{"id":31692,"date":"2015-02-15T00:55:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T05:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=31692"},"modified":"2015-02-15T01:00:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T06:00:37","slug":"a-winter-tradition-of-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=31692","title":{"rendered":"A Winter Tradition of Their Own?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: mlb.com and Chris Aduama (aduamaphotography.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

On Thursday, hundreds gathered outside Fenway Park to watch a truck loaded with baseball equipment begin\u00a0its annual trek down to Florida. Yes, “Truck Day” has become a\u00a0mid-winter\u00a0Boston sports\u00a0tradition. But\u00a0it shouldn’t\u00a0be the only one.<\/p>\n

Weeks before\u00a0a hearty collection of Red Sox fans sent the 18-wheeler on its way, the Revolution quietly\u00a0kicked off\u00a0its preseason camp at the Dana Farber Fieldhouse in virtual anonymity. Oh sure, there were a few reporters on hand to witness the first official workout of 2015. Even a couple of\u00a0news cameras were there. The fanfare? Nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n

This isn’t\u00a0atypical across MLS. Many clubs\u00a0located above\u00a0the Mason-Dixon line open their camps sheltered from the elements\u00a0in large, sterile field houses or domes, far removed from the limelight.\u00a0Granted, no one’s missing out\u00a0anything compelling. The first few days of camp are typically devoted to jogging, agility drills and passing duels.\u00a0And that’s pretty much it.<\/p>\n

Then again, if you want to talk about the mundane, watching a group of workers load a truck probably takes the cake. But that shouldn’t stop the Revolution from\u00a0starting a mid-winter tradition of their own.<\/p>\n

Like Red Sox fans, Revolution supporters are just as eager for any sign that the season isn’t far off. They set up their PCs, tablets and smartphones to watch live streams of the club’s preseason matches. They\u00a0track the ones that aren’t\u00a0broadcasted right\u00a0on\u00a0Twitter or Facebook.\u00a0They look for\u00a0something – anything –\u00a0that allows them\u00a0to forget that\u00a0Jack Frost\u00a0still has\u00a0his\u00a0frigid grip on the region.<\/p>\n

Here’s an idea: Open up the first day of preseason camp to the supporters, free of charge.\u00a0Set\u00a0up a perimeter around the\u00a0pitch inside\u00a0the Dana Farber Fieldhouse, and allow\u00a0fans young, old\u00a0and in-between a first\u00a0glimpse of\u00a0the team. To smile at familiar faces. To\u00a0wave hello to\u00a0the not-so-familiar ones. To forget about winter. To think spring, regardless of how cold it is outside or how much snow has blanketed the region.<\/p>\n

At the end of that first session – which is typically comprised of passing drills and jogging – allow the supporters to meet and greet the players and coaches. Heck, give a mic to Jay Heaps and have him address the spectators. Official team poet laureate<\/a>? Not here.<\/p>\n

Boston\u00a0sports fans love traditions. Any chance to celebrate their favorite teams is embraced with open arms. The Red Sox, perhaps more than any pro team in the area, have catered to the passion of their fans, with Truck Day serving as Exhibit A.\u00a0The\u00a0club’s PR department has\u00a0taken something that used to be completely insignificant and\u00a0transformed it into an annual gathering. Twenty years ago, no one marked their calendar for the day that the Sox loaded up a tractor-trailer\u00a0with equipment and sent it to spring training. Today,\u00a0hundreds go out of their way to make sure they don’t miss it.<\/p>\n

The Revolution don’t need a truck, or any other large vehicle with a snazzy slogan emblazoned on it, to send out their own signal that spring is near. All they have to do is start a tradition of their town.\u00a0Maybe\u00a0it’s something as simple as inviting the supporters into the Fieldhouse for the first workout. Or maybe it’s a preseason rally. And who knows?\u00a0Maybe – just maybe – the\u00a0Revolution could out-do the Red Sox in the process\u00a0 before long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Red Sox celebrate Truck Day every February. What can the Revs do to start their own winter tradition?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[985,891,235,888,892,986],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Sox-Revs-1.png?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31692"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31706,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31692\/revisions\/31706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}