$25k: The Fire could spend at least that amount of money on employing cheerleaders at Toyota Park next season, or they could finally pay Section 8 Chicago the $25,000 they owe us and are refusing to make good on. The loss of that money this season seriously impacted all of our activities, but out of respect for the team, we decided not to go public with this until the season was over. As we enter the offseason, we still have no guarantee from the team that we will ever receive payment from them. We are now taking action and receiving legal advice to find out how we can get the money owed to us by the very team we are dedicated to supporting.

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S8OT - EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS::
As you all know by now, the Chicago Fire is heading to Columbus on Thursday to take on the Crew in the Eastern Conference Finals. Anticipating that this might be the scenario, we’ve been able to reserve a bus to help get supporters to the match.

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This is probably ill-timed, since the post season begins this evening, but none the less, what follows is a brief look at some of the stats from the Chicago Fire 2008 Regular Season. All of the statistics below include only Regular Season games, except for the season goal, foul, and card totals, which have been unabashedly stolen directly from www.chicago-fire.com.

Chicago Fire 2008 Regular Season Stats 

Top Scorer: Chris Rolfe – 9

It’s worth noting that Chad Barrett scored 5 regular season goals before being sent to Toronto, which is good enough to qualify him as Chicago’s 3rd best. Blanco was 2nd with 7. To put these numbers in perspective, Landon Donovan won the MLS Golden Boot with 20 goals. Both Rolfe and John Thorrington scored 3 game-winning-goals.

 Most Yellow Card Cautions Received: Bakare Soumare – 10

The starters with the least number of cautions are Rolfe, Justin Mapp, and Logan Pause, all with 1 apiece. I have not yet decided if a Defensive Midfielder with only one caution is a very good thing, or a very bad thing. Wilman Conde miraculously managed only 2 on the season.

There were only 2 red cards handed out to Fire players, one each to BrandonPrideaux and CJ Brown.

Most Fouls Suffered: Cuahtemoc Blanco - 76

As a yard stick, the team’s second-highest sufferer was Justin Mapp with a paltry 40.

Longest Unbeaten Streak
    5 games from July 12 through August 9
    v. Toronto: 2-1
    v. Real Salt Lake: 0-0
    @ Kansas City: 0-0
    v. Chivas USA: 1-0
    @ New England: 2-1

Longest Winless Streak
    4 games from June 15 through July 5
    @ Dallas 0-1
    @Chivas 0-2
    v. San Jose 0-0
    @ Nohio 2-2

Interestingly enough, the barren patch ended with the regular season game the launched the unbeaten run.  There a pair of Open Cup game flukes, but for the sake of simplicity, I have looked only at regular season streaks.

Record against Eastern Conference Opposition: 8 – 4 – 3
Record against Western Conference Opposition: 5 – 6 – 4

The Fire were pretty poor against Western Conference talent this season, especially considering the gap in strength between East and West. The Fire should have done much better against the lesser conference with teams like Colorado, Salt Lake, the dismal Galaxy, and San Jose.  It’s surprising that Chicago didn’t come away with a winning record here, but did so quite handily in the East.

Regular Season Record Against Potential Playoff Opponents
New England: 3 – 0 – 0     Nohio: 0 – 0 – 2         NYRB: 3 – 0 – 0
KC: 0 – 1 – 2                         Houston: 0 – 2 – 0    Chivas USA: 1 – 1 – 0
                                                 RSL: 0 – 0 – 2
 

The perfect records against both New England and New York help explain the strong Eastern Conference record but those two numbers are misleading here. Neither team is favored to advance in the playoffs. While the Fire are set to play their proscribed post-season match up against New England, it’s unlikely New York will make it past Western Conference champs Houston. The season

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At the last home match against New York, those of you standing in 117/118, as well as those throughout the stadium, may have recieved a large flag given to 10,000 of the fans attending the match.  Working, with the assistance of Best Buy, the ISA was able to coordinate the design, manufacturing and distribution of flags stadiumwide for this important final regular season contest.

While originally intended to be waved by the crowd before kickoff en masse as a powerfully inspiring visual to the players as the match commenced -- weather and other factors conspired to defeat the intent of the project.  However, many new fans all over the stadium now have a flag to bring to each game from now on and continue waving as a show of their support. 

Many new fans may be looking at the flag design and wonder where the chosen imagery came from and what it means. 

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Section 8 Chicago and the Chicago Fire have worked out a $30 ticket deal for the end of the season. It's Diego Gutierrez's final season with the team and we would like to send him out in style. That means filling the stands and honoring him on the field as well as helping him raise money for his charity efforts.

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Click here for the survey!

(The survey will be closed either once we get 100 responses or on October 31st, whichever comes first).

Backstory:

Many core Section 8-ers have been around for years, even since before the team played its first game. In recent years, however, the Association has seen an influx of new Fire faithfuls, both independent and those who have joined its affiliated supporters groups. The visible growth has enabled Section 8 to expand to 2 sections at Toyota Park at the beginning of this year.  With the 2008 season coming to an end, the Association is starting to plan for 2009.  We hope that the feedback from the survey will help us better reach out to all Fire supporters and help us fulfill our mission of uniting our core fan base.  

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Walking over to Toyota Park early Saturday morning, I couldn't help but think I was forgetting something – camera . . . check . . . Fire jersey . . . check…Fire flag …check. What was it I'm missing? Oh yeah, pants. I had the bright idea to wear shorts, and at 8:00 A.M. on an October day in Chicago it was freezing. Why didn't I wear the pants? But there was no time to worry about it. The bus was minutes away and I was about to head to Kansas City for my first away game in Kansas.

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...at the very least that might explain the way things are going.

While our complete and utter ineptitude against Dallas is enough reason for disgust (completely winless since 2005 and winless in Dallas since 1999), it's only a symptom of a much more worrying problem -- our faltering defense of our home.

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The Fire come into this game on the back of their worst performance of the season against Colorado last weekend. With the playoffs just around the corner, this is not the time to be in a slump. The Fire could be looking at that situation with a loss to Dallas on Sunday, a team that is fighting for their playoff lives.

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