Category: Site News

1 Championship: 3 Beers

beer

Considering Widmer Brothers partnership as the official beer of the Portland Timbers, you’d expect them to brew up a beer or two in celebration of their MLS Cup victory, and they  have. There’s First Star red rye and Thrill of Victory dark Cascadian ale. Both of these are available on tap only, which is a bit lazy if you ask me, but don’t ask me because I’m still mad they stopped brewing Green And Gold Kolsch. First Star was made with input from the coaching staff. Then there’s the Hopworks project Captain Jack’s Lucky 13 Championship IPA, made with very direct input from Jack Jewsbury. Corporate beer sponsor notwithstanding, Jack mentioned his affinity for Hopworks on social media, and they reached out to him for a collaboration. They started this before the cup, so it would have come out regardless of a win or loss, although they might  have had to change the name. The old salty dog will be a Hopworks in person  for the unveiling after the opening match. Looks from the looks of the photo, you should be able to buy Jack’s beer in bottle as well as on tap.   Of course you can still get the Caleb Porter, porter. There’s no news yet of the beer that Columbus Brewing will have to brew in honor of losing their bet.

[Left Photo: Thomas Bleigh]

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Oh Darlington where art thou?

Our deft attacking midfielder was noticeably quiet rounding out the final match in the Simple Invitational against the Chicago Fire last night. Suffice to say I heard Michael Harrington’s name mentioned more often in the play-by-play than Darlington’s. I suppose it happens, maybe this loss will shake off the last remnants of cobwebs.

So I payed a bit more attention to Jermaine Taylor this match, he helped me in this endeavor by earning himself a yellow, and getting caught out leading to a Chicago goal. Our left side is a bit soft and Valentin’s sub out for Jack McInerney was not much of a surprise. Jorge’s shoes look quite big to fill right now.

Valeri was fun to watch, Adi’s hold up play was solid, and Melano Asprilla’s attacks appeared on the point… however, we are running into that old problem of getting it into the back of the net. The season has yet to begin, and the Ides of March approach. I’m not sayin’ things are all Hell and Highwater, I’m just sayin’…

Let’s see, what else… Chara did his Chara thing. Thanks for that Diego.

Mr. Borchers seemed to have a pretty decent game, no real complaints.

Still a bit nervous about our #2, Alvas, thank goodness the man is fast.

All said and done, still feeling pretty good about this season, but let’s sort out that winger situation.

Say Hi to Savannah

savannah

Remember the Columbus Crew supporter that flipped Mr Garber the bird while he was talking about the great atmosphere the Nordecke provided for the MLS Cup? Her name is Savannah, and it turns out she didn’t want to be the sad fan poster girl on TV.  Someone came up with the brilliant idea to take up a collection and bring her to Portland for the opening day rematch, and it only took about an hour to reach the $1,500 goal. With Merrit reportedly kicking in a couple tickets, and her tweets that she’s on board and stoked, it definitely looks like she’ll be joining us. Because every good deed deserves punishment (and we love drama,) there are those upset that money was raised for a seemingly frivolous purpose when those funds could have been used in so many ways that would benefit more needy causes. That’s a valid point, but sometimes you just have to be… LEGENDARY.   More archival tweets and video after the jump.

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Schedule Wallpaper

timbers-schedule-wallpaper

Last year I was annoyed that there was no iCal download available of the the Timbers Schedule, so I made my own, but I had no place to share it. This year I’m annoyed because they do offer an iCal download of the schedule, but you have to sell your identity  give up an email and a phone number. In the meantime, someone (JohnMLTX) made a nifty, high resolution infographic of the Timbers schedule that serves as desktop wallpaper. If for some reason you’re interested in other teams, they’re also available. When I get around to creating an iCal version of the Timbers schedule I’ll post a link to download it. Just a heads up, I haven’t checked the accuracy of the wallpaper graphic.

UPDATE: Here’s a direct link to a web-based iCal version from MLS. Since it’s web-based you can set iCal to check weekly or daily in case the start times change, as they occasionally do. The downside this calendar is that it’s a subset of the entire MLS schedule which shows the home team first cutting off the name of the visiting team on every home game. You have to click the event to get the complete team name, even with iCal at full screen.

Martin Shkreli Would Be Proud

craigslist

Have you noticed a general resentment towards StubHub bubbling up in regards to clubs allegedly allocating blocks of tickets directly to re-sellers, bypassing fans and essentially artificially raising prices? If that’s not enoughto make you mad, what about private online scalpers? On December 18th, 2015 I saw an ad on Craigslist for a guy selling 2 GA  2016 season tickets for $8,000. These were one season only and did not include perpetual rights to buy them in subsequent seasons. The ad was taken down after a short while. Recently, another douchebag was allegedly asking $25,000 for 2 season tickets plus rights to retain the tickets.  The ad is not up there now, and the ticket holder’s account was allegedly flagged for non-renewal by the FO.  I have to say allegedly on all this because everything has been deleted and pretty much the only thing that remains are some screen captures that are impossible to verify.

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Best Inside Training Video Ever
(No really, watch this!)

I particularly enjoy the “off the pitch” variety of official Timber’s videos, the ones where you get to know the personalities of the team a little better. Sure, I religiously watch all the Front Office videos, but let’s face it, Porter never reveals any secret strategies, and they’re usually not relevant after that week’s match is over. They’re mostly just filler to tide you over until the real thing. This video is by far the best behind the scenes practice footage I’ve seen. You get to actually understand how the team practices and see some personality highlighted. I wish it was twice as long. I think Zarek Valentin is trying to make a secret push to become this year’s photobomb contest head on a stick.

Hello Portland!

Cart before the horse. At the end of the 2014, I had the grand Idea to start a zine about the Portland Timbers. It stemmed from having a long history in zine making  and having a lot of energy leftover after the Timbers (just barely) failed to make the playoffs despite a really strong finish to the season.  Like so many other grand ideas, this one never got off the ground.  Then someone on Facebook mentioned the need for a database to document various supporter’s scarves, and I thought why not. But where to host it? That was as good of an excuse as any to register the domain name. Sometimes a good idea just need little push. I’m going to use this space to publish Timber’s related posts, but don’t look to me for detailed analysis of gameplay. I still can’t tell what formation we’re fielding by looking at the game play, and I didn’t even become interested in Soccer until going to my first Timbers match, which was a reserve team game in 2012.

When that scarf archive goes live, I’ll post a link. Disclosure: I’m backdating this post.