Boston affiliate. Even the helmet with at least one earflap wasnt made m

With the Impact in their worst run of form since they closed out their debut season on the back of a six-game face-planting skid, the last thing Joey Saputo needed to wake up to Monday morning was the rather ludicrous report traced to a Columbian radio station that Marco Schallibaum was about to get his walking papers. As erroneous as that report was, Saputo is likely aware of the increasingly uneasy feeling that currently prevails around the club. Saputos retort was rather candid: “Are you kidding? Très content avec Schallibaum, aucune raison daller chercher un autre entraîneur. Very happy with Marco,” the Impact President tweeted. Saputo was scheduled to deliver his mid-term report and make a few announcements specific to the 2014 season on Monday. However, in light of the 4-0 drubbing the team took in Harrison, NJ last Saturday night that media event was pushed back 48 hours. Doing so let the high emotions surrounding the team to dissipate some. It allowed the realization that the team has gone from being the best in the MLS to enduring a month-long winless drought not to take centre stage. When Saputo did address the media Wednesday, the current form book was put into the context of the season to date. Sitting three points adrift of the top of the East but with two games in hand, the Impact could quite easily return to the Conference summit. Each and every Eastern Conference team would likely have offered up all their allocation money to be in the Impacts current situation if it had been proffered prior to start of the season. Saputo also admitted that a significant number of the current squad would be in Impact uniform come 2014. Without exception the most significant discussion Wednesday afternoon centred around the concept of turning the supporters into club members. The lifeblood of any sports team is its fans, especially those season ticket holders. Manchester United love to claim over 600 million followers globally. However, you can string up as many green and yellow banners and bunting as you like around your Singapore or Sydney home as you watch the Old Trafford from thousands of miles away, but its that solitary hooped scarf behind the dugout made most famous by Sir Alex Ferguson that holds sway and gets all the attention. The Barcelonas and Real Madrids of the world were borne out of the club member concept. But it was one closer to home that piqued the Impacts curiosity. “Its more like what Seattle is doing,” Impact and Stade Saputo Executive Vice President Richard Legendre disclosed to TSN.ca Thursday. “The policy where they ask their season ticket holders to vote on the GM that was one example we were looking at.” “The way it originated for us is the fact we wanted to go one step further in the interaction of our season ticket holders,” Legendre added. While the Saputos are the Impacts undisputed nuclear family, the extended family is made up of all its stakeholders. Like most families, continued growth is the objective. “First of all we want to increase the numbers in the family,” Legendre stated. “We realised how important it is for our season ticket holders to be transparent with them, to communicate with them”. “After our first season we created a new team of service reps on behalf of our season ticket holders. Their job is to be in contact constantly with the season ticket holders.” “So, then we thought: ‘Where can we go from there? How can we go further? Thats where we thought of more involvement in the decision making. To give them what we call ‘the power of recommendation.” “Its also a way to choose whom we are going to listen to more,” Legendre succinctly added. With lines of communication continually live these days and most traditional barriers removed, separating the wheat from the chaff is a difficult ask in soliciting opinions from any fan-base. The less-is-more principle can get completely drowned out at times; a point that is not lost on Legendre. “These days with all the social networks [and] all the other methods there is so much noise. So many people that you can easily lose focus on who you really need to listen to and interact with,” he said. “So by having more interactions with just our season ticket holders its another way of saying: ‘The ones we are going to listen to first are those that are right behind us in a bigger manner.” Although the Impact were entirely inconsistent on the pitch last season and are currently in the midst of a similar slide, the constant in the clubs two MLS seasons has been their season ticket base. That base has numbered 8,000 in both their debut season and 2013. Wednesday the club announced their plan is to increase the base by 25 per cent to 10,000 for 2014. The desired effect is that on any given match day, half of the stadiums capacity will be comprised of club members. Hows that for an influential voice? In a season where the Impact have performed well above where any rational person would have predicted and have played an exciting brand of football, stagnating season ticket numbers from year-to-year would have to ring the alarm bells with the front office. Legendre is aware that a lot of hard work lays ahead for the franchise. Its not as if there is one solitary explanation of why the Impact currently lags many MLS clubs in the season ticket stakes. “I think it is difficult to identify only one,” Legendre said. “If I had to identify only one, I would say its still a very young [MLS] product which might sound a little surprising as we are celebrating our 20th anniversary. But in a way I really get a strong feeling and we hear it that a lot from different people that we are just starting something.” “It is our second year only in MLS,” Legendre continued. “When we compare ourselves to the other two major professional teams in Montreal - the Alouettes and the Canadiens - the Alouettes [have] 62 years in the major leagues and for the Canadiens its over a hundred years.” “Were very young, and were even younger in the big leagues. So I think in terms of the notoriety of the league, there is actually a lot of work that has to be done.” Legendre went on to divulge certain contents of a supporter-based survey the club recently commissioned. “When we asked people in Montreal: ‘Do you know the Impact? 95 per cent [of respondents] said yes. Then, when we asked them the names of the players, 88 per cent [could name none]… When we asked them: ‘Do you know MLS? 91 per cent said ‘No.” “So it seems like there is a bit of a contradiction there, but it clearly shows we still have a lot of work to make our product known, to give the opportunity for people to taste the product.” The numbers are remarkable but whichever way you cut it there is substantial room for growth. Another factor is a dearth of support from local area businesses. “We need more businesses to get involved in buying season tickets,” Legendre stated. “In our own survey when people are buying season tickets they say they are buying it for personal reasons much, much more than for professional reasons. So I think [with] the quality of the product we have, the pricing, we can develop much more to different businesses.” The club set out the season with the objective of making the playoffs, and with 16 regular-season games remaining, that playoff place is theirs for the taking. They will have no one to blame but themselves if they are not playing soccer in November down Stade Saputo way. Turning the season around could well start Saturday in what could be billed as the “battle of the slumps”. A month or so ago FC Dallas rode resplendently atop the west. However, they now take a seven-game winless skid into Saputo Stadium. Coincidentally both FC Dallas and the Impact last recorded a win against the same opponent, the Houston Dynamo. On June 19, the Impact were mighty impressive in recording the 2-0 shutout victory. In attendance that night - and enjoying himself immensely as he took in all the Stade Saputo sights and sounds - was none other than Canadiens President and CEO Geoff Molson. Wonder if hes signed up yet as a member of club Montreal Impact FC? You can reach and follow Noel Butler at: Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca @TheSoccerNoel Montreal Impact v FC Dallas - Live on TSN Radio 690 Saturday at 6:45pm et/3:45pm pt Adidas Superstar Gold Australia . Wall made the comment in a speech to a Regina business crowd that included Lesnar. The U.S. wrestler and retired mixed martial artist says he was visiting his brothers farm in Saskatchewan and decided he wanted to hear what the premier had to say. NMD Shoes Australia . Thousands of Southern California fans enveloped the Trojans to celebrate an improbable win secured by an interim coach, an inconsistent kicker and a thin defence that wouldnt break. http://www.nmdaustraliasale.com/nmd-r1-shoes-australia.html . Calgary scored on the first shift, and Michael Cammalleri scored twice as the Flames cruised to a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Adidas Superstar White Australia . After a first half in which he thought "the lid was on the basket," the Toronto Raptors coach watched his squad mount a second half surge to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers 98-91. Adidas Superstar Pink Australia . Robredo, ranked No. 16, bounced back from an upset loss to Leonardo Mayer in the second round of the Royal Guard Open in Chile last week to down Carreno Busta in 1 hour, 25 minutes. On a day filled mostly with qualifying matches, fifth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain also entered the second with a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 win over Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia, while Guido Pella of Argentina defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-4 to advance.The most horrifying sight in baseball is to see a batter get hit in the head with a pitch or a pitcher get struck in the head by a line drive. Earlier this week at Tropicana Field, Blue Jays lefty J.A Happ could have had his career, if not his life, ended by a line shot up the middle by the Rays Desmond Jennings that struck him in the skull near his left ear. Happ was fortunate to escape with a small fracture behind his left ear, a lacerated ear, and an injury to his right knee, from the awkward way he fell when nailed by the ball. Happ is estimated to be out anywhere from 3-6 weeks. Even close calls like this can be career-altering. Reliever Rob Dibble, one of the Nasty Boys World Series-winning bullpen of the Cincinnati Reds in 1990, remembered facing Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, then with Cleveland, in a game a few years later. Murray hit a screaming liner up the middle and by some miracle, Dibble got his glove up and caught the ball at the last second. Dibble said that incident changed him. He claimed to never fully trust his stuff again after that and was never quite the same pitcher, ultimately out of the game a couple of years later. The most frightening and gruesome incident I ever saw occurred on September 8th, 2000. Ryan Thompson of the Yankees hit one back through the box and it struck Red Sox reliever Bryce Florie square in the face. He simply had no time to react. Sport Science estimated the ball was travelling at 120 miles per hour and hit Florie with a force of 5,500 pounds. Florie suffered several facial fractures and partial vision loss in his right eye. There was blood everywhere. Believe it or not, Florie actually briefly made it back to the Majors the following year, but quickly left the game as a player thereafter. Baseball took a long time to develop protection for batters and even the coaches manning the bases. Ray Chapman, the star shortstop of the 1920 Cleveland Indians, is still the only Major League player to die from an on-field incident. He was struck on the side of the head by a pitcher from the Yankees sidearm hurler Carl Mays on August 16th, 1920 and died 12 hours later in hospital. Though various players experiimented with head protection over the years, the first true well-marketed batting helmet wasnt produced until 1952.dddddddddddd Oddly enough, the man responsible was the same man who brought Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Branch Rickey was the general manager of Pittsburgh Pirates in 1952 and commissioned one of his front office team, Charlie Muse to come up with something that would offer protection to the players when they stepped up to the plate. Muse obliged and Rickeys own outfit, the American Cap Company, would market these helmets. But it wasnt until 1971 that helmets became mandatory and even then, there was a grandfathering rule that gave veteran players the right to choose whether to wear them or not for the remainder of their careers. The last player not to wear a helmet was former Red Sox catcher and later broadcaster Bob Montgomery, who played until 1979. Montgomery also spent some time in Toronto catching for the old Maple Leafs of the International League, then a Boston affiliate. Even the helmet with at least one earflap wasnt made manditory until 1983. The point is baseball moves slowly. Efforts are being made to develop some sort of padding that could at least be fitted into a pitchers cap to protect the skull to a degree. But I doubt well ever see the day a pitcher wears the type of helmet a batter does. Pitchers maintain it would be too cumbersome, too uncomfortable and would affect their performance. I can guarantee well never see the day when a pitcher wears a full facial shield or mask but a cap insert is an important and necessary step to give pitchers some semblence of protection and a chance to at least escape more serious injury in baseballs most frightening and dangerous plays. Numbers Game Last season , the Baltimore Orioles made their season with their record in one run games (29-9) and extra inning contests (16-2). Already this season, the Blue Jays are 4-8 in one run games and 1-3 in extras, not to mention 6-14 against their own division, including 3-10 against the the Yankees and Red Sox. That does not bode well, especially with the starting rotation ravaged by injuries. ' ' '