January 30, 2019--York 9 FC Meet & Greet with Players & Coaches (by Rocket Robin)

The event was scheduled from 6:00pm to 7:30pm at Shoeless Joe's in Woodbridge.  This was the first
meet and greet of the team in the community for 2019.  The first was scheduled on Monday in Newmarket
but was cancelled because of the snowstorm.  No problem like that today except it's now got
brutally cold.  How cold was it?  I had to scrape the outside then the inside of my car windows
to see where I was driving!  

I estimated the crowd was flexible between 60 and 80.  We were upstairs which allowed some privacy
from the patrons downstairs.  

Kurt Larson from the league office was the MC at tonight's event.  He stood on a couch to be heard
as no one had brought him a microphone.    

The presentation started at about 6:40pm with a short video presentation of the origins of York 9 FC
which has been available on the website since May 10th, 2018 they admitted.  

mp3 File...first segment...1.57 minutes 

My first sound file picks up while Lawson was talking about the amazing progress the team and league 
have made since the making of that video.  

He also gives reasons why they chose the York 9 FC at Forge FC in Hamilton will be scheduled
on the same day as a Toronto FC home game.  (no mention was made about any television coverage).  

Larson said the next news will be the first home game for all the teams next week.  Then after
that the entire schedule will be released.   

They now cued up a video that introduced all the teams in the league. (I've seen that one on the 
league website).  

mp3 File...second segment...10.48 minutes 

Summary of that sound file:  
After that video was the introduction of head coach Jim Brennan who talked about local players, 
youth players and the role of everyone and the team goals.  The team represents the community!  
Lawson asked Brennan what it is like to build the team from scratch and what will be his lead
up to the season.  

Then the players that were here were introduced with a brief bio.  Ooh some of them are not listed 
on the website yet!  The order presented were Kyle Porter, Roger Thompson, Steve Furlano, Justin
Springer, Cyrus Rollocks, Morey Doner*, Emelio Estevez*, Max Silva*, and Joey De Chiara.  

Manny Aparicio was not here tonight.  

*Players not officially announced on the website yet:  
Morey Doner played for Aurora FC in League 1 Ontario from 2016 to 2018.  
Emilio Estevez played for North Mississauga in 2018 and impressed at the Got Games CPL trials 
in Vaughan.  
Max Silva was introduced as a goalie. Aha!  I wondered when there'd be a goalie for this team!  

A third video was played.  The We Are Nine, We Are One, We Are York.  

mp3 File...third segment...9.35 minutes

Summary of that sound file:  
President of York Sports and Entertainment was introduced and talked about his philosophy about 
setting unrealistic goals (deliberately) with a Raptors basketball story.  He declared that
his goal was for York 9 to win the championship in their first year!  

His big announcement is that all York 9 season tickets holders will be given a free ticket for
the inaugural CPL game in Hamilton on Saturday April 27 and complementary transportation by
the new team sponsor, The TOK Group, who will be supplying coaches (ie buses).  TOK
is a York based business.  There will be 24000 seats for this first game at Tim Horton's Field. 

Rafi from The TOK Group was introduced and got to explain why they signed on as a sponsor.  

Finishing message is "You'll all be able to say 'I was at that first game'".  

I continued to plead my case that although I am a front row ticket holder I wanted a press
pass so I can interview players after the games.  I am out of the loop as although I knew
there was an announcement on Tuesday about the CPL (the Volkswagon sponsorship deal), I had
no idea the place where it was being held yet all the usual media types were there...do
they really expect those folks will miss the Toronto FC game that same afternoon to travel
to Hamilton?  I received an e-mail from Canada Soccer of the announcement in downtown
Toronto earlier today to attend the press conference of FIFA's Victor Montagliani 
at the Empire Club.  Even Kurt Lawson sounded sympathetic.  

Tonight's feature ended with the 'free road game' bombshell and the bar quickly cued back
on the disco music.  Any sound interviews I would do with the players would playback with
nothing but Janet Jackson so I didn't bother.  Probably inside the men's room would be
the only quiet enough place.  I gave my beer ticket (I drove here) to a young guy who did 
conduct a lengthy interview trying to audition to do podcast work for a site and he said 
he hadn't played back his recordings yet to check their quality.    

Morey Doner recognized me with "Rocket Robin" and said he'd signed for the team but he'd
not been announced yet.  He played for Aurora as recently as last year.  We talked about
other Aurora players...Max Ferrari who was a successful trialist in Vaughan in October
and Parmpreet Singh who I saw last week in Vaughan at the special CPL combine invitational
for League 1 Ontario players but he didn't advance to the afternoon session.  Doner said
Aurora FC cleaned out their coaching staff including head coach Derek O'Keeffe and replaced
him with Mike Aquino who is the head coach of the 2018 Canadian national college
champions Humber College Hawks.  That team, just checking their roster, had about 40%
L1O guys on that winning team.   

I checked my seat from a drawing of Alumni Field posted at the venue.  Now there looks
like there's a new section of picnic seats right at field level but I was assured
by my ticket rep Stuart Sumner that the stands were six feet higher than the new 'front'
row so my view wouldn't be blocked.  Wow that row is about 5X more expensive than mine.  
I'd never met Sumner in person before tonight.  We'd spent time back in the Fall 
talking about Gordon Sumner (ie the musician Sting).  Doner didn't know Sting or The 
Police (wow to be that young again!) but he knew Shaggy so I could relate that those
two are nominated together for a Grammy next month.  

On my way out I made sure to say 'Hello' to Cyrus Rollocks the 2017 L1O Young Player
of the Year.  I watched him play for TFC III and TFC II but last year I missed him
with Master's Futbol but he said he missed most of the season with a broken hand
and was advised not to play.  


MC for tonight Kurt Larson has asked York 9 head coach Jim Brennan about his vision.  


York 9 players wait to be introduced.


York 9 Preben Ganzhorn the president of York Sports and Entertainment discusses his philosophy
of setting unrealistic goals.  


Announcement of free bus trip and tickets for Season Ticket Holders.  Amir from the TOK Group 
on left with Preben Ganzhorn on right.  

Pictures below taken before the event!  


How likely is it that Volkswagen will be the team sponsor of York 9 when they have a fleet of GMC Acadia cars?  


Tonight's venue was at Shoeless Joe's in Woodbridge.   

back to York 9 FC index

.

.