Tough Week For Vancouver Sports Fans
by sidereal on Jun 8, 2011 1:20 PM PDT
in Sounders: MLS Regular Season
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Do we have Benjamin Massey on suicide watch? His Eighty-Six Forever blog hasn't been updated since before the USMNT played Canada in the Gold Cup.
You could understand him being a little down, along with every other sports fan in Vansterdam. In the finals of the Official Sport of Canada™, the Canucks were crushed by the Boston Bruins 8-1 to make it a series and threaten to continue a streak that hasn't seen a Stanley Cup champion from the country that invented the game since 1993. Also, someone bit someone and someone else hit someone else too hard? I dunno. Whatever, hockey.
In the sport that matters, the Canadian national team rolled into Ford field full of bluster despite never accomplishing anything and proceeded to get rolled out thanks to Jozy Altidore going 2-hole (see? I do know something about hockey) on Lars Hirschfeld, who actually kept goal for the Whitecaps once a long time ago.
Last night the Vancouver Whitecaps Reserves faced the Sounders Reserves at Starfire in front of 600 or so Sounders faithful. The focus here was on the appearance of two new Sounders trialists and their potential to help the senior team after the summer transfer window. But meanwhile there was a game going on and Seattle handled Vancouver well enough to win 2-0 and maintain their unbeaten (and untied) streak through four five games despite the presence of some significant Whitecaps players, including Omar Salgado, Jay Nolly, and Pete Vagenas.
Of course all of those matchups were merely appetizers before the main course coming up on Saturday, when the Sounders may have the Cascadia Cup on the line after the home draw with Portland. A win would not only keep us in the running for the Cup and provide a critical result in a June schedule that demands results, it would make Vancouver sports fans really, really sad. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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the Abbotsford Mariners lost and drew in two PDL home games last weekend versus metro Seattle teams. And the Whitecaps Women lost to Santa Clarita.
It’s possible that there wasn’t a team in any sport in the entire Vancouver metro area that won a game versus non-Vancouver competition this week. Ouch.
Nos Audietis
Here's to hoping it doesn't get better this weekend
I love 86 Forever, but I really want the Sounders senior team to get the big ‘W’ against the Whitecaps.
Abbotsford isn’t Vancouver. People live in Abbotsford because they don’t want to be associated with Vancouver, and if you go there you’ll see why Vancouver is only too happy not to be associated with Abbotsford!
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
by Benjamin Massey on Jun 8, 2011 3:07 PM PDT up reply actions
Abbotsford is close to Harrison which is a win
and has an air show
That’s all it has going for it.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
Sounder Reserves have now continued their streak through 5
1-0 @ SJ
3-2 V Chivas
3-2 V Timbers
2-0 @ Portland
2-0 V Whitecaps
Nos audietis in somniis, Nos audietis in altum: You will hear us!
Obviously I hope we spank the caps
but I also hope the Canucks get spanked by the Bruins the rest of the way so all the Puget Sounders rocking brand new Canucks gear will feel stupid.
Not much I loathe more than bandwagoners.
Funny if we get an NHL team
and all the local pseudo-Canucks fans suddenly turn into die hard haters of our local rivals
Nos Audietis
This is exactly why I'm not on the Canucks bandwagon.
I want to have no allegiance to them when Seattle/Bellevue gets a team.
by LoiteringWithIntent on Jun 8, 2011 4:16 PM PDT up reply actions
Big IF!
I do not see it happening for a very very long time if ever. If we can not get an arena for basketball which is fairly popular here, I do not see us getting one for hockey which has a fringe following.
Scoreboards, not billboards.
Regular season, not pre-season.
Any arena built
would be designed to house both.
by B-Lot tailgater on Jun 9, 2011 12:02 PM PDT up reply actions
I don't know...
…it’s a little different jumping on the bandwagon of a team that’s next door in a sport where you have no home team than it is to, say, jump on the bandwagon of a team three time zones away because they have 27 championships. A lot of new fans are attracted to a sport because a local or nearby team is doing well, and there wouldn’t be nearly as many fans in the stands if it weren’t for some bandwagon support. There’s no guarantee that the NHL will ever come to Seattle, so it might be the closest thing Washingtonians get to a local NHL team for a long time.
I guess my bigger beef is, as a native
No one grows up playing hockey here. No one follows it, and generally no one pays attention.
I get that there are exceptions, but the bandwagoners far outweigh them right now.
by B-Lot tailgater on Jun 8, 2011 8:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Couldn't you say the same thing about soccer?
by Boz86 on Jun 8, 2011 10:33 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
I agree completely.
I’m not saying that soccer fans in Seattle are bandwagoners. My point was that if you are going to have a problem with people liking hockey in a part of the world where hockey is not very popular you probably shouldn’t write it on a blog for an American soccer team. Niether sport is very popular in this part of the world when compared to certain other sports. I’m sure there are plenty of hockey bandwagoners throughout the city, but it just isn’t true that, traditionally, no one cares about the sport in this city.
I am guessing the number of people
who grow up playing soccer around here compared to hockey is 50 to 1, at least. Probably closer to 100 to 1. Not that you have to play it in order to be a fan, but I feel that is a fairly good indicator of a sports popularity.
I don’t have a problem with anyone liking hockey. I have a problem with bandwagoners.
by B-Lot tailgater on Jun 9, 2011 7:42 AM PDT up reply actions
As a lifelong Bostonian...
I can assure you that far more people in the Boston area grow up playing soccer than hockey. I won’t venture a guess on the ratio, but I’m certain it’s not even close. But that’s just because soccer is a lot cheaper to play and more accessible. Even here, you won’t drive around the city and see people playing hockey. I’m just not sure participation numbers are a particularly good indicator when it comes to hockey.
I can see your point.
I guess I only took exception to your original post because just like I (and many others on this site) have been bringing non-soccer fans to Sounders games trying to expose more people to the sport I have also been trying ,mostly in vain, to expose friends of mine to hockey for years. Especially since we have a really good and interesting NHL team so close by. So while there may be bandwagoners, I can’t help but feel encouraged that people in Seattle are excited about hockey.
I am guessing
At least 75% of fans at sounders games and probalby 90% who walk around town with a sounder jersey have played at least a season of soccer. I think that is his point.
Scoreboards, not billboards.
Regular season, not pre-season.
Soccer is incredibly popular in Seattle
WA is a top 5 state for playing the game. The area prior to MLS routinely had high TV ratings for the World Cup as well.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I would say "not many" instead of "no one"
I know my uncle grew up playing hockey, and two of his sons also are playing as well. There are a few around but not as many as other places in the country.
I meant no one in the non literal sense
Not many is a more accurate wording.
by B-Lot tailgater on Jun 9, 2011 12:03 PM PDT up reply actions
I am thinking of getting my daughter in hockey
even though I never played. She seems to be a natural on skates. Literally skating circles around other kids her age (5).
Scoreboards, not billboards.
Regular season, not pre-season.
Going to school up in Bham I became a fan in 92...
still have an old jersey. And I was born and raised in Seattle. I don’t think I would consider following the team (catching one or two games a year when the budget allowed) for almost 19 years a bandwagon fan. But then maybe I am one of those exceptions…
Nos audietis in somniis, Nos audietis in altum: You will hear us!
If you're beef is that no one follows it...
…it seems strange that you would be upset that there are new fans (this is another term for “bandwagon” fans) showing interest in the sport. The bandwagon fans will watch on television, and then their children will see the games, and maybe the kids will want to play hockey and then you’ve got more kids playing hockey.
I have always chosen the canucks as my team
because they are cascadian. But I have never cared to much about hockey. I am rooting for them in the cup this year. partially because they are my favorite team, but also because Boston fans are so obnoxious.
Scoreboards, not billboards.
Regular season, not pre-season.
While the gist of your article is accurate, I should say for the record that when the Bruins killed the Canucks I danced a jig.
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
Anyone going to the game.....
Willing to help me get a Roberto Luongo chant going if the Sounders score?
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