"RCTID" Top 5 Page for this destination Pro Sports Tip by mtncorg

For the 2011 Major League Soccer season - the top-league in USA/Canada - the Portland Timbers have returned. The Timbers played in the old NASL of the 1970-80's until that league died from a disease called Cosmo-itis. They played before huge crowds and really popularized the sport here in the Portland metropolitan area. Several of the old Timbers players went on to careers as local college coachs - Clive Charles was the best known. There were several attempts at maintaining the Timbers in the minor league world of soccer in the US in succeeding years and the fanbase never disappeared. In fact, the fan base was waiting to be reignited and that has truly happened again with the new MLS franchise. The team owner, Merritt Paulsen, bought the team because it happened to share the local stadium with the local minor league baseball team, the Portland Beavers. Maybe, Paulsen was hoping to eventually acquire an MLB - Major League Baseball - franchise for the city originally - his original holding company was called Shortstop Inc, but he quickly realized that a rabid local fan base existed not for minor league baseball, but for soccer. Along with local fan support, he pushed ahead and gained a franchise MLS, which along with the Seattle Sounders and the other new MLS franchise, Vanocuver Whitecaps, goes a long way in showing that soccer's US/Canada roots are truly in the Northwest - or Cascadia (the mythical country that would include Oregon, Washington and British Columbia). Be prepared for a rowdy soccer experience. Portland has developed a huge supporters group - the Timbers Army - in the last ten years that has grown from a couple hundred to several thousand. People that sing the entire game in the best soccer/football supporter tradition. They and the others who make up the sold-out stadium at Jen-Weld Field (18,600+) a very tough place for opponents of the Timbers to come into. The soccer on the field is good caliber and the atmosphere is on another level - even compared to the NBA Blazers.

Equipment: Tickets for this first year are fairly hard to come by. There is only some 18,600+ tickets and 12,500 are season tickets - all sold out. Tickets for big matches, the first game - a magnificent event on April 14 against the Chicago Fire in a driving rainstorm - or the LA Galaxy, NY Red Bulls, or one of the Cascadia Cup matches - Seattle Flounders (OK, the Sounders) or the Vancouver Whitecaps .... forget it. Try eBay or Craigslist. The stadium - Jen-Weld Field - is old and new. Originally built as a baseball stadium, it has been converted into a soccer/football only stadium now. Similar in design to Fenway Park in Boston - there was even a version of the Green Monster before the conversion - the field is below ground level and the noise stays inside. Catch a soccer match here, Seattle's Qwest Field or the Empire Stadium in Vancouver (not quite sure how that will play out in the BC Place stadium where the Whitecaps will move into later in the season) and you will witness the best in soccer atmosphere in the US.

RCTID - Rose City til I Die

Address: 1844 SW Morrison
Theme: Sports Watching
Website: http://www.portlandtimbers.com/