Timbers fleeing Portland for the cool climes of the Caribbean

By: Bob Kellett | May 13th, 2008

From your AccuWeather Storm Tracker 6000 Doppler Xtreme Forecast Team…..

Friday’s forecast for Puerto Rico

Friday’s forecast for Portland

And then back to reality

Forecast for Miami on Sunday

Forecast for Portland on Sunday

What do you think about Miami and Puerto Rico, Gavin?
“Both of these teams, we’re capable of beating.” More from Wilko from the Trib.

Is Benji coming for Brownie’s spot?
Nasty Challenge poses the interesting question of whether future Timbers legend Benjamin Totori will eventually supplant current Timbers legend Chris Brown in the starting lineup. I think we all need to see Totori in person before we can adequately answer that question. If he is as fast as his reputation makes him out to be, I wouldn’t mind seeing him out wide, feeding off of Brown’s passes on the attack. Or he could play in the middle next to Brown and Suzuki could move out wide. Or he could fill Gregor’s role. Or he could end up being a late game high energy sub. Or he might not even be good enough to crack the lineup. We’ll have a better idea by mid-June.

A Blast from the Past
This is how the whole Timbers Army thing began.

BJ makes his first-team debut
Former Portland Timbers forward Bryan Jordan featured in his first LA Galaxy game this weekend. BJ played the final seven minutes in the Galaxy’s 2-1 loss against Red Bull New York. Jordan and former Portland Pilots defender Mike Gavin both have been tapped for the United States’ U23 squad that will play in a tournament in Toulon, France later this month. Opportunities like that are the reason why guys like Jordan would rather sit the bench in MLS than start in USL-1.

Minnesota on the move
The Minnesota Thunder are the biggest surprise of the early USL First Division season, moving from a second to last place finish in 2007 to the second spot in the table a month into the 2008 season. The Thunder are also on the move in the Twin Cities. The club announced Monday that it is moving away from the urban high school facility in St Paul where it has been playing the past few seasons for a soccer complex in the burbs where they used to play. The move is happening after they already played two games at James Griffin Stadium this season. Could you imagine what would happen if the Timbers tried to pull something like this during the season? If they left PGE Park for Hillsboro, for example, you might see a suburban town set on fire.

Sunshine makes him Dizzy

Someone recently re-posted the famous Sunshine Goal on YouTube. Ignore the guy who scored the goal since he’s dead to us all and instead check out his teammate Dan Antoniuk’s reaction, or lack thereof. I never noticed that before. Considering it was a late game, important goal you’d think he could have at least given his mate a pat on the back or a golf clap. Perhaps that is why Dizzy has played on 7,000 different teams the past few years.

It’s only democracy if we stuff the ballot boxes
From WWeek:

Attention Timbers Army: you’ve got competition. As WW’s 2008 Best of Portland Readers’ Poll passes the 1000 vote mark this morning, Brandon Roy has a one-vote advantage over Timbers fave Takayuki Suzuki in the race for “Best Local Athlete.” Oh, the drama! Don’t worry, Timbers fans, you still have 19 days to get all of your drinking buddies to take the survey and swing the vote back to your team.

The ratings numbers are in
From the Voice of the Timbers:

Power to the people. Thanks to all that tuned in on Saturday for making the webcast the highest rated regular season match in the history of the Portland Timbers Broadcast Network. Hope to have you along in Puerto Rico and Miami this weekend.

All the News that’s fit to Print
The New York Freakin’ Times gives the Pacific Northwest a brief shout out. Now if we can only get Maureen Dowd to stand in the Shed.