Reasons to fly thousands of miles and give up hours of sleep....

Now that I managed a full night's sleep, I wanted to put up a purposely rambling post about how much friggin fun you can have when you go to the MLS Cup.

We flew out Friday night and got set up in a friend's house for the weekend.

Got up early on Saturday morning and went to the supporter's summit. When we got there we had enough time before it started to hit the breakfast buffet and ended up having breakfast with Wynalda (Ok, he was at the NEXT table, not ours, but it was fun to hear him goin on about the broadcast stuff he was workin on). Hit the supporter's summit which was kind of cool...I think it could be a bit more ambitious of an event, but it was definately a blast seeing all the various supporter's groups in there sharing information in a positive way. Had Don Garber and crew show up to answer questions (and yes, I am bitter that they pulled out the Great and Powerful Oz(tm) answer when asked about the officiating in the league).

After the summit, we hit the awards gala, which was a lot of fun. Was definately cool sitting in the same place they do the Oscars. I hope like hell they actually have Rob Stone and Wynalda taped from that event, I thought they were hilarious and I want a copy. Most every award went how I thought it would except for goal of the year, as much as I loved the Damani shot, I think Wolyniec got robbed.

After the awards, we moved down Hollywood Blvd to a pretty nifty pool hall for the bash. Lots of drinking and trash talking with other fans. Tons of fun.

Drug ourselves out of bed the next morning to hit the breakfast (thanks like all hell for setting that up, Liam). It was awesome and the bacon and eggs and stuff really soaked up the alcohol and made the day bearable. Peter Wilt was there and talked with everybody for a LONG time and we had an awesome group photo taken (when is someone going to post theirs? We had like 10 folks shooting pictures) and then moved onto the match.

Section 8 rocked, the game exciting to watch. It wasn't our result and we are going to have months to pull that apart, so I am not going to try in any limited fashion here. The only parts I will make note of at the match was being in line for the men's room RIGHT behind Wolyniec and TELLING him I thought he was robbed (note for future, just like normal folks, the famous and semi famous guys don't much feel comfortable talking *IN* the men's room), and walking by Joe Cannon talking to folks in the stands after the game was over saying "Yeah, I'll be starting next year" and only barely quashing my urge to shout "only if you aren't thrown out in the same bathwater they use to toss your idiot coach".

Went out after the match to catch a meal and then headed back to the supporters hotel to see if anyone was about and commiserate before heading to the airport to catch our 1am flight (oh, how we wish it had only been at 1am, hehehe).

That is where possibly the coolest thing happened. Sitting about in the hotel bar and talking about the match, a fellow came over to us and started chatting up the match. He looked familiar to me but my mind wouldn't lock in on who it was. So, being the problem solving monkey that I am, I read the MLS credentials hanging around his neck which read "JP Dellacamera". He was absolutely bubbling about the showing from Section 8 and talked with us a good long time about the match and what we thought of it. We went on to talk about Americans abroad, what it means to the league, all kinds of stuff. It was just very cool.

Then, of course, it was off to the airport to find out our 1am flight was going to be 3-4 hours late, but fortunately, the weekend had caught up with me and mostly I just slept.

It was awesome fun talking to all those folks....but the most fun part was seeing HOW MANY folks made it out there and having fun with them. We had a ton of folks, it was an awesome weekend, and while not the best ending to the season we could imagine, I think it was a damn fine showing from a classy group of folks.

Now, how many days until they announce that MLS Cup 2004 is in Soldier Field? hehehehe.