What is MLS? The Best Thing to Happen to Canadian Soccer Since 1986

Running around a bit today, so here's a feel-good story. I hadn't read this comment in full when I posted my story about De Ro scoring the golden goal; amazing how resonant it was north of the border. Here's Duane Rollins in his own words:

That game hooked me. I was writing for a B.C. magazine called World Football Pages doing a bi-weekly Canadians abroad thing. We considered MLS to be abroad, so I was tracking DeRo at San Jose. Somehow, through that, I became a fan of the 'Quakes and I tried to follow the team as best I could (mostly by following BigSoccer threads on game day). The MLS Cup offered a rare opportunity to actually watch them play.

So when DeRo, a CANADIAN!, scored the golden goal...yeah, that was great. At the time I never dreamed that six years later I'd be walking into a stadium in Toronto with 19,999 other people wearing red scarves.

The scarves. The image of everyone wearing the scarves on opening day will be with me forever. It was incredible to see that there really were that many people out there that cared about Toronto having a team in MLS. I had heard that it would be sold out, but I didn't actually believe that it would until I saw it.

And the stomping...I can still hear a wall of noise from sections 112 and 113. It sounded like they were going to break through the stands when you stood in the concourse. In Toronto!

Singing. Alllll we are saying...is give us a goal! Oh my God, you can't imagine how incredible that felt. This is really going to work, isn't it!

Finally I'm walking home after the game. I'm walking past a hair salon when an older man literally starts chasing me. He's seen my scarf. "Did they score?" he asks with his British accent. "No," I say sadly. He's legitimately upset. "Next week," he says smiling. "We'll get 'em next week."

We'll. A British ex-pat in Toronto just called a domestic soccer team "we."

It was then that I really knew it was only going to get better.

Over the next couple of weeks, AMSL will be examining Major League Soccer through a series of anecdotes, stories, and opinions, to help get a better sense of where the league could or should be headed in future. Please see this post for an idea of what I'm after, and please do send in something either to amoresplendidlife[at]gmail.com or in the comments section below.