D.C. United at Portland on May 29, 2011.

The Pacific Northwest is a special place. The region known as Cascadia holds a unique spot in my heart as the location where my career in sports began, and the spot where I met my wonderful girlfriend someone brave enough to put up with my soccer obsession and move across the country because of it.

Another busy soccer weekend here in the States, with MLS, WPS and Gold Cup action. Before we take a look at attendance, there are a couple of other stories worth noting. We'll start in Portland, where the Timbers have cut a great pair of commercials with their presenting sponsor Alaska Airlines.

Last night, MLS saw its latest soccer-specific facility open to much success in Portland. That was just one major news story coming from MLS's newest franchises yesterday, who, for whatever reason, dominated the news. Montreal looks like it will find great success next year as well, which speaks to MLS's newfound ability to bring new markets online in a very strong fashion.

While we're getting close to the start of the 2011 MLS season -- official First Kick for the League is tomorrow night with the Galaxy at Seattle on ESPN -- our focus today should remain in Japan. If you haven't already, please, donate whatever you can however you can. As we mentioned yesterday, you can text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross efforts in Japan.

The fourth version of the Portland Timbers takes the field as one of 2 MLS expansion sides for 2011. Along with Pacific Northwest neighbors Vancouver Whitecaps will be looking to mimic the extraordinary success of arch-rivals Seattle Sounders, whose 30,000+ average crowds have set a very high bar.

Contributing Editor Graham Fox
The start of the MLS regular season is almost here, and I'm pumped. The stream of information has really increased as more teams latch onto social media and spreading the love. More video, more interview, more pictures, more personal interactions with the fans, the whole scene is something I love watching.

We're starting a new feature on the Free Beer Movement site to expand our coverage of American soccer culture. It's called "Better Know a Supporters Group" just like Steven Colbert's "Better Know a District" from "The Colbert Report".
Our goal: to feature each of the MLS teams' supporters groups.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

Before the Union won the rights to Chris Agorsor they announced that Eduardo Coudet had been waived, thus ending weeks of speculation about his status with the club. The addition of Agorsor combined with the subtraction of Coudet means that the club's roster remains at 25 players.

We waited. And waited. Then waited some more for the 2011 MLS regular season schedule to be revealed. With part of its TV deal still in doubt and factors such as the Gold Cup and stadium construction complicating matters, MLS tested supporters' patience, so much so that Twitter was flooded this morning by cheeky #MLSScheduleIsLateBecause hashtag posts, as fans tried to pass the time before the big unveiling at 2pm ET.

MLS has finally released the 2011 schedule with a whopping five weeks to go before First Kick. Some highlights of the Fire's schedule include:

• First Kick on Saturday March 19 at Dallas
• Christening PGE Park in Portland on Thursday April 14
• Christening the new stadium in Kansas City on Thursday June 9
• Great Chicago Fire anniversary date will be held on Wednesday October 12 against FC Dallas (date was moved back due to Oct.

Over the last year or so, we have discussed MLS' efforts to measure the value of its television exposure through various local and national broadcasts. Through the website criticalmention.com, MLS tries to alert media to the "value" of its presence on various television programs. Since a few weeks have passed since we last checked in on this metric, we thought providing a snapshot of this metric of MLS media exposure.

STORY OF THE DAY
Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America considers the Adidas influence on MLS.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"One day we went to Maradona's assistant's house for a barbeque, and we all played some soccer. That was so cool to meet Maradona. He was a lot different than I thought he'd be.

Monday afternoon, MLS communications began trumpeting a "major announcement" to be formally unveiled in a Tuesday afternoon conference call involving Don Garber, Thierry Henry and Landon Donovan. Those of us hoping for a new television deal, details on the 2011 playoff format or an actual schedule for the coming season (yes, we're just a month away and still don't know where or when games will take place) began licking our chops in anticipation.

PGE Park in Portland: what it will look like if you peeled the roof away

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I've got a piece coming out early this week in SI.

The clock is ticking down to the to the Portland Timbers' franchise opener on March 19, 2010 in Colorado. The team has been making great strides towards that day, so we thought we would provide a status update on those efforts. We'll start with tickets, where the team has announced that it has sold 10,000 season tickets for its inaugural campaign.