It doesn't make much sense to have discussion of this in a thread devoted to other teams, but this *is* the Crew forum, where the threads are just guidelines. So yeah, Feb 26th vs Vancouver. 3:30pm. 96 days away. The earliest home opener ever, no? For comparison, here's the Feb 2020 calendar when our home opener was March 1st.
I appreciate the midday start though - nice early pub crawl to start the morning and then back home and in bed by 8
Every #Crew96 league opening game in team history. The 2022 season will be the earliest league opener ever, but not the earliest official game (CCL against RSL on February 22).This will be the first opener against Vancouver, and the 15th at home. pic.twitter.com/1eeCUnVovi— Matt Bernhardt (@bernhardtsoccer) November 22, 2021 The 15th opener at home. The link has a nice little spreadsheet about when our openers have been, the locations and opponents.
The Feb 22, 2011 CCL match vs RSL was the coldest I've ever been to. Runner up fo 2003 vs LAG and la guerra fria.
This may have something to do with the really crappy job they did of clearing the ice (and I don't mean snow) out of the bleachers at Upper Crew Stadium for that game. I remember standing on about 6" of ice in my seat behind the northeast corner flag, which I took in hopes of being on TV. Vanity! Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a typo and it was 2001?
I don't have any idea what the rest of the schedule will be but I feel like it would b4 a lot warmer in Vancouver. Maybe that's an advantage for the Crew. I dunno.
That was one of the coldest nights of my goddamned life. And it was an ugly, scoreless tie on top of it. Although I'm not sure it was as cold as the college cup doubleheader there in (I think) 2001. I had a ticket for that, and left after the first half of the first game because I couldn't take it anymore.
I have to vote for the college cup game ss well. I was never so cold in my life. I remember at the half everybody stuffed into the men's rooms because they were heated. So many people in there you literally couldn't move.
If my memory serves me correctly (which it doesn’t always these days), that CCL match vs RSL was a pretty calm night—i.e. no wind chill. It was just just bone-chilling COLD! Whereas Dos-a-Cero Part I had a chilly wind. Which I recall due to our seats being high up in the upper deck on the east side of “Tiny Demon Fortress.” (I did not go to that chilly College Cup DH.) As for the most miserable match at HCS, for me those two frigid matches don’t compare to the monsoon match vs Atlanta just a few years ago. I was wearing Gore-tex AND a poncho, and I still was soaked to the bone!
Oh yes, the NCAA College Cup. The games were supposed to start at 5pm and 7:30pm. The first game had (I believe) four overtimes and didn't get done until something like 9:15. The second game then started at 9:35 or something and then had more OTs. The NCAA soccer overtime rule was changed as a direct result of that night. That night was stupid cold. The hottest game I remember was 1999 vs Miami. It was a Sunday in early August and so hot the league actually let us wear our away whites vs Miami's home blues. I saw the game with a group...after the game, we went to Buca and probably set some sort of record for amount of water consumed. It was back when the FO allowed regular fans to have megaphones. The Miami GK was Garth Lagerway and I'll never forget the megaphone being used for the "How much does a lager weigh?" comment audible across the entire stadium.
At the original dos-a-cero, I was sitting in the second-to-last row at the top of the lower bowl. As a result, I had a wall literally right behind me, so I was quite comfortable that night. Funny though. MY most miserable match at HCS was Dos-A-Cero Part III. That was the one where it was 52 degrees at kickoff, but I got caught in the absolute MONSOON during the pregame tailgate party. I was only in the rain for about 20 or 30 seconds, but I was soaked to the bone, and I didn't have anything dry to change into. I was MISERABLE. I was at a point where I was taking off layers and feeling warmer.
Well, they play in a stadium with a retractable roof, so yeah, I don't suppose Midwestern February weather is something they encounter very much. Natural grass, too. Plus, when's the last time we even played Vancouver, since the schedule is so skewed to matches against conference teams? Anyway, gonna be cold. That fancy underground turf system better work as advertised.
The last time we opened the season at home vs a Canadian team we won the cup, so there's that going for us, which is nice. I get the need for the early start and that 15 teams will need to host them. I am hopeful that using Crewsmas to face a generic western conference team will enable the FO to bargain for some good home match-ups on Saturday nights a few other times during the season.
More weekend games and only midweek games when absolutely positively necessary or whatever the press release a few weeks ago said, right? It'd be interesting to see the attendance numbers over the past few years. Does the second home game still have the decrease it once had?
Thirded on College Cup. As I side note, I do believe the new digs are warmer than CCS at the same temperature. The roof helps. Being a more complete structure, rather than beachers, helps. Being right next to the river, and thus at the lowest elevation in the area, helps with the wind. As does the field being below street level. I bundled for several games this year & then had to shed once I got in there.
BREAKING NEWS: AFTER RECORD BREAKING RATINGS, THE CALEB PORTER CREW SOCCER SHOW HAS BEEN RENEWED FOR ITS 3RD SEASON! FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE BAND OF HEROES AS THEY TRY TO CLAIM GLORY IN SPITE OF THE SCHEMING OF E.V.I.L.
I don't remember if the seats at the Jake are metal or plastic, but I was there for a hockey game quite a few years ago. We took pieces of cardboard so we weren't sitting right on the seats. This might be a good idea for any cold-weather games early next year (especially if the USMNT rumor ends up being true.)
La Guerra Fria was in 2001. My oldest nephew came along and we were bundled up pretty well and packed into our upper west side seats. It was cold but tolerable from a temperature perspective and awesome from a beating Mexico perspective. The 2003 home opener vs LAG was very windy and not super well attended so the wind could circulate all around us in 225. LAG had signed a Korean defender from their WC team the prior year so there was a big crowd of Korean fans there cheering for the visitor. Not sorry I didn't go to the college cup match. My guests and I arrived just before the match for Dos a Cero III so we didn't get wet. I've been to a couple of deluges vs Atlanta but survived thanks to a good Columbia rainsuit.
Hong Myung-bo. The idiotic announcers ESPN had at the time for their MLS games kept messing up his name. It wasn't that hard to remember it.
We're not one of the teams with a listed road game in week 2, so that means we're either on the road at one of the other teams that also started at home in week 1 (perhaps a road trip to Miami?), or we're hosting 2 in a row to start the season. (I suppose a Bye week for some teams is possible, but with the schedule the way it is next year, I wouldn't count on it.)
I wonder if we are going to play Austin at home in 2022? Each conference will now have 14 teams. Each club will play 34 matches. Home/away matches against our 13 Eastern Conference rivals only leaves us with 8 matches against the Western Conference clubs.
I doubt it. I think everyone at E.V.I.L. knows how ugly the atmosphere will get if the broccoli and cheese team shows up here.
Of the ~20,000 people in attendance at a Crew match, how many harbor ill will toward Austin? How many even know that there is ill will to be harbored?