On the last day of winter — Saturday, March 19th — Jeff (seasons ticket holder) and I went to watch the inaugural game of the Vancouver Whitecaps in Major League Soccer (MLS). They were playing Toronto and while the sky was sunny it was somewhat icebox-like within the confines of Empire Field stadium. That didn’t stop a boisterous sellout crowd of 23,000 from cheering on the team to a convincing 4-2 victory. I wore gloves and wrapped the official seasons-ticket holders scarf around my neck and kept the blood flowing sufficiently to cheer each time the Vancouver Bells, er, Whitecaps, scored.
Speaking of Bell, I am wondering how much they paid for their sponsorship. I have included a simulation below of the Bell logos present in the stadium:
Here is the uniform:
The man looks so serious because he is concerned about traffic-shaping, usage-based billing and download caps.
The game itself was quite entertaining, though I am not a soccer/football fan per se. I couldn’t help but appreciate some of the footwork on display, and both teams pulled off a few amazing defensive plays to prevent passes or breakways. I also like that the clock keeps running no matter what happens.
And things did happen.
Specifically, I’m thinking the promoters will re-evaluate the wisdom of putting a rain poncho wrapped in a convenient hand-sized pouch onto every seat before the game. The idea was to create a ‘sea of white’. Instead, each time Vancouver scored, there was a rain of white as people hurled the pouches onto the field. The announcer asked that people not do this and was met with some lusty boos. The officials ended up extending each half by five and four minutes respectively due to the time needed to clean up the pouch-littered pitch.
A few rows behind me was a group of young and ‘enthusiastic’ fans who led several colorful chants involving Toronto sticking the CN Tower into a physically improbable location. Another involved liberal use of the f-bomb. One proclaimed sadness, however, as ‘they took away our weed’. The poor things. A guy dressed in a Toronto jersey taunted them from one of the exits and was pelted with pouches for his efforts. He took it in good cheer before disappearing as the security idly watched from nearby.
I considered buying a $4 hot dog simply to hold it between my legs for warmth.
The only real bummer of the afternoon were the seats. As Empire Field is a temporary facility, it has a few less-than-optimal design elements, mainly uncomfy, cushion-free seats and what turned out to be a large beam just slightly to my left in the row ahead of us:
There is actually a seat directly behind this beam. I feel sorry for the customer service rep who has to handle the inevitable phone call from the person who gets that one (and Jeff confirmed he was not told about the beam when he purchased his tickets. That seems a little skeevy to me).
Despite this, a good time was had by all and the bus/SkyTrain express connection to the stadium made getting there and back out pretty painless. Thumbs up to Translink for that. And also for not having their logo stamped all over everything in creation.