America's Team

WPS announced each team's home openers this week and if i'm reading it right, your Chicago Red Stars could be featured on national television via Fox Soccer Channel for each of its first three games.

Game 1: Chicago at St. Louis Athletica, Sunday, April 5 at Ralph Korte Stadium on the lovely campus of Southern Illinois - Edwardsville. It's a small stadium and it would be pretty cool for Local 134 and other Red Stars supporters to make the 272 mile trip down there to help the Red Stars win in our first game ever.

Game 2: Chicago at Washington Freedom, Saturday, April 4 at RFK Stadium*. 2009 will be a good year for Chicagoans in Washington. And maybe, just maybe, the first family will be on hand to cheer their hometown Red Stars on to victory. Malia is a player! And the President-elect is a soccer dad.

* i'm just guessing that the Freedom will play their home opener in the big house.

Game 3: Sky Blue FC at Chicago, April 19 at Toyota Park. The late home opener is a good thing for us. It provides extra time to sell tickets, its more likely to be a little warmer in Chicago, we get to build excitement via two televised away games and we get to come into our home opener with an unblemished 2-0 mark!

It is exciting to know the date of the opening game and i hope you've all purchased your season tickets already. We hope to make a pretty cool announcement about our season tickets before Christmas. If you haven't gotten them yet, please do so by going here. Thank you!

and we're off!!!!

i was right....yesterday was much better than Monday! Late morning thunderstorms challenged the logistics of our planned outdoor name and logo unveiling, but Amber Simons and Alyse LaHue led a hard working group of interns and staff to improvise in short order and turn an outdoor unveiling into a covered extravaganza with confetti cannon, Chicago flags, Chicago music and a hundred or so Red Stars supporters including Bridgeview Mayor Steven Landek, Chicago Southland Convention and Vistors Bureau President Jim Garrett, Toyota Park GM Dan Garnett, Chicago Fire's Mark Washo, Jessica Yavitz and Ron Stern, Logo co-designer JL Murtaugh, Section 8 Chicago Chairman Ben Burton, Pitch Invasion's Tom Dunmore and Whiskey Bros. 05's Frank Cardenas as well as Fire coaches Daryl Shore and Chris Armas. Also on hand were Fire original CJ Brown, IWSL's Julius Roth, Pete Glon and Charlie Dyson, Windy City Wanderers Matt Rosine and many others. Team Chicago's Jaguars girls soccer team had more than a dozen players on hand including Regan Hollingshead who also attended the Toyota Park groundbreaking at the same site almost five years ago.

After the announcement we went to the Stadium Club for the online video unveiling,a champagne toast, q&a with media representatives, lunch and the first game of Red Stars baggo!

Good media coverage from the news conference. A sampling follows:

Chicago Tribune

Daily Herald

SouthTownStarText

Naperville Sun

Bay Area Sports Drive

USA Today

HOI News

Blogs:

Pitch Invasion

Section8Chicago

Windy City Soccer

US Soccer Players

Kenn.com

Chicagoist.com

Red Card

Soccer Science

Soccer Blogs

Pandas...

Red Stars Wins Fan Vote; Team Name TBA Tuesday

The final week of fan balloting went to Chicago Red Stars ensuring the homage to the City of Chicago municipal flag the top spot in the advisory Name the Team Sweepstakes. It was the Red Stars’ seventh weekly honor and allowed them to finish with 5,080 voting points (40.2%), well ahead of runner up Chicago Wind (3,844 points and 30.4%). The Wind managed to climb past Chicago 1871 in the contest’s final week. Chicago 1871 finished with 3,704 points or 29.3% of the total voting points cast for the three finalists over the course of the Sweepstakes which began in early March.

We also announced that the official team name and logo selection will be unveiled next Tuesday, June 3rd at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Illinois with a ceremony that begins at 11:00 am. The ceremony is scheduled outdoors in Toyota Park’s entry plaza. If you'd like to attend, send me an email at pwilt@chicagoprowomenssoccer.com and i'll add you to the entry list.

Next Tuesday we'll reveal whether we have selected the fans top choice, one of their other top selections or gone off the board for something completely different. I will say that the fan voting successfully influenced our selection as we studied the demographics behind the balloting. It’s important that we select a name that will be supported by all of our audiences.

Vote totals below display both the cumulative and weekly vote:

Cumulative voting - FINAL:

Red Stars......5080.....40.2%
Wind...........3844.....30.4%
1871...........3704.....29.3%
Riot...........2300 Eliminated April 21st
Blues..........1564 Eliminated April 14th
Union..........1056 Eliminated April 7th
Stinking Onions..611 Eliminated March 31st
Massacre......526 Eliminated March 24th
Towers........183 Eliminated March 17th
Progress.......109 Eliminated March 10th

Weekly vote: 5/12-19:

Red Stars......634.....45.1%
Wind...........520.....37.0%
1871...........253.....18.0%

A Sign?

Shortly after sunrise today, i'm taking my morning walk along the secluded Lake Michigan beach near my Wisconsin home. While following a set of deer tracks a shiny object got my attention in the water. About 50 yards offshore there was a red object bouncing in the waves. i stopped and watched as the waves brought it closer to shore. It soon became apparent that it was a red mylar balloon. It got even closer and i could see that it was in the shape of a star!

Could this be a sign from above (well, it was a helium filled balloon that once indeed was "high above") telling me that we should follow the voice of the people and name Chicago's WPS team the Red Stars!?!

A minute or so later, the red star balloon made its way to the shore and my feet. i noticed that it was a five pointed star, not the unique Chicago flag six pointed star that the Chicago Red Stars name references.

You may not think that one little point makes a big difference when it comes to heavenly sent messages, but since today is May 1st, instead of receiving a message from above about the civic minded and patriotic Chicago red star, i might've been receiving a different message from the cold war runners up...0r it may have just been a sign to shop here or drink this. It's hard to know how to take messages from above without a translator.