Post-match: Ce n'est pas un piège - Crew @ Montreal - Match 13 - 5/14/25 7:30 PM

We may have even seen each other. Got to say congrats to the players after the win since the bench was SO close. Rudy gave some folks next to me bottles of water, and a crew staffer gave me body armor because "it was one less he had to carry back".

 

When did the team fly out to Montreal ? I’m assuming we came home and didn’t fly directly to Canada

 

I'm guessing:
Fly to Columbus Sunday AM.
Practice in Columbus on Monday and this AM.
Fly to Montreal Tuesday PM.
Fly to Columbus Thursday AM.

 

The team's flight left Columbus at 3pm yesterday. They will fly back to Columbus tonight after the game. Also, they flew back from Philly on Saturday night, not Sunday morning.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sy8705

 

A comfortable win would be nice. Have not really had one yet.

 

By the way, these flights are brought to you (or, rather, the players) by the CBA. All are Sun Country Airlines charter flights (there are no non-stops between Columbus and Montreal, for example). For 2025, teams must provide 14 legs of chartered fights for regular season matches. It was 12 last year, will be 16 next year, and 18 in the last year of the agreement. It was just 8 in 2020, '21 and '22 (teams aren't allowed to offer more than this number of charters for the regular season; all playoff and CCC away games requiring flights must also be chartered).

It doesn't get a lot of attention, but the increase in charters has to be a fairly big deal for the players, and especially relevant when attracting foreign talent into the league for cities like, well, Columbus, which doesn't have the greatest commercial non-stop options.

 

I asked someone about this a while back on the Soccerwise discord, and a lot of teams do more than what the CBA requires. I know the CBA says no more, no less, but perhaps they waived that provision. Almost every flight last year looked like a charter. There is a team boarding plane video for almost every game.

 

For finding these on FR24, are you mostly searching for Sun County flights from Columbus to the opponent's city? Or are there other criteria that are helpful to search for?

 

gol the ball

 

I just looked at the list of departures from CMH which goes back something like 36 hours and found the one flight that flew to Montreal and knew it was our charter flight because it was Sun Country. They might always fly using the same flight number, I'm not sure.

 

Does Sun Country fly out of John Glenn or Rick?

 

It's a charter, so I assume there isn't a limitation???

 

Could well be the case. I mean, it's blatantly unfair that some teams are in cities with commercial nonstops to virtually every city in the league (ATL, CHI, NYC, LA, probably Dallas, etc.) while others aren't. I'm sure the players union would have whole heartedly welcomed that offer from the owners. The leageu signed a five year deal with Sun Country to be the offocial charter partner aitrlines starting in 2022 "pursuant to the requirements in the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement." But you do see refetrences that imply what's in the CBA was perhaps expanded recentlty.

 

@chr1st - Question on the prop - what if a current MTL player scores a Crew goal...does it only count if he's also Canadian?

 

John Glenn. You can get reasonable flights from them. The people who went to the CCC send off know what hanger the team goes to.

 

You are right, it's a charter so there isn't a limitation, but the team charters always fly out of CMH. Sun Country also offers commercial flights out of CMH, but currently only to MSP where they are based.

The increase in charter flights is definitely huge for the players, although it was always cool to be in an airport the day after a game and run into an entire MLS team. Back in 2016 I stood in Concourse B at CMH and watched one of the Euros games with a bunch of the NYRB players the day after they gave up a 93' equalizer scored by Ola Kamara. Mike Grella, BWP, Kljestan, Dax, Luis Robles, and Jesse Marsch were all standing there with me. BWP was critiquing the play of some of the forwards and Marsch was having a heated discussion with Dax about something that happened during the game. It was quite the experience.

 

The league's Sun Country charter deal is anotehr example of why single entity isn't dead yet. The leageu has negoiated a deal that included all clubs. The Browns (and other NFL clubs) for example, have their own deal with United.

 

"Your team can wear any jersey they want as long as it's Adidas."
--Someone not named Henry Ford.

 

Years ago - yes, yes, MANY years ago you assholes - I was picking up.a freind at Cleveland Hopkins when a dozen.or so rather tall black guys came walking down the concourse.

It was the entire Milwaukee Bucks team, in town to play the Cavs. Game was about 4 hours off.

I.think about that sometimes: an actual NBA team flying into Cleveburg for a game on American Airlines, probably coach, headed down to the baggage carousel to grab their own luggage and bus on over to start warmups.

Times do change.

 

You must be old or something.

I was listening to a podcast interview with some former MLS player, might have been Josh Williams, and they were talking about how back before anyone chartered flights they would sometimes run into opposing teams during layovers. It's so wild to think about the Crew and SKC running into each in the food court during a layover in Midway after playing in SLC and NE the day before.

 

I remember seeing the Sounders at the Salt Lake airport the day after their game.