July 15, 2018--York 9 FC World Cup Final watch party at Dave and Buster's (by Rocket Robin)

A twitter post a week ago announced a special party for York 9 fans at the Dave and Buster's Sports Bar
in Vaughan.  It's about three blocks from the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway station (the last one
on the TTC University Line that runs up from Union Station).  

There were about thirty of us York 9 fans including children in our own section of the restaurant for 
this Sunday morning event.  The 'Generation IX' banner used at the team launch back in May was taped 
to a wall to help guide the fans to our section once they were inside.  

A presentation was made by Ben Zayandehroudi, the vice president of ticket sales and fan services.  
He had to carry the show as Preben Ganzhorn President of York Sports and Entertainment was at Sick Kids Hospital
to care for his suddenly ill 15 year old daughter and Executive Vice President and Director of Soccer
Jim Brennan was also absent as his flight back from Ireland was delayed.  

Zayandehroudi made about a ten minute talk about York 9 before they turned the sound up on the big 
screen televisions for the start of the World Cup Final game between France and Croatia held in Moscow 
which meant by game time it was just after 11:00am in southern Ontario on another one of those >30C days.  
Complementary appetisers and drinks were served.

While he was speaking I realized I was missing some of the best points and should have been trying
to record this rather than write notes so later I asked him if I could could record an interview
(using my bullet point notes as a guide).  It was arranged that we'd talk after the game was over 
and meanwhile he mingled with the other guests.  

Hard to tell who the crowd was cheering for...I'd say anything exciting.  No-one had any France
or Croatia gear but there were a full kit Germany couple, a Brazil guy, and an Argentina guy here.
    
I enjoyed it.  There was an own goal and a goalkeeping flubber up...so not much different than
incidents I saw in the three League 1 Ontario games I saw this weekend.  No games were scheduled
today.  

So on to the interview after the game broken up into two five minute segments because that's
the time limit I know of on my Galaxy 7.  

mp3 File...York 9 Part 1 of interview

Part 1 is about the York stadium being used and its arrangement for the first two years and   
the various season ticket prices.  I had a brochure showing the outlay of the stadium but I
must have misplaced it on my way out so I've drawn a crude diagram.  




mp3 File...York 9 Part 2 of interview

Part 2 is about the 'Canadianess' of the league including rosters and salary caps,
Canadians and internationals, other Canadian cities involved and rivalaries.
scheduling games in this market.

Zayandehroudi said there will be another event in around August and it may
be held in North York (northern suburb of Toronto) as there has been a great
interest in the northern Toronto area.  

In his general comments made before I thought of recording, he mentioned
things like media rights are not known yet and there a lot of decisions
that have to be made at the league level (not the club level).  They are
not concerned yet about the number of STH tickets sold while they
concentrate on the minor soccer partnerships now.  

I'm trying to get my foot in early to do the kind of interviews that
I do now on my own site about TFC II...meaning let the sound bites roll
instead of having to extract two sentences when I have to edit a story
for Waking The Red.  I was warned it is too soon for that yet.  

I got a free scarf (see photo) and an olive green Generation IX/Support 
Local Football t-shirt (wow because by the time they got to me they 
only had X-large).  Some got black baseball caps.

Interesting that today my preferred north/south subway route to downtown
Toronto is closed this weekend...mental note...40 minutes to take
a bus to this alternate line.  The remainder of the TFC schedule that is
on weekends will have this problem so I have to plan on 2 hrs/40 minutes
to get home after their games.     
  
Rocket Robin
robing@eol.ca
Twitter @RocketRobin01  

Dave & Buster's Sports Bar in Vaughan hosted the event.

York 9 fans had our own section partitioned off to watch the game on multiple giant screen TVs.

Rocket Robin and York 9 Football Club Director of Marketing Ben Zayandehroudi.

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