Edmonton on February 16, 2011

Centuries from now, when this broken beer bottle is found encased in ice by aliens, they will wonder who we were.
Let’s talk airport, Edmonton.
We can now look at the five proposals for the Edmonton City Centre Airport (ECCA) lands. If you’re at City Hall you can see displays from the five companies vying to design the new neighbourhood. But if you’re reading this right now you’re probably at your computer, or on the bus, or somewhere not City Hall, so hit up the website!
I’ve only watched three of the five videos so far, and the third one (from the Netherlands) is my favourite to this point.
The City also released the 2010 Edmonton Transit Service stats, and boy are we flocking to the expanded LRT. 20,000 more people jumped on the train last year, mostly due to the new stops at Southgate and Century Park. There were a lot more riders on buses too.
Starting today, you can give the City some ideas of what to do with the Kinsmen Sports Centre. Mayhaps some kind of giant velcro wall…
Here’s a restaurant you may not want to eat at. We need health reviews posted in restaurant windows.
A pair of Edmonton women are being recognized as top professionals.
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The Progressive Conservative leadership race is starting to get crowded, as Alison Redford joins the other three guys. By announcing the next morning she also steals a little ofI’ll get excited when Carl Benito runs for Premier. Benitomania!
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Edmonton is among the Canadian cities waiting to hear if we’ll be hosting the 2015 Women’s World Cup, and the 2014 Under-20 Women’s World Cup. Both of soccer.
Those perogies you bought at the grocery store are probably from right here.
Get your kicks
In all of today’s excitement over the Netherlands-Uruguay semi-final at the World Cup, let’s talk local soccer.
FC Edmonton is back on the pitch tonight, taking on one of Canada’s stronger teams, the Ottawa Fury.
FC is in the midst of exhibition games and friendlies, while the Fury is trying to lock-up the Northeast Division of the United Soccer League’s (USL) Premier Development League for the second year in a row.
Here’s hoping some of this World Cup excitement spills over to Foote Field tonight (7:35), and for the rest of this summer’s practice season. That way the team is all confident for the real season in 2011 and gives us a show.
Champion Concordia
I was actually caught by surprise today when Jason (Remember him? The guy you’re supposed to be helping achieve dreams.) sent along some more great soccer photos of the Concordia Thunder.
The surprise came in the fact the Thunder won the national title this weekend.
Yeah, I hadn’t heard anything about that either. At least the London Free Press is all over this.
That aside, let’s talk about what sounds like a great game.
Also, it’s got a great name: 2009 Big Kahuna/adidas Canadian Colleges Athletics Association Women’s Soccer National Championships. There will be a test, so memorize all of that.
Alesha Weicker put in an early goal, which was quickly countered by the Fanshawe Falcons. (Bias alert: I went to Fanshawe.) Nothing was settled in regular time.
It looked like nothing was going to be settled in extra time either. Sudden death shootouts loomed.
But Laura Ellis sniped home the winner with seconds to go.
Weicker took tournament MVP honours, while teamamtes Kelly Anderson, Trish Arnds and Lindsay Monkman made the All-Star roster.
There you have it, Edmonton. The Concordia Thunder women’s soccer team is the newest champion in the city of such. It’s also their first title.
Next year’s tournament is right here in Edmonton, hosted by NAIT. Could we be so lucky as to see an all Edmonton final? We have one year to wait.
In related CCAA sports news, the national Cross-Country championships will be hosted in Camrose by Augustana, this weekend.






