Toronto FC anyone?

Amidst all the hype and interminable waiting surrounding the European Championship starting next Saturday, we kinda forget the less interesting footballing action in our own backyard. Being from Montreal, I naturally side with our beloved Impact. But a team from our rival city Toronto has been grabbing my attention as of late.

Toronto FC is the youngest team in the MLS. The team saw light last season with a horrible record. They finished dead last in the league but that was to be predicted from an expansion team. Not so this season. I've been following the team's progress since the beginning of the season and they are surprising quite a few people. They already have more wins than the entire last campaign and we're not even half way into the 2008 campaign and have added some ex-international stars to give the team some credibility. After all the MLS is starting more and more to become a league were footballing icons come and finish their careers on a lucrative note.

Quite honestly I've been pleasantly surprised by the level of skill and play that is constantly evolving in Toronto. Also worth of mentioning are Toronto FC's fanbase. They are nuts! They are constantly crammed 20 000 strong in their stadium filling it full capacity and seem to truly be loving every minuted of gameplay. Congrats Toronto. That is a real story of success. oh, and the Leafs still suck.

Fc Vendetta

It's been quite a while I haven't written on my blog, but I guess no one's here to complain right? haha... In the news recently it's been getting busier for me. From chasing doctors around to being chased by cops, I always seem to be on the run nowadays. But change can be a good thing, and I welcome it with open arms.

Tonight was rather a big night for me. It marks my return to real competitive soccer since a while, well, since my college days when I played for the triple A team. I've clearly not kept to par with my performance and it kinda shows a little bit.

I got signed by the team in a hurry for the first game of the season and I must admit that I had my doubts about whether to join them or not. I've been hearing horrible things about them, like the fact that they got severely massacred over the winter indoor season by pretty much everyone by some big margins and that we stood no chance for the upcoming summer season. Well to tell you the truth, to everyone's surprise really, we only lost 3-1 against one of the better teams in the league. Hope is all around and for a new team in the league this is a very convincing result for the upcoming season. I also want to use this experience to prepare myself for more important stuff like professional University league soccer which I have a tryout for in August.

The match overall went really well for us and we honestly had better chances than the other team but they have a much better finishing touch. Something that we will have to work on. I had 3 great chances of scoring but squandered all three... Next game will be better for sure.

At the end of the night, there's no shame in this defeat and I'm quite confident that we will not only be on the wining side of things in the end but also make the playoffs! And I'm really looking forward to trying out for the Concordia University soccer team! Here's the link to today's matchup... .:: www.soccerhotnews.com ::. the SOCCER LEAGUE of THE FUTURE

Why I miss the 90's...

You might not agree, in fact you could even come with very strong arguments as to why you would miss the 80's better and the 70's and the 60's and so on. I guess it all depends on which decade you grew up in and the influences that were going through this decade that gave you the best memories of your life. Everything is up to discussion, like global events, music, styles, marking moments and key figures.

I for one, entered my teen years in 2000, so I could say that I really grew up in the present decade, but I was so into everything from the 90's that I continue to be influenced by this decade even to this day. That's a strong statement considering all the craze that goes on nowadays and how everything is so open-ended (internet, acceptability and all).

So what is it that I really miss from the 90's? Well, pretty much everything. The first thing that comes to mind is the music. I am eastern-European and we are renowned to be party-oriented to the max. So the explosion of eurodance in the early 90's alone does it for me. No matter which decade you look at, you will see that music has been THE main influence. In the 50's and 60's it was classic rock, the 70's belonged to the father of pop, disco and the 80's fronted pop-rock. Eurodance, whether you agree with me or not, is unlike anything before it and after it. the beats and melodies which were ultra fast-tempo moved people without them noticing it. Some of the more prominent artists are: Haddaway, Dr. Alban and Culture Club. It's true that musical tastes are not debatable, and although the eurodance era ended in the late 90's a handful of underground clubs (here in Canada) still remain faithful and are amongst the more popular in terms of young adults.

Moving along, everything that kids are into nowadays appeared or was made popular in the 90's. For one, the internet was not born in the 90's. But it was born in the 90's as we know it. I dare anyone to name me someone they knew personally that had internet at home in the 80's. Next in line are video games. Yes they were born in the 70's. Yes everyone had a Nintendo in the 80's but you have to admit that things weren't moving forward. You need competition in order to need a reason to research into advancements. In comes Sega Genesis in the 90's in direct competition with the Super Nintendo. there was more games, they were better both companies were really trying at each other's throats which is good for the customer. In the mid-90's Sony with it's venerable Playstation comes in. Then Sega automatically responds with the Saturn! 1 year later Nintendo jumps on the ship with the legendary N64. So if you follow what I'm saying is that the video games industry really did become prominent in the 90's.

Yeah, I did not name any real meaningful events. And my perspective of the 90's might be only from an entertainment point of view. But could you blame a then-kid for not giving a crap about political intricacies and other stuff that he shouldn't worry about for the moment and just enjoy his childhood? No.

Champions League Final preview

Manchester United (England) vs. Chelsea FC (England)

Yes, it is the time of the year where the trophies are awarded, the honors are handed out, the men are separated from the boys and that champions are crowned. In all sports this is the nail-biting last ditch everyone's been waiting for. Let the games begin.

Starting off a sensational summer for the sports fan, which includes the culmination of the Champions League, Euro 2008 and the Olympics, in a few hours we will witness the crowning of new champions. After the exit of AC Milan earlier in the competition the title is up for grabs as Manchester United and Chelsea FC will square off in the first all-English Champions League Final.

I am by no means a football guru, but I consider myself cultivated in the matter and my 2 cents might actually be worth just that. I personally don't really care who wins because my team (Liverpool) has been eliminated. Therefor, I will speak from my mind and not from my heart.

There has been some dirt in the last few days leading up to this final. As you may know, the match will be held in Moscow and the pitch has been said to be lamentable at best. So the authorities on hand decided to import grass from Slovakia in order to rebuild the pitch to UEFA standards... there have been a few instances in the past where matches have been dictated by poor pitch conditions but in this case I would think that both teams are at an equal disadvantage for obvious reasons.

So who will win? Easy, whoever can contain the other's big canons and find a way to counter efficiently. In my mind there is no clear underdog in this match. This is not David vs. Goliath. Some experts in the field say that Man U has the better team, better manager, better season, better this, better that, but in the end, if Cristiano Ronaldo (left) is contained efficiently, your guess is as good as mine. This guy is a beast, scored over 40 goals in all competitions altogether, voted by many as the best footballer on the planet right now and he's not even reached his prime yet.

On the other side, Chelsea's main threat comes in the form of Didier Drogba (right) who has proved he can be quite the difference maker this season both in domestic league and European competition. He is a complete striker. When he is fed a quality ball, he is deadly from inside and outside the box. A goaltender's nightmare, Drogba brings intensity, smarts and skill into an almost unstoppable package.

In this sense, both teams have the knockout power necessary, therefor it all comes down to the supporting cast which I don't want to get into much detail because all players on either side could be stars and even franchise players on lesser teams. Since this is a preview and I have to make a decision I would ultimately go with Manchester United because the overall quality of the season they had. Chelsea was no slouch by any means and I think they did a lot better then most would of predicted them to do after all the drama at the beginning of the season (sacking of Murinho and several players stating their unhappiness with the team).

In the end, even if I think Man U has a slight advantage because of their momentum, I wouldn't want to bet against Chelski* either. May the best win.

Players to Watch: Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba.

* that's a joke. Since Chelsea has been acquired by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, supporters have named their team Chelski.

My car and I, on a diet.

Ever since I've been living in Montréal, I had this love/hate relationship with this town, province and country. There are some privileges for living here such as free* health care, unemployment coverage and a decent quality of life. On the flip side, there are some areas where the average person such as myself gets screwed big time. Without the lube. Bare with me, let me explain.

All the benefits stated above sure are free and egalitarian towards the population. Rich, middle class and poor all have access to these benefits. But the money has to come in from somewhere in order to keep these services free and public. And that's where the taxes come in.

We are over-taxed. And now we are living through a crisis that many still fail to acknowledge to this day. FUEL PRICES!!!

Now, to those of you living outside Canada it's bad enough with record smashing prices that seem to increase daily. But if it's bad for you, it's critical where I live. The reason being because the taxes charged on the liter of refined gas are out of proportion. Right now, in the States, the price per liter is about 94 cents. Here in Montreal it's 1,40$!!! And those taxes collected from the fuel serve in large part to keep the free services, well, free*. So like you can see, nothing is free...

But it doesn't just end here. You can't just tell yourself that you'll bike to work everyday and end up saving on fuel. As the prices keep rising, the cost of living keeps rising including food, clothes and anything in between.

To hell and back. literally.

I know I promised myself to post on my blog daily, hence the title in latin "My daily word", but yesterday was completly out of the question. Here's why...

My buddy Alex and I went biking for what was supposed to be some easy warm-up session to all the biking we would do this summer. Well, it was anything but easy or relaxing or any other soothing adjective. We left West-Island at about 2:30 pm and decided we would go on a bike trail in the woods. Everything to that point went as planned. When we left the woods, we got lost. After about 20 minutes of biking nowhere we found a golf course. So we decided that we would go through it and inevitably it would lead to somewhere. While going through the course, we got stopped by security, after telling them we were lost, they escorted us to some exited. We biked some more untile we finally arrived into known territory: St-laurent city. But although we kind got lost and all with no wallets and ID on us I was sort of digging the adventure. So we decided to take it a notch further and try to go to Notre-Dame-des-Graces from Saint-Laurent. Which in theory is impossible because there is no road connecting the two cities, but there is a huge private property of some sort.

So we biked further into that private property which turned out to be the head-quarters to the Canadian National railway company, where they probably made trains and fueled them and all. Now we really got lost. Because that property was HUGE. we took over 30 minutes to bike through it before being chased down by a security SUV and being told that cops were lurking around and chasing intruders! Since we had no papers on us, if we were to be stopped by cops we would go to the station for sure! So we got directions on how to get out of there, but like you know, curiosity killed the cat right? So we decided to dismiss the instructions we were given and look around the corner of the road to search for an easier way out. What did we find? A beat down barbed wired fence which could be jumped with our bikes. We proceded past the fence and just further down the path in the woods leading from the fence we ended up in a huge park (the Centenial) which I used to play in alot when I was a kid groing up in NDG. From the start of our adventure up to that point almost 3 hours had passed and we had to rush back to Saint-Laurent because Alex had to teach swimming lessons. We biked on Jean-Talon then some street I don't quite remember the name up until Vanier-College. While on the street, through traffic, some old douche bag decided to make our life harder by suddenly braking in front of us and accelerating then suddenly braking again. We got pissed at him, spat on his windows and proceeded on the sidewalk where we could bike safely, with the madman following us on our tail!

After Alex was done teaching we went back to our respective homes, without much worries this time around and proceeded to go out clubbing later on with Alex's girlfriend and a bunch of people that I didn't know that were quite boring... (sitting down in the club...)

All in all, we biked for 6 hours, got chased by 2 security officers and 1 mad driver, we got lost twice, had no money or ID on us + the clubbing later on.

How things are run around here.

So I'm new to this blogging business. Actually not that new. I had a blog not too long ago on some other site, but it wasn't as successful as I initially thought and /or hoped it would be. I got discouraged real fast and gave up on the idea altogether because I had better things to do. Within the first week of use, I had maybe 2 readers. Later, after quiting, I learned that most people's blogs are not popular at all and that most of those mosts are even completely obscure and unknown . People blog first and foremost for themselves . It is a way to project yourself and your ideas towards the unknown. The WWW. It's in fact like some of the stuff the S.E.T.I people do. Sending messages in the outer space hoping some advanced alien life will intercept and make contact.

All of this really means that my mentality going into this is way different than the first time around. I don't really care whether I'm read or not (I actually do a bit), but I do this for myself and hoping that someone out there can rely to the stuff I post and make contact.