Of course, there was the mention of last night's RFK power outage -- "that much more of a reason why we need a new stadium down in D.C." Then, there was some bragging that United averages more TV viewers than the Nationals. Fair enough, but no one around DCU has bragged because the numbers themselves are not exactly big, or even medium-sized.

Garber spent much of his address doing a bit of MLS-101 for the predominantly Canadian audience, re-hashing last year's successes, boasting about Jozy Altidore, and heaping mucho praise on Toronto for its way-bigger-than-anyone-ever-anticipated embrace of MLS. Speaking of which, MLS doesn't want the CFL's Toronto Argonauts moving into BMO Field:

"One of the key ingredients in that formula for success for the sport in this country and Major League Soccer in this country and overall, is the environment at BMO Field, and we need to protect that environment. We have some challenges with achieving that," said Garber. "If it were our preference, we feel very strongly that the stadium needs to be a soccer-specific stadium. We need to be mindful of our position in being able to achieve that, but we hope we can work with mayor, work with others so we can keep that special position, special environment that has driven so much of the success of this team. That doesn’t take anything from the fact that I hope the CFL can be successful in this market. I’m sure there are a lot of places that they might be able to go out and achieve that, but I hope it’s not within BMO Field."

As for stuff going on inside stadiums, namely, brawls between Columbus Crew fans and West Ham fans last weekend, Garber's perspective is that drunk fans fight no matter the sport: "It’s one of the concerns that we have as we start thinking about our long-term as a business, the perception that there are issues in this sport that don’t exist anywhere in other professional leagues. There was a fight between two intoxicated people at the Columbus game, and it’s turned into headlines."

We'll see tomorrow night.

Next, let's talk expansion. Canadians apparently want another team. Garber said MLS is stopping at 18, and then will re-evaluate. The list, in alphabetical order: Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami, Montreal, New York 2.0, Ottawa, Portland, St. Louis, Vancouver. Maybe an announcement in November.

What's after that? Oh, right, the usual defense for developmental player salaries: "We’re providing significant more job opportunities than any other time in professional soccer in North America, and those players, development players, who are not yet ready, for the most part, to be playing on senior rosters, have a chance to compete and earn a right, no different than a minor-league baseball player."

Except that minor league baseball players don't train alongside their Major League counterparts every single day -- by the way, MLS Players Union folks were meeting with counterparts at the NHLPA in Toronto today...

On fixture congestion: "What we believe we can do is look at having the qualification for those tournaments perhaps adapted so that we don’t have the conflict with SuperLiga, the Champions’ League, and U.S. Open Cup. We’ve talked about that in league, and discussed it with the competition committee." 

Translation: the MLS teams in SuperLiga likely won't be the same ones in Champions League. Whew.

Perhaps Garber's funniest moment came when he talke about MLS players flying coach, which played an important role as members of the New England Revolution subdued a naked guy last week in midflight as he was attempting to open one of their plane's emergency doors.

"It's a good thing our players fly coach," said Garber, who then took it over the edge. "If they had been in first class, the plane would've gone down."

We'll end this post with MLS' five goals:

1. Raise the league's credibility and standing among leagues around the world

2. More soccer-specific stadiums.

3. Growth in ratings everywhere, TV, internet, etc.

4. Convert MLS-hating soccer fans into MLS-loving soccer fans

5. Improve the quality of play on the field

Expect a weighed lottery -- here's the history -- to determine where these three will go.

2008 MLS All-Star First XI
Goalkeeper: Matt Reis (New England Revolution)
Defenders: Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Frankie Hejduk (Columbus Crew), Michael Parkhurst (New England Revolution)
Midfielders: David Beckham (Los Angeles Galaxy), Cuauhtemoc Blanco (Chicago Fire), Shalrie Joseph (New England Revolution), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Robbie Rogers (Columbus Crew)
Forwards: Kenny Cooper (FC Dallas), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy)

Check out the link and scroll down to see the chart which shows how close Luciano Emilio came. It's great that MLS was more transparent about the process. As for the selections themselves, I'm a little surprised Bakary Soumare didn't make it, but looking at the numbers, it appears votes may have been split between he and teammate Gonzalo Segares. For the midfielders, it looks like Robbie Rogers has impressed front office execs, which gave him the edge of Dwayne De Rosario, and Emilio just came on a little too late.

Questions remain as to whether Houston and D.C. players will even accpet the chance to participate, given their match -- resked from the flood at RFK on June 4 -- two days before the All-Star game.

I mean, who wouldn't? They've got a brand new stadium, and it's going to host the 2009 MLS All-Star Game.

Speaking of All-Stars, the 2008 First XI -- whoopie, they get to play West Ham -- gets announced tomorrow morning. No signs of any D.C. United players....