Sounder at Heart’s 2018-19 offseason calendar

While we are still putting a bow on the final game of the 2018 season (18-11-5, +15 in MLS regular season; 1-1-0 in MLS Cup Playoffs; 2-2-0 in CONCACAF Champions League; 0-1-0 in US Open Cup) there’s a lot of planning going into what some people call the offseason. Things might slow down a little at Sounder at Heart, but not much.

There are still season recap stories to come from Ride of the Valkyries and our coverage of Sounders FC 2 (Tacoma). While both of their seasons ended some time ago, those writers turned their eyes towards the magical Sounders run-in and playoff games against Portland.

RoValks polled their readers for their end of season awards and teased some of the results on the most recent episode of Coffee and Valkyries. A more detailed breakdown of the voting and a look back at the highlights of the year will be coming soon. The 2019 NWSL College Draft will take place on January 10, and there will undoubtedly be further roster moves to discuss, as well.

We’ll have player profiles of every S2 player that took the field in 2018. That’s 44 men and boys who are #TheFuture of the club that will get at least a few sentences covering the year that saw the team transition to Tacoma. We will also cover the S2-be-named process and their planned soccer stadium.

The annual business meeting is November 13. There will be a new secondary kit to reveal, hopefully before the holidays, but probably not due to MLS. We’ll also have our annual holiday gift guide.

Thankfully we will not need to cover Sounders losses during the Expansion Draft, but we will still cover the gamut of MLS drafts and waivers.

We will also cover rumors. Niko, Jeremiah, I and others will use all of our resources to try to figure out who the next signing is. There’s space for at least one DP, right now.

There will be the annual Sounder at Heart awards series. We continue to track the best offensive and defensive players, the best young player and the moment of the year.

Open Flavor Fridays will return, sometimes even on Friday ;).

We will cover the Tacoma Stars, in a season where they should be expected to make a deep playoff run.

There will be YachtCon, that event where Nos Audietis gets all together in real life and raises money for charity.

I likely say this every year, but I just want to remind you that Sounder at Heart doesn’t stop with a final whistle or a championship parade. It doesn’t stop with just one author. It’s a community of like-minded people, who think that soccer in the greater Puget Sound region is awesome and we are going to talk about it.

2019 starts now and you will hear us (read us?)