A Summer of Soccer & the Chupacabra in the Room

Ladies and Gentlemen, things are about to get all kinds of silly. Consider this, if you will, the state of the union address. And state of our union is strong.

By this time tomorrow, many of you will have taken possession of your new 2014 St. Louligan T-shirt. (Cool, right?- Another big shout out to Adrenaline Prints and Amanda & Ryan Malaschak for doing such a great job.) We’re about to have our pre-season party to discuss the upcoming seasons for the St. Louis Lions, Fire & Ice Soccer Club and the brand new NPSL team in town- FC Bordo. Yep, three teams. We’re going to be busy this summer trying to get to all the local games. I know you probably can’t make it out to all of them, but please try to go out and support local soccer where and when you can. But local soccer isn’t the only thing going on for the Louligans this summer.

We are working with International Tap House (iTap) to make their establishments our “official” bar. We’ll have more information as it comes, but this is great news for us since we’re always scrambling around to find a place to do things. I know everybody loves the Amsterdam and I do too, but it’s not always a convenient meeting spot. Amsterdam will remain the home bar for our friends the American Outlaws and we will continue to go there for USA games and big EPL matches early mornings on the weekends- but for some of our other events we’ll be using iTap and taking advantage of their 3 locations. Soulard for times when we need something centrally located, Chesterfield for pre-Lions events and the new CWE location for pre-Bordo parties. In addition to a convenient place to meet there will be other bonuses like beer specials and charity sponsorship etc. Big thanks to Mitch Morice for doing 99% of the work on this and I expect once things get rolling he’ll make a post with more details.

So, speaking of iTap- we’ll be doing a Champions League Final viewing party at the Chesterfield location before the Lions game on May 24^th. Again, this will be a big party with drink specials and will be a perfect opportunity to bring a new friend out for a whole day of soccer. Champions league on TV and live PDL action in Cottleville. IF you haven’t joined us at a game before, consider this your formal invitation to come out and meet the gang and have some fun. You know you want to watch the CL final with a bunch of crazy soccer fans anyway.

On May 30^th there’s another big international friendly in town. The 2014 Road to Brazil is going through St. Louis and Bosnia Herzegovina will be playing Ivory Coast at the Dome. We’re working on putting together a group buy with discounted tickets. We’ll let you know more details soon, but even if you aren’t sitting in the group or maybe not even going to the match- you should come out and tailgate with us. Once again we’ll be setting up early with Tailgate Czar Erich VonNida running the show. The big difference is that this time our friends at iTap will be helping us make it happen with tents and refreshments.

In June it’s time to start gearing up for the World Cup. We will of course be joining the Outlaws at Amsterdam Tavern for USA games, but we’ll also be doing some viewing parties at iTap before local games. We’ll post all the official events on Facebook or Twitter, so be sure to follow us there for up to date information on where and when we’ll be. Also be on the lookout for a special iTap World Cup t-shirt. (Rumor has it that it might have a familiar logo on it somewhere.)

AND… the final point in our plan for world domination is the return of Outdoor Pro Soccer to St. Louis. We’ve teased it for a while now. We thought it was going to happen back in February, but then the landscape shifted. There was a conflict of ownership groups and in the end things went in a direction we didn’t expect. The good news is that we’re still getting a team. The Chupacabra has been captured and will soon be unveiled for all the world to see. I can’t say much at the moment, but I can say we’ve talked to team officials and the St. Louligans will be a part of the future of Pro Outdoor Soccer here in St. Louis. There are so many exciting events coming up for Louligans to get to know the new team and we’ll be doing special articles and podcasts as often as we can. We’ll start it off with a podcast at the team announcement and we’ll talk to as many people involved as we can. We’ll also be tweeting and facebooking live from the event, so make sure you’re following us. We’ll announce the time and location as soon as we can, but in the meantime- keep an eye on the countdown clock. When it hits 0:00:00:00 all will be revealed. Things are about to get silly and we invite you to join us for the party. Whether you’re a new fan or a longtime sufferer there is room on the bandwagon for you.

And with that I’ll sign off. I can’t wait to watch some soccer this summer and meet some new friends.

Brad- St.Louligan. Vice-President of Silly Hats