Pendant ce temps, à Vancouver

Now, everyone who knows me (or spends a few seconds perusing this heap I call a blog) knows where I stand on supporters outside of Montreal.

They all blow, excepting a few groups in a few places.

So, I can’t describe to you this strange mix of giddy pleasure and sadness (mostly giddy pleasure) that comes from finding something out last night. The harbinger of my greatest mix of strange emotions and feelings since I turned 12 is quite a surprising one.

The Vancouver Whitecaps 2011 MLS seating plan.

Behold its true form and weep!

Pretty nondescript in itself, true. Sure, there are oddities like corner seats having cheaper prices than end seats, as well as the fact they chose a pretty garish all-pastel colour palette to describe their seats… it’s like, hello Vancouver, please step out of the 80’s!

But, to get to the true meat and potatoes of the reasons why I have this bittersweet (mostly sweet) feeling about such an image takes some explaining.

For one, there is no designated supporters section. Hilarious right? It turns out there is one, they just made the conscious decision not to advertise that fact, which to all my readers in the 514(/438(haha, get a real area code)/450(poor you guys)/819(look it up)) knows is such an amazing idea. God knows there was never any trouble before they started to explicitly advertise and slap disclaimers on our supporter’s section here in Montreal… This mystery section where the true hardcore will be going “fucking mental” are the first 6 rows of sections 251, 252, and 253, which is roughly 275~ seats.

Now you get the quotation marks.

But wait dear readers, turns out that’s just the supporter’s section presale that current Southsiders have access to before tickets go on sale to the general market… the whole southside is the supporter’s section!

At 494$, plus taxes and service charges, of course. When the cheapest seats(assumed to be the supporters section) were advertised as 319$. I really love how this is unfolding.

Their anguish sustains me.

Reactions out west to this have been mixed, and when I say mixed, I mean hilarious. Many on the Southsiders board are expressing shock, outrage, and all those other beautiful triggers for the beauty that is Schadenfreude. Also peppered in with those lovely things, are gems such as these:

Do you seriously think you have the exclusive right on being a soccer fan? That NOBODY else in this city can figure out how to stand, and wave flags, and sing behind the goal? Come First Kick there will be thousands of people behind the goal. You want to know why the tickets behind the net are $500? Because that’s where everyone who wants to be a “true” soccer fan will want to sit. The demand will be massive. The Southside was right when they said that Vancouver was a market ripe for the taking. Unfortunately you may also have been part of the reason why you’ve been priced out of your “rightful” place.

Yes, planning on creating the hotspot for atmosphere amid 560 dollar seats is going to be a surefire way to garner any type of support whatsoever. That’s in no way a terrible idea at all, as it’s not necessarily a bad thing that Supporter’s in Vancouver have to pay the most out of any MLS supporter.

Not bad from a Montreal perspective of course.

Thanks Vancouver, for setting the bar low for Montreal.