S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT!

Nice win for USWNT over Canada last night. 6-0 shelling with Natasha Kai getting her first career hat trick, Lindsay Tarpley notching her ninth goal of the year and Abby Wambach providing three helpers.

It was quite an improvement over their last game vs. Canada in the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying match - a 1-1 tie in regulation followed by 6-5 US PK victory.

Full story here.

i wasn't able to watch the US vs. Canada game as A) i was at the Prairie Home Companion broadcast at the venerable Milwaukee Theatre and B) the game wasn't televised.

While i'm not a big PHC fan, i enjoy attending the live performances. Three highllights of note from yesterday's PHC:

* The BoDeans performed. i first saw them 25 years ago when they opened for Pat McCurdy at Teddy's (now Shank Hall) in Milwaukee. i still have a soccer ball signed by the BoDeans when we brought them in to perform after a Fire game at Soldier Field in 1998. We sold an incremental 18,000 tickets for that game thanks to their Chicago popularity, WXRT's promotion and the increasing interest at that point in the Fire. Last night's BoDeans performance was great. They opened with "Wonder, Wonder" and mixed in old and new among their half dozen songs.

* Leon Redbone performed. i've always enjoyed the mystery and the music of this cool dude from another time. i didn't know who the guests were going to be before i got to my seat, so it was an incredibly great surprise to see both the BoDeans and Leon Redbone. Among the vintage songs he performed was Shine On, Harvest Moon.

* Memories of the Milwaukee Auditorium. The Milwaukee Theatre is a renovation of the old (1909) Milwaukee Auditorium where the Milwaukee Wave played during my first two years promoting pro soccer (1988 and 1989). It was the best venue ever for indoor soccer. Only 3,482 seats, it had individual padded folding chair seats arranged loosely in boxes seperated by wooden dividing walls in the lower level. The incredibly intimate and historic building had a cantilevered balcony that protruded over the lower level and allowed fans in the upper deck the best vantage point ever for an indoor soccer game.

We are now just 60 minutes away from the start of Fulham's final stand vs. Portsmouth to stay up in the Barclay's Premier League. C'mon FULHAM!

***UPDATED**** Danny Murphy keeps the Cottagers up for another year with a 76th minute header off a Jimmy Bullard free kick. The packed Highbury Pub in Miwlaukee celebrated in full voice. Way to go Fulham!