Photo credit: Steve Griffin, Salt Lake Tribune
The SOAR Blog didn’t give Real Salt Lake due attention and praise when the team won the Major League Soccer championship in the spring, but that doesn’t mean SOAR isn’t incredibly proud of its home team for bringing the State of Utah a professional sports championship title for the first time in 40 years.
It seems fitting that the influence of professional soccer in Utah, and in the United States, was recognized today by President Barak Obama in a brief ceremony honoring Real Salt Lake team at the White House. Joe Biden wasn’t there- he is heading up the contingency representing the U.S. at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa which is now less than a week away. One of Real Salt Lake’s players, Robbie Findley, will play with the U.S. team, which is a contender against Algeria, England and Slovenia.
Professional soccer is too often overlooked by North American spectators. World Cup engenders even more global enthusiasm than the Olympics in some regard- except in the United States. There are books, classes, experts, lectures galore on the global significance of “footy,” so I won’t belabor the topic here. We’re glad that with all of the other matters our presidency has to attend to that it would recognize the athletic power coming out of Salt Lake City and the importance of the World Cup.
Any chance Obama will vie for World Cup 2018 to be in the U.S. like he did for the Olympics? (2014 is already scheduled to be in Brazil).
See the Salt Lake Tribune article here
Last December David blogged about meeting US Ski Team mogul skier Shelly Robertson. Well, this weekend is the Deer Valley Resort Visa Freestyle Invitational and Shelly is in town.
When we first met Shelly she was returning home to Reno after taking 7th place in the women’s moguls competition at the 2008 World Cup season opener in Tignes, France. Since then we have traded emails back and forth with a plan to see her ski in person at the Deer Valley event.
After France, her next event was the Nature Valley Freestyle Cup on January 20 in Lake Placid, New York. I’m signed up for the US Ski Team email newsletter (You can sign up in the middle of the page at (www.usskiteam.com), and I saw that she took 5th place, so I sent her a congratulations email. She responded, “I was definitely excited about 5th- skiing really well- just went way too big on the bottom jump and almost over-rotated the backflip.” That statement turned out to be prophetic for her next event.
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I’m a huge fan of college football! But there’s no week I love better than the week of Thanksgiving. It’s when almost every college football team plays their own rivals.
In Utah, it’s no different. The rivalry game between No. 23 BYU and Utah has come to be known as “The Holy War” for the connection BYU has with the LDS Church (Mormon). With the schools located only 40 miles apart, pranks from each school have heated up the rivalry to fever pitch for years. Last year’s late-game heroics by now-NFL quarterback John Beck has only added fuel to the fire. There’s been nothing but trash talk between SLC and Provo for almost 12 full months now.
Here’s the clip that fueled the fire:
This year’s game should be even better. Each team is riding a seven-game win streak, with BYU looking to secure the top spot in the Mountain West Conference with a win, and the Utes looking to share a piece of the top spot with a win and a BYU loss at San Diego State.
If this year’s game is anything like last year’s, it will be awesome! Go Cougs!
(This game will be televised live on CSTV at noon MT.)
I admit it…I’m a Red Sox fan. I was glued to the Series, to my wife’s chagrin. And I enjoyed watching the Sox not only get back to the Fall Classic, but winning it for the second time in four years. However, in the midst of the whole enjoyable experience, I found myself wanting the Rockies to win at least a game. The feeling was borne of nothing but the desire to see the Sox continue to play. The thing that is sad is to see the season come to an end. Even though they hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy, they have to pack up their things and hibernate for the winter. It’s a bittersweet experience, from this fan’s perspective. Granted, I wouldn’t want it to end any other way. But at the same time, it’s hard to see it end.
Regardless, congratulations to the World Champions! Well done! Let’s do it again next year!
I’ve been putting off writing something for our blog for a couple of reasons. One, life here at SOAR has been incredibly busy. Our biggest client, Interbike, is having their annual bicycle tradeshow in Las Vegas in 4 days and we have spent the last couple of months ramping up for that. The other reason is, I’m new to blogging, and I wasn’t sure I had anything interesting or significant to post. Now I do.
I’m bummed. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found Landis guilty of doping (see AP story here). I haven’t ridden regularly in a while, but I’m still an avid fan of cycling and racing. My wife and I cheered loudly at the TV during Stage 17 of the 2006 Tour, only to stare silently again later while learning that Landis was accused of doping.
I’m not even going to pretend to understand the facts surrounding the case and spout my opinion here in this post. I’m just bummed for Landis, racers in general and for recreational cyclists and potential recreational cyclists who might think twice about participating in a tainted activity.
The news about Landis will make for an interesting next few weeks, especially with the industry’s largest trade show, Interbike, and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Championships taking place at the same time. I’m sure everyone will be talking about the verdict and will have an opinion.
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