Vancouver Whitecaps vs Minnesota FC United
July 28th, 2018
BC Place
Dudes trip 2018! We have been all over the country, and in some of the cities I have convinced the boys to see a game with me. In Austin Greg and I travelled up to Arlington for a Rangers game, in Portland I got Pete to join me at a Timbers match, so when we decided on Vancouver I threw out the possibility of going when the Whitecaps had a game and they said yes!
I headed up to Canada on Friday on Alaska and was that ever a shit show. From Seattle to Vancouver it is about 35 minutes in the air. The weather was perfect so I should have landed around 11am. When we got on the plane we were told that because the skies we so nice too many planes were headed to that airport and therefore we were going to be delayed. After two announcements (the first an hour and 30 minutes on the ground, so I got off the plane which took 25 minutes for us to scan our tickets) and the second hour on the plane, I finally landed around 3pm. One of the many good things about Vancouver is the metro system. I was able to quickly jump on a train and head directly to the hotel in about 25 minutes. Before I knew it I was on an elevator with the boys and heading out to the local breweries.
On Saturday, after a good morning run around the east side of the island and some great grub, we headed to the game vs MN United FC. It was gay pride night which in other stadiums actually causes a lot of issues with the “fans”, but up here everyone was cool with the celebrations. The players uniforms had their numbers and names in rainbow colors and the fans had a large player stat posterboard with a color on the back. When we were prompted the whole stadium lifted up their color and the arena was a huge rainbow, pretty cool to see.
The game started off slow. It seemed like both teams were feeling each other out for the first 35 minutes. Lots of short passes to keep possession and not a lot of set plays. It finally opened up when Yordy Reyna received a great pass from 17 year old Aphonso Davies for a pretty goal to put the Whitecaps up 1-0 before the half. The second started quickly for Vancouver when Davies put the ball in for his 3rd of the year in the 56th minute to huge ovation from the crowd. 12 minutes later Davis once again fed substitute Kei Kamara for a 3-0 lead and possible blowout in front of the massive crowd. We were loving it because all the goals were being scored on our end and the players celebrations were no more than 50 feet from us. I also got some great live shots with my phone of the action. In the 82ndand 87th minutes MN quickly struck for 2 goals and all of a sudden there was a hush in the stadium with fears that the home time would implode, but once again the star of the night Davies got his and the teams 4th goal of the night which is how the game ended, 4-2 Vancouver. Davies with 2 goals and 2 assists was brilliant and the crowd went home happy.
As for the stadium, this place is massive. I think it was built for the Olympics and they have concerts, football, the women’s world cup final was here. For this match they covered the top half so all the fans had pretty good seats. There isn’t really anything exciting in the stadium, but outside there are some cool statues of Terry Fox, the man who in 1980 attempted to run across Canada on an artificial leg. Also just the look of the stadium is really cool. With the sails it resemble a few building on the waterfront and makes for a majestic picture from across the rivers.
Finally, and most importantly for me, the most fun part of the game (which us dudes will always use moving forward). After each goal the announcer would scream the first name of the player and the fans would scream back the last name. He would do this twice in a normal cadence, and the last one the announcer would elongate the players name. Alphonso! Davies! Alphonso! Davies!
