1439816593169547264 is not a valid tweet id Sadly, Eric Wynalda recently lost his mom and now his brother to covid.
Soccer though not EQ-related. One of our under-12 AYSO boys teams was scheduled to play a team from Half Moon Bay this afternoon. That game was canceled late last night as five of the HMB players have (or may have, not clear) Covid. Of course, all those kids are still not able to get vaccinated,.
The Athletic wrote about how EA Sports is looking to rename its FIFA game, presumably to eliminate the amount of money they pay FIFA for licensing rights (unknown amount, but licensing rights make up 60% of FIFA's $267M annual income). FIFA the game accounts for $2B of EA's $5.6B revenue. Anyhow, the article pointed to a Jul-2021 paper by Garry Crawford that remarks on how the pandemic hastened football's inevitable march towards individual digital devices. The Crawford paper is open to all: "All Avatars - Aren't We?" "...when the stadia did empty, it was to their individual digital and mobile devices that many supporters turned (or were directed) as a way to remain connected to the game that they love – and the global pandemic way well have accelerated this, already in process, shift in the consumption of football increasingly towards themed digital participatory experiences."
https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/...21-games-for-violation-of-covid-19-protocols/ The logic here makes no sense. It takes no more time to get the vax than to mock up a fake card. And then you've got the vax. And can keep playing and collect your salary.
And Washington State University just fired their football head coach and 4 assistants for refusing to follow the state mandate that they be vaccinated.
This state is a mixed bag, but the Governor and the folks who run the state are serious about getting a handle on this plague.
I helped out with spring soccer tryouts yesterday -- kids ages 8-13 -- and everyone was talking about the vaccination clinic planned for next Saturday. Kids are excited to get their vaccines, which was kind of cute. The kids all showed up masked, by the way, even though we were outdoors. My daughter went to the Sharks game last Saturday -- the coach and I think seven players were out with positive Covid tests. At least we haven't had such terrible luck with our team. This whole experience has been a turbulent ride that doesn't seem to want to stop.
We just got done with our soccer league where I coached my son's U12 team. Things were weird and some kids (though not many) wore masks while playing. We weren't supposed to have after game treats (though some teams did) and there was no instruction on post game cheer/handshakes (so it happened with some teams and not others). Add to that players consistently getting covid at school leaving us to contract trace internally, it was a very odd year.
I've refereed a lot of U10-U13 games this fall. In the beginning, I was masked (as were a majority of the kids) and used an electronic whistle, but as of this weekend I saw that few kids were masked, almost none of the parents and coaches, so I followed suit. I guess that since I'm vaxed (as is everyone in my family - like > 85% of those over 12 in Santa Clara County) my level of risk is slight.
Sadly, large numbers of people in my county are not vaccinated. There are close to half a million people in my county, 200K are not vaccinated at all, 50K have only one dose. Great. Also, the public data doesn’t show percentage of adults vaccinated or not, nor what percentage of the population are kids. The data are really incomplete, which I think is crap. But the bottom line is a lot of people in my county are not vaccinated, and that pisses me off. Go Quakesfans!! - Mark
We spent a lot of time coming up with covid safety rules for the league, decided not to mandate masks but to support mask wearing, no handslaps, no shared snacks, no shared water. Of course, no one policed practices and games, and I saw some questionable behavior but I figured...everyone 12+ is vaxxed, and at some point it's going to be what it is. More concerning personally was learning that my mother is seeing a dentist who has not been vaxxed -- his wife told him that the vaccine is "devil juice." My mom said "well, he wants to keep the peace" and "I haven't gotten sick yet."
I thought you live in Portland? It sounds like you live in a red state area! I’m just curious, because I have a cousin who is thinking of moving out of this area because she has lost so many friends because she is a Trumpie (a vaxed Trumpie). She was talking about moving to Portland…
Read the text under my barking squirrel. I live in Vancouver, WA, actually, I’m just north of the city limits in the unincorporated part of the county. We are decidedly purple. In downtown Vancouver, nearly everyone is a Democrat or even farther left. There were only five Republicans in my neighborhood before I moved up here. But as you move east and north, you get into rural parts of the county, and those folks are mostly Republicans. Where I live, Hazel Dell, it’s a mixed bag. Lots of unvaccinated ninnies here. Portland is OK, but I’d prefer to live in Vancouver. - Mark
My wife grew up in Vancouver. Her sister lives just a few miles north of Hazel Dell, on the west side of I-5.
That’s where I am, more or less. We’re still more left here than neighborhoods on the east side of town, but more purple than in downtown. I know that plenty of my neighbors are not vaccinated, and it’s nuts that that is more about people’s politics than science or the availability of the vaccine. On the upside, there are a ton of great brew pubs and wineries nearby, and the Gorge is just an hour or so from my house. My favorite music store is really close too!! Go Quakesfans!! Be well, everyone!! - Mark