"The Big News" out of today's training session was Ethan Gage's appearance early in practice. He's been home for 2 days after a trial at Reading FC in England where he'd been getting a look as a central midfielder. He didn't really receive any feedback from the club, everything is being discussed between his agent and the club. He was supposed to attend Reading's home fixture against West Bromwich Albion, however the delay of his flight meant that he didn't get over to the U.K. until 6 hours after his original arrival time.
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Gage was at the practice but did not participate, he just strolled in with a member of the club early on in his street clothes, then he hung out by the gate out of most peoples view. He was not training with the club today and it does not sound like he will be training with the club in the near future, although he would gladly be welcomed back by the organization.
While the Whitecaps do hold the rights to Canadian Soccer Association's 2010 Under 20 Male Player of the Year, he is currently without a contract, so he would be leaving town on a free transfer, if he were to sign with the club he would be a homegrown player. If signed in Europe and wished to come back at a later date the club would still hold his rights.
For the first time all week (while I have been there at least) the boys in blue and white finally got down to some technical training. Otherwise it was just a pretty standard early season training session. Morfaw, Nanchoff, DeMerit, and Thorrington did not participate in the full speed training drills. Joe Cannon got a little more involved in the goaltending activities being conducted at the North end of the pitch. The weather finally co-operated with the club and it was actually a good day to train on. I am sure the recent signings finally got a chance to appreciate the venue that they were at.
As a last note, many people have noticed that Cody Arnoux is not training with the first team. The official word is that he is signed to the PDL team and will resume training with them as soon as he returns from rehabilitating his injury he sustained during last years playoff run. Currently though he is not back training with the PDL team.