TorontoUltras.net - Lynx Press Conference Coverage

[Ryan Keay]

From TorontoUltras.net:

Lynx Announce 2005 Roster at Season Opening Press Conference

Today at the Toronto Airport Travelodge, the Toronto Lynx held their annual season opening press conference for the 2005 season. Toronto media appeared in amazingly full force with only TSN notable by its absence.

The main focus of the press conference was the announcement of the roster for the upcoming season. Unlike previous seasons, most of the roster was shrouded in secrecy leading up to todays press conference. Most notable were the major changes in defense with former Whitecap Jeremie Piette leading the way. Piette will not be the only recent Whitecap on the roster, with Jamaican international attacker Winston Griffiths being signed on a season long loan from Jamaican club Arnitt Gardens FC. The midfield was also bolstered with the destructive talents of Rick Titus set to take centre stage in the middle of the pitch.

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Photos of the event and the rest of this story can be found at http://www.torontoultras.net/. Interviews with Lynx captain Joe Mattacchione and Rick Titus are also available in Real Audio format.

[Free kick]

Was Dave Perkins there?

I'll bet he wasn't. It seems that he is only interested in the Lynx when there's talk of MLS comming to town.

[Free kick]

Was Dave Perkins there?

I'll bet he wasn't. It seems that he is only interested in the Lynx when there's talk of MLS comming to town.

[Ryan Keay]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

Was Dave Perkins there?

I'll bet he wasn't. It seems that he is only interested in the Lynx when there's talk of MLS comming to town.

Someone mentioned someone from the Star was there... definitely not Perkins tho. He is a baseball writer though, isnt he? That would explain why he would be against the new stadium, as it would steal all important tenants from the Dome [:0].

[Ryan Keay]

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

Was Dave Perkins there?

I'll bet he wasn't. It seems that he is only interested in the Lynx when there's talk of MLS comming to town.

Someone mentioned someone from the Star was there... definitely not Perkins tho. He is a baseball writer though, isnt he? That would explain why he would be against the new stadium, as it would steal all important tenants from the Dome [:0].

[Rocket Robin]

Details from the Toronto Lynx press conference of Tuesday April 19th, 2005 held at the Travelodge Hotel Dixie in Toronto at 11:00am.

The conference was called to order at 11:30am by the Lynx's new Technical Consultant Dick Howard who acted as master of ceremonies. He first introduced the head table of head coach Hubert Busby Jr, assistant coach Lyndon Hooper, team captain Joe Mattachione, and Premier Academy & Super Y League director Duncan Wilde. He gave thanks to the sponsers including Oakville Nisson (car dealership) who now have their logo imprinted on the front of the Lynx uniforms.

He outlined the set up of the renamed USL First Division which now has twelve teams and six make the playoffs after the regular season's 28 game schedule.

New head coach Hubert Busby Jr was introduced and had some comments. He said he is from the Toronto area and it was always his dream to coach a team he had once played for. He said it would be 'difficult' to make the playoffs but he thanked team owners The Hartrells for leaving him to mould the team. It won't be good enough to got through the motions, the players will play on pride between the white lines. He has brought back experience players for their leadership.

Next introduced was returning captain Joe Mattachione who said he was honoured to be captain. He likes the mix of experience and new players. He won't make any predictions but is confident. He thanked the Hartrells, teammates, the new Lady Lynx etc.

Busby then introduced the 2005 players in attendance:

Theo Zagar as starting goalkeeper is returning after playing for the Rochester Raging Rhinos last year.

Rick Titus as a defender. (he played a one game for the Lynx in 2004 but was a mainstay on the 1997 and 1998 teams before playing for other A-League teams in between).

Carl Fletcher as a defender. (hasn't played for the Lynx before but is a veteran of many other A-League teams).

Sean Faria returns as a defender. He has recovered from the injuries that kept him out of the lineup for half the season.

Andre Arango returns as a defender.

Rumba Munthali returns as a defender.

David DiPlacido returns as a midfielder.

Conrad Smith is new to the team. He is a forward from Trinidad who played for Calgary Mustangs of the A-League in 2004.

Sean Fraser is new to the team. He is from Edmonton and played for the Aviators of the A-League in 2004. He was described as being the fastest man on the team.

Jamie Dodds returns as a midfielder after having a breakthough season last year..

Dave Simpson is new to the team. He is a forward and played for the CPSL Hamilton Thunder for part of 2004.

Niels Dekker is new to the team. He is a midfielder from the Netherlands but has Canadian citizenship.

Josue Mayard returns as a defender.

Ali Gerba returns as a forward.

Robin Hart is new to the team. He played half a season for the Edmonton Aviators of the A-League last year.

Jeremie Piette is new to the team. He is an American and played half a season with Vancouver Whitecaps of the A-League last season.

Paulo Silva returns to the Lynx after a year's absence as the goalkeeping coach.

Lyndon Hooper is the assistant coach. He has been a player for the Toronto Lynx in their early years.

Duncan Wilde was the Lynx head coach in 2004 and is now the director of the team's Premier Academy & Super Y-League teams.

Also listed on the team's roster but absent for today were:

Richard Goddard returns as a goalie. He is from Trinidad and Tobago.

Winston Griffiths is new to the team. He is a midfielder/forward who played the full season in 2004 for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Huffman El Tabe is new to the team. He is a midfielder and was born in Cameroon and played for Ottawa St Anthony's Italia in 2004 which Busby coached.

The players than grouped together for a group picture which was tight for such a small room and some rows of chairs had to be moved.

Dick Howard returned to praise Dr Robert Gringmuth and his medical team. He also named and thanked the Lynx front office. The Hartrell's were not in attendance. He said hello to the CPSL league's media director Stan Adamson who was here today. He praised the great development system of the USL's Y-Leagues. The Lynx will by next year have ten development teams in the different age groups men's and women's soccer.

Duncan Wilde was introduced and stressed the academy program was very important for development. Last year their boy's U-17 and U-19 teams won division championships and lost in the playoff semi-finals. The boy's U-16 team has already won the Kanata Cup earlier this winter. He introduced the captains from the U-15, U-16, U-17 boys team and the U-17 coach and the captain from the girls U-16 team.

Dick Howard finished by saying this was the 9th year of operation and they will play their 250th game this year. A scramble in the audience ensued when he said whoever found a Lynx business card under their chair has just won a copy of the FIFA history DVD. The press conference was all over by 12:05pm just in time for a buffet lunch. Players and coaches stayed around for one on one interviews.

There were no players nor coaches from the Lady Lynx. Seeing how small the room was another 30 people would have brought the fire marshall calling. With players and staff and media there may have been about 70 people here.

I spoke to Duncan Wilde about a scenario where they may discover a talented 16 year old like a player who debuted for the Everton (England) first team last week. Wilde said that would be possible for the Lynx to do however the player would lose his NCAA college eligibility. There is still a four year gap between the end of their U-19 program and a post college age pro team. He said Lynx need to get a PDL team because players could retain their amateur status. After college, any graduate would enter the USL draft which means after six years of the Lynx developing a player, the Montreal Impact could step in and draft him.

At the buffet my table compared notes of who was here from the media today. There were five cameras recording this conference including CFMT, and Global (well that was the label on their equipment), and Sportsnet for footage for their SoccerCentral show. The FAN590 radio was there conducting interviews. Biggest surprise was seeing 'The Bear' Alan Ryan, The Toronto Star newspaper's baseball guy taking notes. They gave the team no coverage last year. USL writer for Toronto Rob Lynch was there. Frequent Voyageurs message board posters the Keay brothers were there. That was Ryan who had his picture in the Star at the NBA Raptors game on the weekend. With his picture also in the paper last Fall at the Grey Cup game, I said if he ever made the Star for being at a Lynx game, the world woulld really end. That was before I saw Alan Ryan. JOHNN from the old Voyageurs Network 54 board was there and enjoying talking to new Dutch/Canadian player Niels Dekker. Inside Soccer publisher Alfons Rubbens was there. Pete Irving from The FAN590 World Sports report also there. Leno Terra from the Ontario Soccer Web also here.

I seemed to be the only person fooled by re-reading an old e-mail from the Lynx that the press conference would be held at the Travelodge Hotel Yorkville at 10:00am. When I got out there by 9:30am, I found the hotel was closed and the building was being converted to condos. I found a telephone at a donut shop and started calling the Toronto Lynx phone number and pressing extension numbers. Everybody was on voice mail which was understandable at they'd all be at the press conference. I drove all the way home to double check my mail again. Yep I'd read that right! This was a real low point as it comes on top of my internet provider being so slow to process a rather simple request that I wanted to buy a larger webspace for my web site. (My advise, stay away from WINTEL). All the favours I called in to get the day off from work and what would I say tomorrow? Last chance and I phoned the Lynx office and ran down the ten extension lines one by one. The tenth number had a live voice who said the press conference was at the Travelodge out by the airport. Back in my car and actually arrived before the meeting was called to order. To be fair it appears that when the team recompiled their media mailing list, my name got dropped and although I got back on it, there was a critical ten days when I missed the e-mail about this revised location.

I got to speak to Craig Forrest for the first time saying I had his picture (and Jason Devos holding the Gold Cup) as my screen saver for a few years. Later I was there to lend him one of my pens. Fellow SoccerCentral co-host Gary Dobson joined in too. Although their show will be off the air between mid May to the end of August during the English league offseason, soccer will be well covered during the Gold Cup and the U-20 World Cup.

Now home to see how much of this coference actually makes the suppertime news!

Rocket Robin

robing@eol.ca

[Marc]

Mark Watson: "frickin' animal"

Charleston coach: "maniac"

Edmonton coach: "wishy-washy"

Titus is a quote machine!

[Gian-Luca]

The guy from the Star was Allan Ryan, I believe. There is a small article in the Toronto Star about the press conference today. With no hockey playoffs right now perhaps we will see a bit more coverage for the Lynx this year. But not from Dave Perkins of course.

[G-Man]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

The guy from the Star was Allan Ryan, I believe. There is a small article in the Toronto Star about the press conference today. With no hockey playoffs right now perhaps we will see a bit more coverage for the Lynx this year. But not from Dave Perkins of course.

It's funny how the Lynx speak of creating a PDL team. I thought based on the talent level they announced that they were an PDL team.

Seriouly, why not use the Ottawa Fury as their PDL team. Considering the Fury only have 5 players signed?

[DoyleG]

quote:Originally posted by Marc

Mark Watson: "frickin' animal"

Charleston coach: "maniac"

Edmonton coach: "wishy-washy"

Titus is a quote machine!

We knwo that Titus and Ongaro never had a good relationship.

[Rocket Robin]

from the Toronto Star. Let's hope this isn't the only story they publish on the Lynx this year. Also he didn't undermine the team by mentioning the MLS.

...................................................................

Apr. 20, 2005. 01:00 AM

Lynx taking a long route home

Open with six matches on the road

Centennial Park grass not yet playable

ALLAN RYAN

SPORTS REPORTER

Still kicking around after all these years, the Toronto Lynx open their ninth season this weekend, but they'll be six games deep into their schedule before local soccer fans can check them out first-hand.

The Lynx have to visit a few places first — like Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, back-to-back this Saturday and Sunday. Then Richmond and Virginia Beach the weekend after that. And Charleston and Atlanta the weekend after that, again back-to-back.

Something about grass taking a little longer to reach playable conditions in these northerly climes.

"Normally, the Victoria Day weekend's the earliest we can get in," said director of sales and marketing Michael LeBlanc, meaning at Etobicoke's Centennial Park. "We even had to push to get in there May 15 (the home opener against the United Soccer Leagues' First Division defending champs, the Montreal Impact).

"The start of the season also seems to keep getting pushed a week earlier and earlier, so, if we don't do these games on the road now, the season gets more and more crunched towards the middle.

"Then, if we're fighting for a playoff spot in August, the team's exhausted because it's playing three games a week."

Which probably won't be too unlike playing games back-to-back for each of the first three weekends.

Aware his team could find itself behind the eight-ball even before it has played a home game, new head coach Hubert Busby Jr., goalkeeper for the Lynx in 1998, has stressed fitness and will rely on speed in an attempt to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2000.

"We've done our best to simulate the back-to-back games, too," said Busby, noting the team's recent pre-season trek to Rochester last Saturday (a 2-0 loss), then a five-hour bus ride to Ottawa, where they trimmed a local amateur team 4-0.

While nine seasons is a decent enough haul for any pro soccer team in Toronto, the Lynx are counting heavily on reaching 11, when the new 25,000-seat facility opens at York University in 2007.

[MM]

According to the USL website, the Toronto roster shows John Nusum.

The only other difference from the press conference is that Winston Griffiths isn't on the roster.

Anyone know if Nusum is joining Toronto after the indoor season?

[Ryan Keay]

quote:Originally posted by MM

According to the USL website, the Toronto roster shows John Nusum.

The only other difference from the press conference is that Winston Griffiths isn't on the roster.

Anyone know if Nusum is joining Toronto after the indoor season?

From what I know:

The Griffith's issue is that, he is on loan from his Jamaican club and it happened only a day or two ago. The players only just found out about it. Possibly a paperwork thing at this point.

As For Mr. Nusum, I havent heard anything about him concrete either way.. but I did read an article on the MISL website from about a month ago saying he was planning on returning to Toronto, and that would have been at a time well after Busby knew what he was doing with the team. Plus the Lynx only have three strikers under contract right now, and have at least one foreign slot available. Plus Nusum was also in the USL Media Book, so my thought is that he will be with the team after the indoor season.