...It was a cold and windy night...or...who doesn't love the Mt. Eden High School Drum Corp!

It's a Sports Spot pop quiz...name the Northern California Team that currently has the best record in their league...the SF Giants? no....the Oakland A's? no (props to Stockton native Dallas Braden on his Mother's Day Perfect Game BTW)...the correct answer would be (drum roll please...) the FC Gold Pride of Women's Professional Soccer.  So as the evening of May 8th rolled around, the Spot found himself making the trip over the Altamont Pass to Castro Valley High School to watch the league leading FC Gold Pride take on the Chicago Red Stars.  Could the Gold Pride string together their 4th straight win?  Could the Jaime Moyer of Women's Soccer, Tiffeny Millbret, find the back of the net once again?  What kinda mischief could the Spot get himself into this time?  All these questions found their answers on one very cold and windy night....

Yes, it was cold, it was windy, but it was well worth it.  Per usual the FC Gold Pride Staff took care of us journalistic folk as well as could be expected (my cardiologist would like to thank you for having vegetarian pizza available as an alternative to the peperoni!)  The Gold Pride were donning the Red jersey's in support of the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" campaign (as a side note, the Gold Pride were wearing red, playing a team called the Red Stars...yes, the Spot got a little confused at times!) and clearly were the dominant team throughout most of the game, scoring the 2-0 victory to keep them in first place in the WPS.  And to answer one of my questions, yes, Tiffeny Milbret continued to show the youngster's how its done by scoring the opening goal for the Gold Pride on a rebound off her first missed attempt the bounced back perfectly after hitting the cross bar.  While most women Tiffeny's age (a very young 37 might I add) are busy getting their kids ready for Prom, Tiffeny continues to run past opponents who are supposedly younger, faster and more athletic.  Definitley a tribute to professionalism, work ethic, and the fact that her experience probably gives her the ability to have a trick or two up her sleeve vis-a-vis the youngsters.

Now I could just give a simple re-cap of who scored what, etc. etc...but that's not the fun part of an FC Gold Pride game.  The fun part is that it's an experience, and experiences are what you make out of them.  Sure it was cold and windy...sure the Spot might have nearly scummed to frostbite on a finger or two, but it was the experience that the Gold Pride puts on that makes one want to come back time and time again.  Who doesn't like to have the chance to catch an official game ball kicked into the stands and keep it (are you listening NFL?  Just a thought) or to form a human tunnel to help bring on your team, your heroes, onto the pitch?  After all, do you think a simple little blogger like the Spot could spend half time at an NBA game or NFL game banging on the drums of the Mt. Eden High School Drum Corp?  Not a chance, yet there the Spot was, at half time, hanging with the boys from Mt. Eden High School banging away....singing to himself "I don't wanna work, I wanna bang on the drum all day....".  Lastly, would there be any chance the Directors of Real Madrid would let anyone from the media have an unabated one on one interview with Cristiano Ronaldo?  Fat chance...yet there was the Spot, post game, with the opportunity to ask four time FIFA player of the year Marta whatever questions popped into his head (BTW, much thanks to Marta, speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, for putting up with my version of Portuguese, of which my Grandfather would always say was "muto atrapalhado" his very kind way of saying it left much to be desired!).  Yes, there are quite a few teams out there that can stand to take a few notes from the Gold Pride on how to make a game day experience fun for every fan that shows.  Because when you take your kids, friends, co-workers (you get the idea) to a game, it shouldn't be about selling the most expensive jersey's, or pushing those personal seat licenses...it should be about making the game an event, an experience that you'll remember and keep talking about until it's time for the next game...The Gold Pride do a very good job of making that happen, and that's why the Spot will continue to make the trip over the Altamont to cover them.

Now this write up wouldn't be complete without naming the MVP for the game.  As the Spot drove home, he gave it considerable thought.  As much as he wanted to give game MVP honors to every one's favorite soccer hottie, Kelley O'Hara in honor of her first goal as a professional, he just couldn't (and believe the Spot, it pained him that he couldn't bestow said honor)....no, the MVP award for last night goes to....yep, the concession guy selling the hot chocolate!  Not only was the hot chocolate well, hot...it was so cold and windy that I'm sure most of those who bought the hot stuff spent the first few minutes wrapping their hands around the cup to soak up all the heat!  Yes I'm sure he sold enough hot chocolate last night to equal the Gross National Product of most 3rd world nations.  And that, Spot fans, is why hot chocolate guy gets the game MVP award....

'till next time...stay classy Central Valley.

*FC Gold Pride game photos courtesy of Kelley Cox/ISIPhotos