San Jose, Huckerby and impressions

[CoachGT]

Further to my comments in yesterday’s news section, I had two opportunities to speak with Darren Huckerby last weekend.

At the Soccer Silicon Valley banquet Friday night, several quakes players attended, as well as Todd Dunivant, a former quakes player. Todd’s brother had been man of the year for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in 2004, while Todd played there. Since then, Todd has been heavily involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and presented them with a cheque at the banquet. The San Jose fans had a lot of good to say about Todd.

Joe Cannon got their sportsman of the year award, named in memory of a local boy. The family did the presentation.

At the banquet, they had a silent auction with mostly quakes stuff, but they had a few jerseys from other teams, all autographed. I bought the TFC jersey (#12 Dunivant autographed by the full team), the Chivas jersey sold, as did a Beckham autographed jersey (for less than the TFC jersey, I might add). There was a Gutierrez white Chicago, Casey maroon Colorado and a Houston De Ro, all of which had no bids. Met the quakes photographer and he had some outstanding shots. I suggested he take a look at some of Martin Groove’s shots on flickr – his shots are also on flickr.

I ran into Huckerby for a second as he was leaving and mentioned to him that I thought he played well for San Jose, but thought he’d look better in Toronto red. No comment from him, just a sneer. During the night, some of his teammates kidded him about his tanning salon tan while at the mike.

At the game on Saturday, mlsintoronto mentioned that Huckerby won’t practice with the San Jose team – they practice on a turf pitch right next to the main pitch. Made me wonder about Ronnie O’s practice habits, though.

Small venue, sold out, pretty good atmosphere, but they only have six or seven chants, mostly takeoffs of the same ones used around the league. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the pitch – the grass was okay but not pristine, the way the pitch in Charleston looked back in the spring. Probably because of the drier climate. Their fans were extremely friendly and accommodating – I can’t say enough good about Don Gagliardi, president of SSV!

A few nights later, I ran into him again while waiting to go into the Sharks/Penguins game. There we spoke for about 5-10 minutes while waiting for the doors to open. Nobody else appeared to recognize him at the rink. I thanked him for coming to MLS, and asked him about whether he thought more players would be coming over from England, and he mentioned that he had confirmation that afternoon of three more, including Freddie Ljungberg having signed that afternoon with Seattle. I asked him about his thoughts about Toronto and he said that we have first rate fans, top notch facilities, as good as any he had seen, but the worst turf in the world. He said that it was pretty much lifeless, flat, bland and hard to play on. I never thought to ask him about where there might be better turf. He also said it is very difficult to turn down the weather in San Jose.

I also asked about comparisons of MLS to English leagues. He said it is difficult to compare because the style of play is very different here. He thought that a top quality MLS team, like Houston, would be competitive in the Championship, but most teams would be about League One caliber.

He was a very polite, classy guy and answered my questions easily. I tried not to impose upon him – he was there with two others, but they seemed interested in the questions I was asking as well. I wished him the best as he headed in to see his first hockey game.

This was a great trip, and I highly recommend it as a destination for a road trip in the future!