News: MLS and RBNY Provide FREE Bus and Tickets for Traveling DCU Fans

Hard to imagine anyone taking them up on that.

Oh yeah, one of the buses had an accident coming home.

 

There's also the effect of actually having your fans at the match. In the original configuration, with the road match on Saturday and the home match on Wednesday, DC figured to send strong road support to New Jersey for their road match, while NYRB was likely to send weak support to DC for a mid-week match (not meant as an insult -- just because it's midweek, which is harder for folks to do). MLS said they were trying to make it up to DC fans with the free buses, but it turned out that DCU paid for the buses after all; and now with this fiasco, you think many people will make the trip up tomorrow? Good luck with that.

 

Not to mention that the whole reason that we were told that DC had to give up home field in the first place was because the TV schedule couldn't be changed since we had to have a Saturday afternoon conference semi. Now guess what we have.... a changed TV schedule.

If Red Bull wanted to postpone yesterday (as some on here are saying) then props to them. Once about 1PM passed, they pretty much had to play the game and they decided not to because the home team didn't feel like it.

 

IIRC they tried the plow last year after the October snowstorm and it destroyed the turf.

That's no excuse for not having an army of hobos with snow shovels ready to go.

I think the DC supporters got really screwed by the league and RBNY. There are a ton of phony indignities that are the natural posture of supporters, and it is always bullshit, but I feel really sorry for you guys. Doesn't mean that the game should be forfeit-- it's not about YOU, for chrissake-- but what a total outrage. I'm sure DC players will have a lot more desire to win from the start from their visit to the supporters section last night.

 

This is the long and short of it and I'm just baffled there isn't more discussion about this in N&A. I think most people just accept that MLS is calvinball at this point...wow.

 

You can plow without tearing up a field if you know what you're doing.

You're going to leave 1/4 inch when you're done but the hand shovels can manage that a lot faster than shoveling 2 inches

 

I do think the field was unplayable. But it could have been playable had the planning been done to have the right staff and equipment in place. RB had no incentive to do so, from a financial or competitive perspective. And the league, which for all I love about them still does as much on the cheap as they can get away with, seems to have no high level contingency planning. Why? Not because they hate DC and want NY to win, but because they are CHEAP and contingency planning, redundancy and backup systems are really expensive.

 

Wasn't the issue that even if they had the fields fully plowed before the kickoff, by the 30 minute mark there would have been another full inch of compact, wet snow on the field?

 

You're a dick

 

At that point, the ref pauses the game and the snow blowers come back onto the field to clear it. Once that's done, the ref resumes play.

You know, like it's done everywhere else in the world when it snows during a game.

 

This may be in the daily news thread, but is relevant to this discussion:

NY Daily News: MLS in the running for America's dumbest sports league after not postponing Red Bulls playoff game earlier despite nor'easter

 

"Games of this caliber cannot be played in conditions like this" - Hans Backe

 

The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

NY pretty clearly wanted a postponement, and probably made a too-weak attempt to clear the field, but it was pretty hopeless. A match last night was going to be a hell of a mess. The earlier point about "competent" plowing is wrong-- I went back and looked at the archived game and the turf wasn't scoured by a plow, just torn up by the weight of heavy equipment on turf waterlogged by heavy wet snow (like last night's snow).

But the DC supporters made a long, long trip that can't be repeated for most of them during the week. Additionally, NY supporters who went to the game had to get there by private car in awful traffic-- mass transit options were negligible and the RBNY front office couldn't find much in the way of buses to rent to make things easier.

Having got everyone there-- players, coaches, refs, supporters, TV-- they should have played the game. I can't blame either team. RBNY seems to have justifiably pushed for a further postponement, and DCU wanted to play the match since everything was ready to go. This was a total cock-up on the part of the league, the second piece of failed contingency planning that has affected this series.

Filip Bondy is right in that column I linked to. If you want to be regarded as something higher than bush league, you have to plan for this kind of thing in advance and be prepared to lose a bit of money to keep from looking stupid. MLS just isn't there yet.

 

Look if they wanted to call the game they could of called it a day earlier. There's legitimate reasons for that like fan safety and not taking up police resources that are needed elsewhere. Honestly we've known about this storm for days and they should of had a contingency plan to play at PPL or Columbus. Heck they should of had a plan for Sandy too.

But once you got all the fans in their seats and the players dressed at least show some professionalism to have the right equipment for clearing the field. The field was not frozen and could be cleared in 15 minutes with the right equipment.

In the end MLS did neither.

 

Hahahahaha. Anyone who makes a Calvinball reference is all right with me.

 

I'd make a separate thread but by and large no one seems to give a shit other than DC fans

 

Great article.

Too bad nobody is talking about all the league intervention in this series in the actual core MLS journalists. Steve Goff who reports DC United and should be invested in the concerns of the fanbase, basically just repeats the company line.

 

You guys seem to have it covered, and it doesn't seem like there's anything for us to add (if I can speak for fans of other teams). But yeah, super embarrassing for the league. Garber needs to address the league's failure last night.

 

I have to say that it probably would have been better if the field had been frozen. What destroyed the field for the Galaxy playoff game was trying to plow the snow on a pitch that was waterlogged as a result of the same sort of heavy, wet snow as last night. The weight of the equipment, not the plowing, ruined the field.

What they needed were enough people with shovels to clear the field, and enough liability insurance to cover any injuries that might come from their work. They didn't have them, and I think that it is partly because they evidently told the league on Tuesday that the game should not be played on Wednesday, and partly because this league and its teams cut costs whenever possible and just do not spent any money unless they have to.

 

Great article. Thanks for the link. I just tweeted it to Garber.

 

They should have just covered the damn field with a tarp. They could have taken hand held snow blowers right over the tarp to remove the heavy snow and then just rolled the tarp up.

 

I think this is a truly messed-up situation, but it's not like the league is full of low-grade morons.

• The field had been covered by a tarp, which took about 30-45 mins to remove in the conditions, in which nearly an inch of snow fell
• Try to roll up a 240 ft x 360 ft heavy gauge tarp in strong wind
• Try to use a snow blower on heavy wet snow

 

Growing up in the snow belt - I have done all of those things, including the tarp. If you are telling me it was covered in a tarp (didn't tune in early) and still had that much snow on the field in the (what about an hour) the tarp was off - as a neutral fan I am glad I didn't have to watch that game.

 

This. Feel real bad for all 700 fans who made the trip and who probably won't be able to go back tonight. What a freaking mess.

 

They took the tarp off 3 hours before game time. Which also has yet to be explained.