What the Rapids Do, You Cannot Know…Except When We Tell You

By: Jeff | February 25th, 2008

One of the first things I learned by eavesdropping on Colorado Rapids fans and blogs – and not just today, but over time – is that “the organization” isn’t the best about information sharing. As I understand it, they view blogs as “peasants”; it’s possible they’re a bit tight-lipped with local media as well, but the main thing I get out of what I have overheard is that the folks who comprise the Rapids Organization likes releasing news on their own terms.

Bottom line, if I’m not talking about what I saw on the field the weekend before, chances are I’m just passing on news from The Official Organ – which, like their home field, we can all refer to as The Dick. No…wait. That would cause confusion. Let’s stick with calling Dick’s Sporting Goods Park “The Dick” and calling the Colorado Rapids/Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE), anything to do with the public face of the team, “The Official Organ.” There, that makes for some nice thematic consistence.

With that out of the way, here’s the latest from The Official Organ. Last Friday, the Rapids faced Rocky Mountain Cup rivals Real Salt Lake…in Florida. The game ended in a 2-2 draw. Now, there’s something else you should know about me: I hate match reports. They read like friggin’ instruction manuals, with names replacing parts. The Official Organ turned in one, which will tell you who scored when and how they did it, as well as who played and for how long. Sure, that’s good stuff to know, but that just gets me back to my issue with match reports, not mention copy handed down from in-house outlets: I need to see something – e.g. things, people, and soccer teams – with my own eyes before formulating an opinion on it that I trust; and, with the issue of trust still in mind, I don’t trust The Official Organ to give it to me straight. That’s like putting stock a government report titled, “Everything Is Great – Including You!” And we’ve had a few of those to ponder these last eight years.

With the Rapids heading to England and Arsenal fairly soon (if they’re not already gone), it seems worthwhile to put this latest draw into perspective. Picking through The Official Organ’s current archives (resisting temptation to be crude…must resist), I’m seeing three previous games…sort of: a goalless draw against Florida Atlantic University (who? ouch!); a win over Marathon, a Honduran team (more like it); and, let’s just say they took four points over two split-roster games against the United States U-17s (hence, the “sort of”). Add Friday’s draw with RSL and you’ve got a 2-0-2 record (W-L-T) thus far. And that’s against some, frankly, underwhelming opposition.

Let’s see what 10 days in London does for ‘em. I wouldn’t look for much out of their weekly updates, which seem inordinately interested in the weather…which, somehow, isn’t what I suspect fans are looking for.