July 15, 2018--York 9 FC World Cup Final watch party at Dave and Buster's (by Rocket Robin)

A twitter post a week ago announced a special party for York 9 fans at the Dave and Buster's Sports Bar in Vaughan. It's about three blocks from the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway station (the last one on the TTC University Line that runs up from Union Station). There were about thirty of us York 9 fans including children in our own section of the restaurant for this Sunday morning event. The 'Generation IX' banner used at the team launch back in May was taped to a wall to help guide the fans to our section once they were inside. A presentation was made by Ben Zayandehroudi, the vice president of ticket sales and fan services. He had to carry the show as Preben Ganzhorn President of York Sports and Entertainment was at Sick Kids Hospital to care for his suddenly ill 15 year old daughter and Executive Vice President and Director of Soccer Jim Brennan was also absent as his flight back from Ireland was delayed. Zayandehroudi made about a ten minute talk about York 9 before they turned the sound up on the big screen televisions for the start of the World Cup Final game between France and Croatia held in Moscow which meant by game time it was just after 11:00am in southern Ontario on another one of those >30C days. Complementary appetisers and drinks were served. While he was speaking I realized I was missing some of the best points and should have been trying to record this rather than write notes so later I asked him if I could could record an interview (using my bullet point notes as a guide). It was arranged that we'd talk after the game was over and meanwhile he mingled with the other guests. Hard to tell who the crowd was cheering for...I'd say anything exciting. No-one had any France or Croatia gear but there were a full kit Germany couple, a Brazil guy, and an Argentina guy here. I enjoyed it. There was an own goal and a goalkeeping flubber up...so not much different than incidents I saw in the three League 1 Ontario games I saw this weekend. No games were scheduled today. So on to the interview after the game broken up into two five minute segments because that's the time limit I know of on my Galaxy 7. mp3 File...York 9 Part 1 of interview Part 1 is about the York stadium being used and its arrangement for the first two years and the various season ticket prices. I had a brochure showing the outlay of the stadium but I must have misplaced it on my way out so I've drawn a crude diagram.

mp3 File...York 9 Part 2 of interview Part 2 is about the 'Canadianess' of the league including rosters and salary caps, Canadians and internationals, other Canadian cities involved and rivalaries. scheduling games in this market. Zayandehroudi said there will be another event in around August and it may be held in North York (northern suburb of Toronto) as there has been a great interest in the northern Toronto area. In his general comments made before I thought of recording, he mentioned things like media rights are not known yet and there a lot of decisions that have to be made at the league level (not the club level). They are not concerned yet about the number of STH tickets sold while they concentrate on the minor soccer partnerships now. I'm trying to get my foot in early to do the kind of interviews that I do now on my own site about TFC II...meaning let the sound bites roll instead of having to extract two sentences when I have to edit a story for Waking The Red. I was warned it is too soon for that yet. I got a free scarf (see photo) and an olive green Generation IX/Support Local Football t-shirt (wow because by the time they got to me they only had X-large). Some got black baseball caps. Interesting that today my preferred north/south subway route to downtown Toronto is closed this weekend...mental note...40 minutes to take a bus to this alternate line. The remainder of the TFC schedule that is on weekends will have this problem so I have to plan on 2 hrs/40 minutes to get home after their games. Rocket Robin robing@eol.ca Twitter @RocketRobin01



Dave & Buster's Sports Bar in Vaughan hosted the event.



York 9 fans had our own section partitioned off to watch the game on multiple giant screen TVs.



Rocket Robin and York 9 Football Club Director of Marketing Ben Zayandehroudi.

back to York 9 FC index



.

.