Welcome to The Reserve Squad for February 15, 2011. Here are your news hits!
Giving one for the team: Canadian head coach Stephen Hart is shrugging aside suggestions that a collision between Andre Hainault and Teal Bunbury -- which sent the Sporting KC striker to hospital -- had anything to do with Bunbury's decision to represent the U.S. in international competition rather than the country of his birth.
"I think this is just an unfortunate accident," said Hart. "To suggest any sort of intent on Andre's part, or to say this had anything to do with Teal's decision not to play for Canada, well, it's just ridiculous."
Hart then appeared to wink, but insisted he was merely crying for reasons he chose not to explain. But his claim of a coincidence wasn't an opinion shared by all members of the Canadian system.
"Sometimes you just gotta wake a fucker up," said defender Adrian Serioux, Hainault's former teammate. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]His sentiments were echoed by another loyal Canadian, playing on the other side of the pond.
"Playing in the Premiership would be a dream," said Simeon Jackson, whose Norwich City side is currently fighting for promotion. "Most of all, I'd like to get in a game against Stoke. Or just get near their goal. Even in the pre-match handshakes, I think I could get plenty done, y'know."
If a national program-wide conspiracy does exist, Hainault doesn't appear to be in on it.
"I hope the kid's OK," he said after Tuesday's incident. "What's his name? Teal something? Well, whoever he is, best of luck to him."
More voyages in the Voyageurs Cup? In the wake of the exclusion of the five American-based NASL teams from this year's U.S. Open Cup, Canadian Soccer Association officials aren't closing the door on including them in the 2011 Nutrilite Canadian Championship.
"We're always looking at ways to expand and improve our national competition," a CSA official said via email. "And there's no reason that the same excitement generated by Toronto FC v. Montreal Impact, or the Vancouver Whitecaps v. FC Edmonton can't be replicated by, say, the Atlanta Silverbacks facing FC Tampa."
The CSA official used the Canadian Football League's expansion into the United States during the 1990s as an example of how a Canadian competition could open its doors to southern teams. The official then sent another email, timestamped 43 seconds later, saying only "Scratch that. I didn't talk to you. Nobody talked to you. I don't exist!"
Winter wondering-land: Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber, a day after announcing that the league would no longer be looking to switch to a European-style winter schedule, has provided a list of other changes of heart that MLS and the United States Soccer Federation have recently had.
"We've decided it's no longer prudent, at this point in the league's development, to be sending manila envelopes to the headquarters of numbered companies based in Zurich, Switzerland," said Garber in a release.
"Perhaps at a future time, such as the 2017-2019 corridor, our league will be sufficiently entrenched that such an activity will again make economic sense for the future of American soccer."
Garber also announced that the USSF offices will no longer keep a stockpile of Chubby soda and colourful suspenders on hand, which they had been doing for the past several years "just in case a few special somebodies happened to drop by."
.