magazine, Kicker-Sonderheft, arrived today, courtesty of my good friend Georg Jarzembowski in Hamburg, who has been mailing me the magazine thistime of year for longer than I can remember.
Reading about the German Bundesliga reminded me of a game my son, Scott, and I attended between Bayern München and SC Freiburg in the Olympic Stadium in Munich back in '99. It was there that I heard the greatest P.A. announcement at a sporting event ever. It came right after Bayern scored to go up, 1-0 and went like this:
Annnoucer: Neues Spielstand (New score)
Bayern
Crowd: Eins! (One)
Announcer: Freiburg
Crowd: Null! (Nothing)
Announcer: danke schön. (Thank you very much.)
Crowd: Bitte schön. (You're welcome.)
They should try that at the next Eagles game,
Reading about the German Bundesliga reminded me of a game my son, Scott, and I attended between Bayern München and SC Freiburg in the Olympic Stadium in Munich back in '99. It was there that I heard the greatest P.A. announcement at a sporting event ever. It came right after Bayern scored to go up, 1-0 and went like this:
Annnoucer: Neues Spielstand (New score)
Bayern
Crowd: Eins! (One)
Announcer: Freiburg
Crowd: Null! (Nothing)
Announcer: danke schön. (Thank you very much.)
Crowd: Bitte schön. (You're welcome.)
They should try that at the next Eagles game,
Thursday, August 6, 2009
A First Look at WPS
I always enjoy seeing one of my former players in action, and last Sunday at Toyota Park outside Chicago I had that opportunity and at the same time take my first look at the new Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league.
It was a meaningless game between the Chicago Red Stars, who have been eliminated from the play-offs, and the first place Los Angeles Sol, but it had to be encouraging to the Red Stars and the league to have a season-high crowd of 7,959 at 20,000 seat Toyota Park. For me it was an added bonus to see former Medford Striker Carli Lloyd score the Stars’ first goal enroute to a 3-1 win.
In the 24th minute Lloyd controlled the ball in the center of the field, sent a ball to fellow National Team player Lindsay Tarpley, then ran ballside of her defender and took a perfect return pass from Tarpley and drilled it inside the left post. Tarpley gave Chicago a two goal advantage two minutes after halftime but L.A. made things interesting when Han Duan scored in the 9th minute with three minutes of stoppage time to come. But a minute later Cristiane sealed the result with a shot from the 18.
The post-game press conference was a non-event with both coaches calling it an “entertaining game” but saying nothing of substance and the media not asking any questions of substance. Each team has one more regular season match, then L.A. was off to the play-offs and Chicago was finished
But the story here was not the Los Angeles – Chicago game, but rather the bigger picture, the start of what I hope to be a year long fact-finding mission to see if women’s soccer can make it as a professional sport in this country. Or for that matter if men’s soccer can.
Sunday’s game offered some hope.
The match itself was in fact entertaining and generally well-played, but not as fast or as skilled as I recalled the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA). Too many missed traps and errant passes. back with the WUSA I watched the Philadelphia Charge play three seasons at Villanova Stadium before the league folded in 2003. It took until 2009 for WPS to rise from the ashes of WUSA.
Chicago has the advantage, as will the Philadelphia Independence next year, of playing in a beautiful soccer-specific stadium. Unlike Philadelphia’s venue, which will be off I-95 and easily accessible from Center City as well as the New Jersey and Pennsylvania suburbs, Toyota Park in Bridgeview south of the city is difficult to reach and nowhere near public transit.
Media coverage will be important and the Red Stars do a first rate job there – media relations coordinator Rob Coons is a personable host to the members of the media, be it bloggers like me, broadcasters or the daily press. The media guide and game day stat sheet are excellent. But the day following the game one Chicago paper I checked had nothing and another a small staff-written story.
Chicago averaged 4,591 through its first nine home dates, a figure that shot up to about 4,900 after Sunday’s crowd. Coons said the numbers had improved each of the last five games and attributed the large attendance for the last game to several factors, including good weather, but perhaps more importantly, the presence of Brazil’s Marta on the L.A. roster. Although she did not score in this game, Marta always has the potential to break open a game.
I’m hoping the powers that be in WPS are in this for the long haul. With good marketing and media relations to go with the soccer-only venues, the league can grow, but it will take time.
Stay tuned.
It was a meaningless game between the Chicago Red Stars, who have been eliminated from the play-offs, and the first place Los Angeles Sol, but it had to be encouraging to the Red Stars and the league to have a season-high crowd of 7,959 at 20,000 seat Toyota Park. For me it was an added bonus to see former Medford Striker Carli Lloyd score the Stars’ first goal enroute to a 3-1 win.
In the 24th minute Lloyd controlled the ball in the center of the field, sent a ball to fellow National Team player Lindsay Tarpley, then ran ballside of her defender and took a perfect return pass from Tarpley and drilled it inside the left post. Tarpley gave Chicago a two goal advantage two minutes after halftime but L.A. made things interesting when Han Duan scored in the 9th minute with three minutes of stoppage time to come. But a minute later Cristiane sealed the result with a shot from the 18.
The post-game press conference was a non-event with both coaches calling it an “entertaining game” but saying nothing of substance and the media not asking any questions of substance. Each team has one more regular season match, then L.A. was off to the play-offs and Chicago was finished
But the story here was not the Los Angeles – Chicago game, but rather the bigger picture, the start of what I hope to be a year long fact-finding mission to see if women’s soccer can make it as a professional sport in this country. Or for that matter if men’s soccer can.
Sunday’s game offered some hope.
The match itself was in fact entertaining and generally well-played, but not as fast or as skilled as I recalled the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA). Too many missed traps and errant passes. back with the WUSA I watched the Philadelphia Charge play three seasons at Villanova Stadium before the league folded in 2003. It took until 2009 for WPS to rise from the ashes of WUSA.
Chicago has the advantage, as will the Philadelphia Independence next year, of playing in a beautiful soccer-specific stadium. Unlike Philadelphia’s venue, which will be off I-95 and easily accessible from Center City as well as the New Jersey and Pennsylvania suburbs, Toyota Park in Bridgeview south of the city is difficult to reach and nowhere near public transit.
Media coverage will be important and the Red Stars do a first rate job there – media relations coordinator Rob Coons is a personable host to the members of the media, be it bloggers like me, broadcasters or the daily press. The media guide and game day stat sheet are excellent. But the day following the game one Chicago paper I checked had nothing and another a small staff-written story.
Chicago averaged 4,591 through its first nine home dates, a figure that shot up to about 4,900 after Sunday’s crowd. Coons said the numbers had improved each of the last five games and attributed the large attendance for the last game to several factors, including good weather, but perhaps more importantly, the presence of Brazil’s Marta on the L.A. roster. Although she did not score in this game, Marta always has the potential to break open a game.
I’m hoping the powers that be in WPS are in this for the long haul. With good marketing and media relations to go with the soccer-only venues, the league can grow, but it will take time.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Is a Dunkin Donuts Bitch Worse Than a Starbucks Bitch?
The names in this one will definitely not be revealed in order to protect the guilty.
Last night Debbie and I had dinner with some dear friends from the MSX (Medford Strikers Xtreme) and at one point the talk turned to girls soccer rivalries of years past and trash talk between parents of opposing teams. As the story goes, a mother on an opposing team apparently annoyed some Xtreme parents and one of the MSX mothers called her a "Dunkin Donuts bitch." I had never heard this before and am tempted to call the woman who coined the term and ask her how a Dunkin Donuts bitch compares to, say, a Starbucks bitch, or a Tim Hortons bitch, and if a Dunkin Donuts bitch is better or worse than a Wawa bitch.
Speaking of trash talk among parents, back when my son, Scott, played for the '81-'82 Medford Strikers, our parents had a habit of getting into chirping with the parents of the Cape Express. Our U14 year we won the State Cup, and then had to play our last conference game at Cape May. It was a cold, wind-swept December day in Cape May Court House when we played and we were missing one starter due to a suspension for yellow cards and another for basketball. During the game, one of our parents made a comment about a call by the referee. "Now I see why they call you the 'Medford Crybabies,'" said a Cape mother. "I thought they called us the state champions," replied one of our mothers. Best comeback I ever heard. Even some of the Express fathers smiled and nodded their approval. And we won the game - and the conference.
Last night Debbie and I had dinner with some dear friends from the MSX (Medford Strikers Xtreme) and at one point the talk turned to girls soccer rivalries of years past and trash talk between parents of opposing teams. As the story goes, a mother on an opposing team apparently annoyed some Xtreme parents and one of the MSX mothers called her a "Dunkin Donuts bitch." I had never heard this before and am tempted to call the woman who coined the term and ask her how a Dunkin Donuts bitch compares to, say, a Starbucks bitch, or a Tim Hortons bitch, and if a Dunkin Donuts bitch is better or worse than a Wawa bitch.
Speaking of trash talk among parents, back when my son, Scott, played for the '81-'82 Medford Strikers, our parents had a habit of getting into chirping with the parents of the Cape Express. Our U14 year we won the State Cup, and then had to play our last conference game at Cape May. It was a cold, wind-swept December day in Cape May Court House when we played and we were missing one starter due to a suspension for yellow cards and another for basketball. During the game, one of our parents made a comment about a call by the referee. "Now I see why they call you the 'Medford Crybabies,'" said a Cape mother. "I thought they called us the state champions," replied one of our mothers. Best comeback I ever heard. Even some of the Express fathers smiled and nodded their approval. And we won the game - and the conference.
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