LETTERS FROM CAMP: "Pitching a tent for Training Camp 2012"



The counsellors are back with their "campy" Dutch accents and the campers are arriving one-by-one at the big campsite by the lake. The weather forecast is looking a lot calmer than it was one year ago - but anything can happen at camp. Especially if that new camp up the river, "Le Camp Impact du Fromage", challenges us to a winner-take-all canoe race! Shenanigans!
　
Yes, camp can be a crazy place and somewhere between medicals, s'mores, ACL injuries, waterslides and TyHardenning (it's a thing) - the news can slip through the cracks. So, for our readers who can't sit around the fire waiting for the latest tidbit about Camp TeeEffCee, our regular "Letters From Camp" feature will keep you up to date without having to use your flashlight. Now... where's my red Speedo - I wanna go TyHardenning!
　
WELCOME BACK, WINTER
Not too many Boom Booms or Vinnies, but still a few Horshacks left over, as The Reds made their way to BMO Field over the last couple of days. With the usual TFC secrecy act, supporters were only shown a selected few arrivals - a mixture of last season’s veterans looking a bit winter (not Winter) weary and excited draft picks. Of course supporters are a little more curious about who wasn't shown on camera as the quest to learn the names of invited trialists and potential signings grows needier on a daily basis.
　
SAY CHEESE! (BUT NOT SAPUTO BRAND CHEESE)
As mentioned above, there was little in the way of video from Monday and Tuesday's arrivals with the public domain's media being kept at arm's length. The club says that it wants to get its administrative duties in order first but it could also have to do with knowing exactly who will be at BMO Field for camp before releasing the press horde. Either way, the official Training Camp Media Day is scheduled for tomorrow where we will be treated to the finest clichés, inspirational quotes and Dutch humour that the salary cap allows.
　
HAPPY CAMPERS
It was interesting to read Paul Mariner's interview with MLSsoccer.com about the state of TFC camp this year as opposed to last year's. Framing the two camps as "night and day", The Director of Development/Fifth Beatle described the state of TFC 2011 as "an organizational nightmare". While far too classy a gent to say what we were all thinking - that four years under Mo Johnston's MLSE-approved "masterplan" left the club a disaster zone - it's not hard to imagine the mess that the management faced due to previous bungling. It was very amusing that the media boffins at TFC decided to run with the article as "a feel good piece" almost as if that "old club" had nothing to do with them. They have surely heard of irony, no? Maybe this was there way of saying sorry? They are so demure. Oh well - pencils and erasers and all that!
　
WHATS MISSING IN THE -EFENCE?
The "D"! Well done children! The glaring lack of depth in TFC's backline is the most obvious hole on Day One of "SIXual Healing". As of writing - the best starting back four The Reds could field is something like Stinson-Harden-Henry-Morgan. That giggling you hear is Bruce Arena. However, if mountains of blog articles (why thank you), Tweets on the Twitter Machine and media speculation have anything to say about it - help is on the way. Today, the reliable Kurt Larson writes that Richard Eckersley is OFFICIALLY (all caps makes it for realz) cutting ties with Burnley making a permanent switch to TFC open. This is the news all TFC supporters have anxiously awaited along with the very regularly rumoured (often by themselves) signings of South American defensive duo Miguel "Ace" Aceval of Chile and Ecuadorian Geovanny "The Spoon" Caiceda. His nickname not ours... obviously. If it all falls flat... TyHardenning!!!
　
#OCCUPYTICKETMASTER
We've been hearing lots of chirps and whispers from excited bean counters on Bay St. that the attendance for the big CCL match at SkyDome is already around 40K and headed for a sell-out. Will this actually translate into 45K bums avec 45K seats? Maybe not. A good chunk of those seats are in the hands of sponsors and various hangers-on in TFC's orbit and could end up going unused. Of course there is always the age old question of how many tickets are in the hands of scalpers but we likely won't know the result until that evening in March. Well... at least at the 30 minute mark when most Torontonians arrive for a football match.