Tough End to the Timbers Season

Standing in PGE Park on Sunday afternoon after the Timbers match, my emotions were all over the place after the result. My beloved team, the team with a 24 game unbeaten streak, a top ranked defense, the top ranked offense, playing in front of a rabid 14,000 person crowd in PGE Park where they'd won 10 of 15 games during the season, and the team drew with the Vancouver Whitecraps at 3 all. Unfortunately, they'd lost 2 to 1 up in Vancouver on Thursday night, and since the series was total goals, the Timbers were done and the Craps were advancing to an all Canada USL-1 final.

 

How we got this point was a rather interesting ride, from the original email that I got from the Craps front office on Wednesday, Sept 23rd offering me tickets up there if the Craps had won their first round series, which would have meant the Timbers, ranked number one in the playoffs, would be paired to face them. I had been covering the playoffs from the first round, and sure enough, the upsets hit as the Craps knocked off the RailHawks, while Puerto Rico and Montreal survived to then face each other.

 

My Monday was spent talking with my boss to work out vacation time to drive up to Burnaby. I'd also been busy with my other blogging, keeping track of results and figuring out all the possible scenarios. Thankfully, he gets my obsession with the Timbers, and since I had the time, I worked it out to be off Thursday and Friday to drive up to Burnaby, then be back in time on Saturday for a birthday dinner, then Sunday for two soccer matches, my TAFC match and the Timbers second leg at home. Nothing like having a crazy schedule, but it's how things work for girl and I. We're going 100 miles an hour or we're going zero, there's not a happy medium.

 

Wednesday (9/30), I finished up the tasks I needed to leave work for two days, and then headed off to have an eye exam. I personally love to have doctors dilate my eyes and ask me repeatedly what works clearer, one or two, over and over again. Girl was having her appointment at the same point with the same doctor, and so we were both able to confirm our eyes are healthy and they aren't going to fall out of our heads anytime soon. I soon whisked off to Jiffy Lube to get the car serviced and some road snacks. Girl was working on things at home to get things sorted in our room, as we tried to get our stuff set up for an eventual giveaway/garage sale at some future point.

 

We awoke Thursday morning (10/1) at 8 AM and got our final tasks around the house settled, including saying good bye to our cats and getting our gear packed up. I'd put together a lot of stuff the preceding night, so there wasn't much to do except get in the car and go once we got breakfast and coffee ready. We left the house at 9:30 AM with the goal to arrive in Burnaby by 5 PM in time to check in to Ramada Inn MetroTown, eat a bit, and then be at the game for the 7:30 PM kick.

 

I-205 wasn't too backed up, and girl took the first shift of driving. We were making decent time as the morning traffic had cleared up, and we were left with trucks and random senior drivers on the road. Trucks are big, and tend to drive rather defensively, but can't move very quickly, much like seniors in their driving skill, so we got caught behind some cars at points. Once we cleared out of I-205, it became apparent that a few driving rules that we've seen for years heading north would apply:

• Washingtonians will drive in any lane they want, as slow as they want. This even means driving in the far left lane usually reserved for faster traffic. It never ceased to amaze me how many times someone was driving 72 in the fast lane with the speed limit at 70.
• Washingtonians will pass in any lane, including the far right. We got passed a lot to the right, as apparently it was OK to do 90 in the far right lane. I'd love to see the driver's manual in Washington to see what the rules say.
• There's a specific ethnic group that is labeled as being terrible drivers, and when we got caught behind slow drivers or erratic drivers, they represented this group every time. Their food is pretty good if it's free of MSG, but they can't drive worth anything. We had no less than 4 different incidents with drivers of this group, and each one got more and more crazy the further north we got.

Thankfully, the rule of the express lanes in Shittle being in the wrong direction didn't apply going north, as we flew through there rather easily. As a matter of fact, we arrived in Bellingham just after 2 PM, even with a couple of stops for food and loo use, and for me to take over driving. We always have to stop at Scatter Creek, as it's a TA rule to stop there, and just around 3 PM, we hit the US - Canada border.

 

We actually talked with US officials just before the border crossing, who checked our passports and asked us a few questions about our trip north. They even knew about girl's high school mascot, and asked about the Oregon Native sticker on our car, so they were paying attention. As we were waived forward, we moved to Canada customs, and they asked us why we were going up there. Upon mentioning the soccer game, the official asked us if we were rooting for the Craps, and when we said no, he said you can't come into the country. Girl then said she loved the Craps, and I said the fans were good guys. Plus, as girl put it, you aren't Shittle, which the official then said "We can agree upon that. Have a good time", and we were off. I love border stops in 10 minutes or less.

 

We entered Burnaby at 4 PM after a short stint on Highway 1, and checked into our hotel. The same clerk that has been there for years was there, and actually remembered me from previous visits, so the check in was really easy. We got settled in our room in the west wing, and the weather was a bit chilly but still pleasant for a fall day. We'd heard it was a 95 percent chance that it would rain tonight, and so we'd prepared by bringing rain gear and sweatshirts to keep warm. Girl had also brought a bottle of wine, which we consumed in our room in a matter of moments. We soon headed to the Jaguar Pub for some pre-game drinks and food.

 

Because we've determined that girl is gluten intolerant, we spend a lot of time checking menus to make sure she doesn't end up with food that is going to make her sick. We chose a Caesar salad and potato skins, taking out the croutons, while I got a large burger to fill my stomach. While the drinks were strong, the waitress forgot one of girl's drinks and then noticed that the croutons were left on the salad while girl was picking them off, yet she never offered to take the salad back or discount us for the mistake. I soon realized that her tip was dwindling, because that's the kind of mistakes that could cause long term issues. Once the drink was

 

We soon wandered to the stadium, which is one of the nicer stadiums in the USL. Swangard is a natural grass stadium, and a smaller surface, and you are really close the field, thus making smaller crowds loud. We got our tickets, settled into the TA section, and prepared for the match. While the first half was reasonably entertaining, the Timbers didn't play exceptionally well but were still in it tied at 1. It was then the heavens opened up, and the rumoured rain hit hard. It was rain that was coming up and down and sideways, yet because girl and I brought rain pants and a jacket, we put our gear on and we were fine. It was amazing to watch people scramble to find cover, yet the TA crowd stayed put for the half just getting wet. I never got cold once, but was worried that the rain would adversely affect the Timbers' performance.

 

The second half saw the Craps get an early goal, and then the rain was broken up by a fog caused by smokebombs from the Southsiders, which caused the field visibility to be questionable for most of the second half. I have no issues with smoke bombs themselves, but setting them off for no reason was just dumb, much less in a way to cause visibility issues. The game ended with the Craps winning 2 to 1, and the Craps fans were more than happy to let us know who won. One fan was escorted out by security as he tried to dance in front of us with his scarf, and when security tried to make him stop, he tried to hit the security officer. Not exactly smart.

 

Girl and I ended up heading to Safeway near our hotel to pick up things for breakfast in the morning, and because we dressed casual, we could move about the crowd without being identified as Timbers fans. We completed our shopping, ate a bit of food back in our room while chilling in front of the TV, and we ended up asleep by 1 AM.

 

Friday morning came, and I'd slept Ok, but girl was kept up by the thunder and lightning, plus the curtains let in some light that hit her right in her face, so we moved slowly about to get ready to go. We wanted to leave by 9 AM, but we ended up leaving at 11 AM after eating, checking email, showering, and collecting our stuff. I took the first shift of driving, but with girl being groggy and her back giving her issues, I was ready to make the drive myself if needed.

 

The drive really didn't have much issue early, as we got through customs with little issue and time, but we hit construction around Bellingham that delayed us a bit. We stopped to allow me to eat a sandwich, then made a quick Taco Bell stop in Tulalip so girl could get some foods, and then we hit the clusterf**k of traffic in Shittle. Everett was backed up, North Shittle was slow, including a car that was in the mediam turned the wrong way in the south bound lanes, downtown Shittle was awful, the express lanes were heading north, Tacoma was crappy, Fife was bad, even Olympia was terrible. We hit every bad stretch of traffic everywhere, and it took almost 3 hours just to make this area. Once we got loose of the traffic, we made good time to get home by 6:30 PM, which meant it took us about 7 and 1/2 hours to get down, but it was about 6 hours going north. The express lanes make that much difference.

 

Saturday, we took girl's mom to Hawthorne Fish House for her birthday to try the gluten free food, and it was awesome. The food was very tasty and good portions, the help was extremely attentive, and it was reasonably priced, and girl's brothers were able to join up as well. It was nice to meet up as family, and celebrate the birthday. We'd slept in a bit on Saturday from the drive, and our Saturday night was even more mellow, as I worked on my blog for match 1 while getting to bed early because I had a TAFC match at 9:30 AM in Gresham.

 

Our TAFC match went pretty well, as we lost 2 to 1, but there were a couple of issues. I was involved in what turned out to be the winning goal for our opponents, as I got caught flat footed in the back and they stole the ball from me, and turned it into a quick goal. However, this was at about 30 minutes in, so we had plenty of time to earn a tying goal. And we held them scoreless in the second half, this being the top team in the table. Not bad, and I was feeling optimistic about the Timbers match later that day.

 

My story of the match is at my other blog home, but it was an amazing, roller coaster emotional day. I was happy, sad, angry, hopeful, excited, crushed, and ecstatic all within a 2 hour period as this crazy match unfolded. I really felt good about our chances in this match, but in the end, the Craps did enough to keep the score level and give them the series win. And I salute them for their efforts, as they are very good fans and classy in wins or losses. I'm not sure who I want to win the USL Final, but it should be an entertaining series if you watch what the Craps and Montreal did to get to this point.

 

As I sat around Sunday night, I really wasn't sure how to feel as my emotions were all over the place. My schedule is now cleared out as we move to the offseason, and I can concentrate on my remaining games for the TAFC and bowling one night a week. I'll still blog a bit about off season news for the Timbers, because there will be news relating to player movement, stadium developments, and other things to report on, but at the same point, I didn't want this special year to end. I'm proud of the boys, but I wasn't looking forward to the offseason until later this month. That's the crazy thing about sports, you can't always predict how things will turn out, but you keep coming back because of it.

What Were You Doing at Age 14?

What were you doing at age 14? After reading this piece, it made me think of what I was doing at that age. I was trying to find my voice in the midst of dealing with family issues because of divorce, growing up in southern Idaho in the early 1980's. Cable TV was still fairly a new development, computers had just entered the classroom, and I was scared to death about talking to a girl. Of those things, only the last thing still provides some mystery to me, but I can't imagine dealing with another life at 14, much less the decisions that kids have to make at that point.

Kids today try so hard to become adult, wanting to take on more responsibility for the choices they make and the situations they put themselves into, yet most of them have no clue about the potential ramifications of their decisions. There is a wonderful feeling you get at that age when you start to run things in your life a bit more, choosing your friends and clothes, and it makes you feel more independent, more responsible, more adult. But yet you can still have moments of being a kid, not worrying about where your next meal is coming from, where your stuff is at, what pressures and realities are going on in the world. It's a odd combination of having responsibility with having the world's best safety net there when things fall apart, parents and other adults.

Yet we live in a world of adults have millions of people that make one wrong choice, and their lives are suddenly turned inside out. The demands of the world are suddenly your concern, and consequences that were first ignored or not considered are staring you right in the face in the form of another person, an addiction, or some other entity, and unlike other things, they don't exactly go away if you wish really hard.

As much as I love living in our world of instant communication and wondrous technology, I wonder whether we've traded these gifts for a bit of the innocence or insulation that previous generations treasure. And I realize that I'm in the generation that bridges the younger group of "i want it now, why can't I have it" with the older generation of "back in our days, we didn't have this". I can see the wonders we all have right now, but I can also see the lure of simpler times and issues.

Which is why it's more important that ever to share stories like this one, and we as human beings continue to interact and learn more about each other all the time. With computers and technology, it's easy to become insular and uncaring, thinking that it's awesome to have 1,000 Facebook friends. But of such a large group, could you really count on those people if you were really in a jam, needing money, help or support? I may have a large group of friends in the FB reality, but I know all of them personally, even if the interactions have been short or it's been years since I've seen some of them. It's about fostering relationships, and investing time in people by sharing of yourself, and it's a lesson I'm glad I learned at that age. Now if I could have only mastered algebra, I'd really be on my game...

EDIT - Congrats to Mandjou Keita, Ryan Pore, Steve Cronin, David Hayes and Cameron Knowles from the Portland Timbers on their all league honors from the USL. Keita, Pore, Cronin and Hayes were all names to the USL First Division First Team (called the USL-1 All League Team), while Knowles was selected to the USL First Division Second Team. The Timbers head north to Vancouver for game 1 of their two game series with the Vancouver Whitecaps tomorrow night, and I'll be heading up there with girl. Should be a fun game, despite our historical troubles up there. I'll have a report at my other blog home.

And if you really wanted to learn more about the Timbers Army and what we are all about, read my good friend Shawn Levy's take on soccer fans and hooligans. It's one of the best pieces I've read about this subject in quite a while.

Principle vs. Moments in Time - Who Wins?

I've always hated the term "It's the principle!!" when it comes to people being right about things. Often times if it's the principle, it thinly veils the need for someone to be right at all costs, even if the situation doesn't immediately warrant being right. The whole principle concept really becomes apparent in two arenas, the courtroom and on the sports field. There's dozens of lawsuits over the most trivial things out there, but because people feel they need to prove their point at any cost, so the cases live on and cost everyone time, energy, and money.

Whether it's a need to feed the ego or the desire to be proven right, I've never understood the need to fight something on principle. Life doesn't always operate that fairly, especially in sports, where much of the situation depends upon human involvement, and last time I checked, we aren't perfect creatures. Officials and umpires make calls based on what they see, and more often than not, they're spot on in making the right call. It's the times where they miss something when the arguments about principle come out of the woodwork.

I learned really early that officials aren't always right when during my 7th grade track career, my relay team was disqualified because I ran out of the lane. Or at least that's what I was told when we finished in the top 3 spots and I thought we were due a long earned ribbon for a job well done. My excitement came crashing down when the officials disqualified my team because I had stepped over the lane marker in a 4 by 100 meter mixed relay (2 guys and 2 girls). The principle argument came up later in the meet when the same official found me, and admitted they had flagged the wrong team, as he mistakenly thought I was the guilty party, but it was the guy in the next lane. Principle would have dictated the race should have been rerun, and we get another chance to run the race for the elusive ribbon, but by the time the mistake was found out, the meet was almost done and so the mistake stood. I had to live with the fact that my team was one of the top 3 teams that day, but didn't have the award to show for my work.

It's hard not to find many of these instances for anyone that has participated in sports at any level for any period of time. We all expect integrity and honesty from the people calling our games, but yet everything breaks loose if they miss a call or call something that doesn't appear to be there. We have trust in the guys and gals calling the games when things are right, but let them miss something and it's a crime that must be punished. And so you have stories about officials being punished for making mistakes, sometimes extremely severely.

I get that we need to hold people accountable for their performance, and part of the reason we have such punishments now is because of some grievous mistakes or officials with personal issues affecting their judgment. Ok, gambling problems is really an extreme description for a personal issue, but when officials have integrity questions, it causes havoc for everyone else as actions get scrutinized more significantly, even if the official doesn't have a history of issues.

The Internet has been showing a lot of angles about a baseball game on Sunday between the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals. The Rockies are fighting for their playoff lives, and got the benefit of a call to end the game on Sunday, where it appears that infielder Clint Barmes may or may not have caught the ball to end the game. The umpires made the call that the catch was made, and the game ended, but that hasn't stopped the web from running the subject into the ground, saying the Rockies got away with another one.

The video seems to support people who use principle as their prime argument: the catch was missed and therefore the game should be replayed at that point. It's a simple solution that makes so much sense, but yet what do we gain if we follow that course. You'd have to pull together both teams to pick up the game in the heat of a pennant race, and restart things from that point. This doesn't account for the fact that Colorado still had an at bat left, and could have won the game in the bottom of the ninth. You don't know what might have happened if the game was called correctly, but now we can stand on principle of knowing the truth.

Even if that truth doesn't change anything. The Rockies still get the win to help their cause for the wild card race, the Cardinals are in the playoffs already so the result doesn't hurt them, and the schedule moves on. It's not fair, but at the same time, it's exactly what life is and what sports needs to be at certain points. The better team doesn't always win, the officials don't always get the call right, the scheduling isn't always fair, it's how things work. It would be nice if there was a way to impartially decide things like this, but even in sports that have computers help with calls like tennis, you still have disputes about calls.

I'm not stupid enough to advocate we all go Pollyanna with sports and that arguments like this need to be squashed. I'm just asking that sports fans take a moment of perspective and realize that in the grand scheme of things, calls help teams and calls hurt teams, and if you really look at the situation, nobody benefits anymore or less than anyone else. If you need to be proven right after every bad call that is put up there on the board to make you feel better about your team, I'd expect your sanity to be tested a lot over the years. There's more money in sports, and more attention about results and playoffs, and we'll see this happen more and more. Part of the character of sports is dealing with adversity, and showing class and sportsmanship in victory or defeat.

If you need any lessons in dealing with sports and integrity, just look closely at the West Ham United – Manchester City match on Monday. Carlos Tevez, an Argentinean player, had joined City during the offseason, but was an instrumental player in keeping West Ham out of relegation back in the 2006 – 2007 season. We've since learned about the other legal issues behind Tevez since then, but the simple reality is that West Ham owes Tevez a great deal, as he scored 8 goals to keep the Hammers in the Premiership. As Tevez notched a goal in the 5th minute of the match, he turned to the Hammers supporters and gave them a sheepishly apologetic wave of acknowledgement before his teammates joined him in celebration.

Tevez could have rubbed the moment into Hammers fans, but instead turned the situation into a wonderfully thoughtful, apologetic moment. It's not fair that Tevez left the Hammers, much less left the squad in a legal quagmire about his status that they are still paying for to this day, but the reality is that he moved on. For one magical moment, Tevez acknowledged his former fans and his former club in his triumph, but he did it in a rather classy way. Mistakes were made, sure, but the transcendent moment shared gave everyone a moment to forget the troubles and just be in the moment. And as far as sports are concerned, we should all remember that important lesson. Principle might be nice, but momentous moments are more inspiring.

Apparently, You Have to Have Smarts to Use Pom-Poms

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it and read it in print. The Dallas Cowboys give their prospective cheerleading candidates a written quiz that helps in the selection process each year. You could be an amazing dancer with incredible energy, but show the intelligence of a house plant, and there’s a good chance you won’t be picked as a Cowboys cheerleaders. Never mind the instant hypocrisy of having this quiz given to the women on the team but none of the football staff, it just strikes me as having a complete different standard for some employees than others.

I get that it’s important for prospective football players to have talent and a rudimentary knowledge of football terms and plays, but these guys also get interviewed in public all the time. So why not test them to show some smarts, or at least the ability to carry on a simple conversation when needed as part of the draft process? The Wunderlich test does some of this, but it’s also determined that this test doesn’t measure football performance, which is still the benchmark for making personnel decisions. Character and poise, while important characteristics, don’t matter as much for some teams if you have talent and speed. Well, unless you want to shake pom-poms apparently.

Congratulations are due to Mandjou Keita of the Portland Timbers, who won the 2009 scoring title with his 11 goal, 7 assist performance this year. It has been a very special year for the lads in green and white, and it’s great to see Keita get some recognition for his work this season. I haven’t covered the team as much lately here because of my other work on the Interwebs, but you are always welcome to check out my work there. We still have a playoff season to cover, and I plan to post some regular entries over the winter about player news, team news, and anything Timbers related on my blog home there. I’m happy to be doing it, and still keep things going over here writing about whatever things I like. I just like writing, and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy putting it together.

Finally, the Oregon football team continues to make news this year, and not just because of their recovery from the Boise State debacle and the aftermath. News recently surfaced that a Duck alumnus who was frustrated at the team’s performance in Boise wrote football coach Chip Kelly, and asked for a refund of his travel expenses. Kelly contacted the letter writer to confirm his address, and then sent him a check to reimburse him for his travel expenses.

The alum, Tony Seminary, didn’t know what to expect when he got a response to his letter asking for his address. When he received the check, he made a copy of it for display, and then sent it back to Kelly with a note of thanks. It takes quite a bit of guts to not only read your hate mail, but to put up your own money to back your program shows some confidence in what’s going on, too. But then again, we’ve already heard about what Kelly is as a coach and person. Even with the craziness of losing to the Broncos to start the season and dealing with the end of game drama, Kelly showed remarkable courage and fortitude to pick up his players after the result, and make his point that one game doesn’t make a season. Having a nationally syndicated columnist follow you during your first game as a head football coach in the Pac 10 would be stressful enough, but then add in the other factors, and you see how extraordinary Kelly is. He’s showing me an incredible fortitude and belief in his program and players, and I think Oregon will be just fine once the dust settles. Winning starts with having a leader to believe in, and I have no doubt the Ducks football team has that person running the show. It’s going to be a fun ride watching this group take flight.

The Fall Weather Is Coming!! And With It, The Boo-Birds are out!!

I have a great deal of respect for the folks at SI. They've been covering sports for years, and being relevant for this much time, especially after the explosion of the Internet and other competitors, is pretty impressive. However, in the zeal to be on their game, they really missed the boat about the MLS effort in Portland. With things changing so much this summer with stadium plans, financing, the state of the Beavers, and other things, I know there's a lot of things to cover about the topic, but you can't do better than talking about events that happened months ago as if it was today? All I can say about this is wow.

In the same thread of talking about sportsmanship and integrity, I've heard a lot of talk lately about sports fans booing at games, and there's been a lot of talk about the conduct of fans at high school, college and youth sports. There's been a movement of sorts to try and keep the boos away from the young kids and unpaid amateurs, because in most cases, they are giving their all out there.

It's a tough dilemma for sure, because some fans think buying a ticket gives them the right to do anything they want, and for my viewing of Timbers matches, I sit in the middle of the section of fans that sing, chant, and cheer the entire match. I know there are fans that don't like what we do, and as much as I try to be a good fan, I'll admit I've booed the team at times because of performance. I don't feel badly about booing professionals, especially since they are paid for their efforts. Ok, some players aren't played as well as others, but I think that being a professional means taking the good with the bad, and you get adoring and angry fans.

I wished that some fans would behave with some decorum, but booing isn't nearly as bad as other things fans could do to show their voice about what's going on with the field. Besides, if you really read the disclaimer on any sporting ticket, every team and venue includes a clause that says the venue has complete control over conduct, language of signs and banners, and such. Free speech doesn't immediately give you carte blanche to make a complete jerk of yourself at a sporting event, as you could be ejected at any point if it gets that bad.

Where the line hits for me is conduct at other events, like youth events, high school, and things like that. Kids play games because they want to be part of a team, learn skills, perhaps earn a scholarship for college, or just be with friends, and as such, it's important to keep results and conduct in perspective. If you are throwing profanity at an official or coach of a little league baseball team for a missed call, are you really providing support for your child or just taking the whole thing too seriously?

I get there's a lot of pressure out there now, as parents often times see sports as a way for the kids to pay for their future, and so they push their kids to be the best. While I admire that tenacity, it's important to allow kids to be kids, and play sports because it's fun. It's also important to learn the lessons of sports, like respecting your opponent and officials, working together with your teammates, pushing yourself to do your best, and how to win or lose gracefully. Yes, we do keep score, but the lessons of sports for youths is more important than the score.
The only slippery slope is college, because for me, I can see both sides of the argument. Colleges are full of young people who are trying to learn the same lessons as noted above, and they might be paid a scholarship and other benefits for their efforts on the field, yet colleges are treating some programs as near professional in their program and approach. You might have paid or unpaid kids giving their all out there, and if things don't go right, does that give you the right to boo?

If you use the argument of booing the coaches, that might be worthy of the situation because coaches are well paid for what they do. But do you need to do it when the athletes are out there? And being paid a scholarship to play ball, is that enough to consider college students paid, meaning that it's probably OK to boo. For me, I don't see enough about college to convince me that it's OK to boo while there. The unintended consequences of booing while the game is going on if you are angry with the coach still means that athletes will hear it, and I don't care how strong a person you are, but hearing boos raining down on you would register with most people. Professionals deal with things like this day in and day out, but college athletes shouldn't have to deal with it.

Finally, the Portland Trail Blazers announced a change in ticket policy, as they will now charge slightly different prices for single game tickets, depending on opponent, day of the week, and other factors. This has been part of the ticket standard for many sports for years, as the English Premiership has had a form of tiered pricing for many years, as the more attractive matchups would be more popular for purchasing. However, these standards are usually set before the season. For the Trail Blazers' model, they will adjust pricing each week as the season progresses for any available tickets. They've announced that the price won't fall to less than what a season ticket or multi game ticket holder pays for their package, as they will push static pricing for tickets as an advantage to buying tickets in a bundle like this.

I'm surprised that this hasn't happened before with other sports and teams, although I've seen that the University of Portland does charge a slightly different price for tickets to see Gonzaga at Chiles than they do other WCC games. If you have a game that potentially could be a big deal with top flight competition or billboard type players, I think teams should be able to charge a slightly higher price for more in-demand games. What I hope is that they will practice some restraint so to not gauge fans to make more money just because they can. Teams already have a lot of revenue streams, and it's important to keep this idea from really becoming a huge distraction.