Ever since we've moved to Canada one thing we've missed is watching live football and with the English Leagues recently starting too it has really made us think about it. So last night we went with some friends to watch the Vancouver Whitecaps play at Swangard Stadium which is only about a 15 minute walk away from our home next to Central Park. The Vancouver Whitecaps currently play in the USL but they will become part of the MLS expansion in 2011. When they join the MLS they will also move to new home which is going to be the BC Place Stadium (where we went to watch the BC Lions play). Last night the Whitecaps were playing the Carolina Railhawks, I'd never even heard of the team let alone any of their players but I was familiar with a few players on the Whitecaps team.
Tickets range from $16 - $35 but last night we actually got ours for free, Lou simply asked them on her birthday if she could have some tickets and they said "no problem, we'll put some in your name for collection" - so awesome. I went to buy a matchday program once we had collected the tickets and I was surprised that they didn't charge me for it, they just hand them out to everybody for free. You can also drink beer in the stands so there's no rushing to drink your pint before you go to your seats. We sat in the main stand (which is actually their only proper football stand) and we had an excellent view. The backdrop of Central Park's forest certainly made it a unique viewing experience, at one point a squirrel was spotted running up the stairs in the stand. Another thing they do differently is sing the national anthems of the countries that the teams are from - and it's sang with great pride, I've only known this to happen at big cup finals. I was quite impressed with myself - I remembered all the words to "
O Canada" I think Lou was surprised too!
The actual game itself was ok but it was one of their more deflated performances. I've watched the team play on cable a few times and they've been a lot better in them games but it was still good to see them play live. The final score was 0 - 0 so we didn't see any goals. However, if the strikers had any quality about them they could have easily scored 4 or 5, some of the missed chances were unbelievable! I'd say the standard of the teams was probably the equivalent of English League One / Top end of League Two teams, but nothing near the Championship or Premiership level. I think they'll be needing to improve drastically or bring in some new players ahead of their move into the MLS if they are going to successfully compete. Nevertheless we're looking forward to following them and hopefully next time we go we'll see some goals and a better performance.
