Dear Vancouver... (An Open Letter from Calgary)

Dear Vancouver,

You've done it again, haven't you?

Don't think we here in Calgary can't hear your whines -- we've got pretty good senses of hearing out here on the grasslands. Those little calls for more Canadian national team matches, and then taking pot shots at Toronto doing it at the same time.

You just find this all funny, don't you? You really think the rest of the country is scared? Newsflash -- they don't.

I'm sure you're a-titter right about now, "Oh, we've had one of the best-attended Olympic women's soccer qualifiers in the history of that event...yes, let's bash Toronto while we're at it! Yeah, that'll show the CSA!" Well, listen kiddo -- they're probably none too impressed. You put on a great event, and the Canadian girls are off to London. It's all a feel-good thing, especially after that disaster in Germany.

Canadian women's soccer needed a nationwide feel-good story, but like the mellow-harshers you are, you had to go and burst the bubble.

We get it -- you want more matches, and after tonight's attendance (despite the empty seats in those previous matches...but we won't go there) you probably will. Isn't that enough? Why did you even have to venture into petty, regionalistic verbal diarrhea (which most of us here in Alberta pretty much save for Quebec, who pretty much generates enough of it for everyone)?

Besides, isn't your city dealing with a few PR problems of its own...namely, the Stanley Cup riots last year that you're still trying the perpetrators for? Is adding more kerosene to that burning image the thing you really wanted a national TV audience to remember? Instead of celebrating success, the focus now falls back on your inability to stop shooting yourself in the foot.

When the American national teams plays in...say Harrison, New Jersey's Energy Drink Arena, do you see them taking shots at the crowds at the Home Depot Centre, or LP Field in Nashville? They may have their differences politically, but they're all there to support one team: their national team, and not to engage in petty regional rivalries. Let's check those at the door, shall we?

I could go on...but as a Calgarian, I ask: for once, can you stop making us Western Canadians look bad in front of the rest of the country?

Love,

Calgary.

P. S. -- If you REALLY want more games, perhaps you may want to work on that plastic pitch you have at BC Place...Commonwealth not getting more games after what they did to their surface should be a pretty big clue.