CanadianTraveller

It happened at Qatar 2022, despite all of the precautions taken to avoid any chance of it (including no entry to the country without a ticket.) Morocco R16 and QF both had a few thousand unticketed fans at the "entrances" being forcibly held at the perimeter by hundreds of security personnel. To the point of closing an entrance, with a significant crush of people at the perimeter chokepoint. I presume it happened to a lesser extend for the SF and 3rd matches as well. To the best of my knowledge they didn't make it in the stadium. I was very curious how North American stadiums would replicate the "depth in defense" security entrance approach and long cattle chute exit model that they had in Qatar for crowds half the size. I am still waiting after Copa. I saw almost none of the security model at the U.S. matches; the lone exception of checking tickets to approach Hard Rock looks like it didn't work. Whether that's on Americans who won't stand walking 2km to exit a stadium (or closing off most of the stadium parking) or on the CONMEBOL organizers who were clearly unprepared for S.A. fans to not meet U.S. expectations for fan behaviour...I don't know. The good news is that when FIFA runs a tournament, they pull out their standard playbook and do things in a certain way - for good and bad. In the case of security, I suspect the Qatar playbook will get rolled out that will address some of these issues. Hopefully without calling in the Turkish Army to help out the rent-a-cop's. The other learning: Americans learned that this isn't an NFL playoff game they're hosting in '26. Not even a Super Bowl. This is different, these attendees are different, and require some different approaches to game day. The challenge is that they don't handle a Super Bowl all that well, and chalk it up to a "unique" event. They're about to run 104 "unique" events and had better improve their efficiency as well as the security.

Agreed: Massive game, very important to get a positive result. But under "Lessons Learned at Copa" is this: It ain't gonna get cooler in 2026. And the flights don't get shorter...unless you win your group. Granted, Vancouver should be naturally air conditioned but I think everyone had learned Tuesday night that if you want to play a great 5th match, Round of 16 in 2026...you need to balance rest and performance, even at the risk of not getting a result. We didn't do that properly vs. Peru in a must-result game; we definitely couldn't do it in a must-win match vs Chile. But we must figure out how to survive the heat of Toronto, Los Angeles, heaven forbid Boston & Philadelphia. So Saturday is one opportunity to see players in a meaningful match; the others are Nations League SF & F*, and perhaps Gold Cup if Vic can be bothered to organize one. You need to play the bottom of the roster against the likes of Botswana, Cook Islands, and NW Arkansas St. during the WC Group stages. And the opportunity for Marsch to evaluate those candidates in a competitive match against a peer opponent is...Saturday. And hopefully a bit in '25. What's more important: Winning 3rd vs. 4th Saturday, or winning a Round of 32 World Cup match when you must be confident enough to start a second-stringer to manage your roster? (Actually, our draw may be the coldest of all 128 teams @ WC. Toronto in early June, Vancouver x 4, or perhaps S.F. & Seattle. Even L.A/Houston isn't as bad as Monterrey x 2, Kansas City, Monterrey, Houston.)

Bring your steak in a $2 styrofoam cooler, baguette in a bag, and someone will let you grill it on their $20 mini grill using charcoal briquettes. Or...bring your car and your own grill.

The poster was 2 sections over from the Category 1 tickets (parents) from Canada Soccer; you saw them when he pans over his right shoulder on the Canada goal. The Cat 2 tickets were directly above that in the 200 level; Cat 3 not in picture. 🙂 During the Venezuela goal I got a reading of 110dB with a lot of silent people around me. Not Oilers level (118dB last month) but still rather boisterous - the video doesn't lie. I don't recall seeing the guy in the Hockey Canada jersey shown during the shootout, but pretty much everyone else wearing Canada in this video was around either before or after the match enjoying a beverage. Except Crosby...how did this guy miss interviewing Sid? lol

Most stadiums were built near city center transportation...a couple hundred years after the city center was fully built out. In many cities, tearing down multiple city blocks of housing is considered bad form. So yes...stadiums can be and are compact forms shoehorned into available land. Now the very newest largest in Europe (60K+ and those are very few) may end up in underutilized industrial land (think Munich), but traditional or historic parks are typically "small" (40K and even less) and surrounded by housing and commerce. U.S. stadiums starting in the 60's found the largest unused space near a freeway, typically a suburban location. Saves on land costs. Everyone was conditioned to drive to the contest. While a few exceptions - typically baseball - have bucked that tradition in the last 25 years, the vast majority are not located in a traditional neighbourhood and acquire more than enough land for whatever is needed, whether that's parking, new housing/commercial projects to make the math work on a new stadium, etc. In all but two or three U.S. cities, I don't know how to move 75K people within 90 minutes without private automobiles and nearby parking (although it doesn't need to be asphalt 10 ft. from the entry gate). Perhaps we'll find out in 2026? Similarly in Europe it's hard to imagine 75K people moving without a nearby train station. The stadium in Cardiff would be a decent example of an "integrated" stadium (use Satellite view):

As pointless as asking, "Are there any U.K. football stadiums that aren't surrounded by pubs? Those parking lots may be wastelands 340 days a year. They aren't on match day, and just as vital as those U.K. pubs. They're even economic drivers: the family/group spends an average of $196/game on tailgate supplies according to one "survey": "the $196 budget averaged $28.65 for beer, $17.09 for soft drinks, $16.61 for burgers, $15.37 for snacks, $14.16 for steaks, and $13.19 for liquor as the largest line items." At $1/beer from the 7-11 instead of $15+tip, that's a decent beer budget. Never mind the thousands spent up-front on tents, T.V's, generators, chairs, bars, speakers.... But to answer the pointless question...numerous college stadiums have minimal parking right at the stadium. Darryl K Royal (Austin, TX) comes to mind. As for the pros, Lumen Field/T-Mobile Park is parking-limited directly beside the stadiums with the port and railyards nearby. Plenty of MLB parks fit that bill.

"Could": I suspect contractually there is no issue because CSB only hold the marketing rights, not the philanthropy rights. Of course I don't know the contract terms. "Should": 100% agree with you, not wise over the long term. Remember though that development/youth soccer and national teams have had different sponsors from the same industry. Having it on the same national team though...not wise.

Well it's mostly true that our Canada Soccer matches (men & women) are restricted to pay-television, and that the rights holder exclusively shows all but the biggest matches...and has a few thousand subscribers. Not millions (like 6.1 million for our two pay channels). I presume there are more people watching our national teams in the United States on streaming service Paramount+, than there are Canadians watching our own team on the rights holder. Not surprisingly that channel does not have the rights to World Cup, Copa, Euros, Olympics or anything outside the control of Canada Soccer. However...the reason I wrote this is to say that Canada's Copa America games ARE on free to air TV (called "CTV2", a channel few know of but it is free and easily found). Canada's pro hockey teams were in fact on free to air TV every night except Sunday's (CBC) during the playoffs, which also offers free streaming of those same games. And about 80% of households in Canada either have traditional pay TV subscriptions (71%) or paid streaming services. So it's not completely insane. Just mostly insane most of the time.

I like your analogy that Canada fans are the best soccer fans in the world. (Latvians are the best hockey fans and it's not even close.) And Maxime Crépeau is WAY better than Arturs Silovs. (For those who don't follow, Arturs was the MVP of the '23 World Championship, and tried but totally and completely failed to beat the Oilers this spring.) So...we're going for gold, not like Latvia who were ecstatic for bronze in '23. Also in line: the '23 championship was played next door to Latvia in big, bad Finland... the last-minute replacement host that was expected to do very well but lost extremely early. To Canada actually.

Irish wake I presume? 🤣 P.S. If you've made funeral arrangements, send me a copy because my sister will need them. I'll be in a morgue in Miami.

The example used by red card, applied to your example, says, "BMO and Scotiabank can't sponsor (quid pro quo) Canada Soccer, but Darryl White (BMO) and Scott Thomson (BNS) can donate money to the cause." One is selling a product to a company; the other is selling access to a team or teams. And both those CEO's could donate a LOT of money if the access is right. Rinse, repeat for every other industry and their multi-millionaire exec's. As far as exclusivity, I strongly suspect that some of these naming opportunities like the MLS men's coach falls into tax-deductible donations, which is quite likely outside the scope of the CSB contract. At which point theoretically you could have the assistant coach endowed by BMO and the keeper coach endowed by Scotiabank all while CIBC is a team or association sponsor...if CS was foolish. (What the article doesn't say is that those "donations" can be used to gain influence and do some networking so that when CIBC's contract expires, or when there are other CS opportunities, their respective companies are well known and in prime position to compete for a sponsorship. Imagine that - competition to pay money to Canada Soccer. What alternate reality are we in?)

Wish he would have said Hi! If it was "a few connections" he was either on the Houston flight or the Denver flight; couple of us in the gate area well attired. I'm sure one of us could have slurred "Allez Les Rouges Allez". I'd love to see what the CS travel agent/agency does to get these men and women to and from their "day jobs" for all these comps.

Perhaps because he did the Finalissima w/ Italy and Argentina. But I'd expect that Italy won 3-0 if he was truly "the Italian ref"? 🤷‍♂️Why not call him the Wembley ref? Or maybe it's just the Argies calling him "the Italian ref"?

It's getting better. Someone asked me about "that Shuffleboard guy" today and whether he played for a real team during the winter. Baby steps....

Can't. Jon Montgomery is still a better known athlete in Canada than any of the guys playing on CTV2 Tuesday. Hope that changes Wednesday. No similar issue Sunday...or Saturday if needed. (But if there wasn't original CanCom programming on Tuesday night I suspect it would have moved to CTV. You'd have to see if there's room in September to push Amazing Race Canada back a week...day after Civic Holiday may be available.)