The Pulse! No. #81
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COVER STORY
A new season awaits us all!
Whether it is our last one, our first or somewhere in the middle, a new season is just around the corner!
Schedules are going out, fields are mowed and waiting on someone to come line them, new friends have been made over the summer and for some of us, this year is bittersweet as it will be our kids' last year as a player and ours as cheerleaders for their teams.
Wherever you are on this soccer ride, ENJOY IT!!***********************
Here and Now
The first games for many of us are just around the corner. YAY!!
Some questions to all of you.
If this is your first year in soccer, what brought you/your child to the game?
If you are somewhere in the middle, what makes you/your DK's stay in soccer?
If you are on your last year, what will you and your DK's miss the most?
Sounders FC will host the Chicago Fire on Tuesday, October 4 on the Xbox Pitch at CenturyLink Field.
The Sounders FC announced tickets will go on sale to the U.S. Open Cup Championship match on Tuesday, ( TODAY ) September 6 at 10 a.m. The Sounders FC will host the Chicago Fire on Tuesday, October 4 on the Xbox Pitch at CenturyLink Field. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
Tickets start at $15 and will be available at soundersfc.com, by calling 800-745-3000, all Ticketmaster outlets and the CenturyLink Field Box office.
GO SOUNDERS!!...and never forget; if there is not enough blah blah blah on the games, you only have "you know who" to blame 
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TOURNAMENTS
Plenty of games were played this past summer. I hope you all had a great time!
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"Shout out to da newbies"
We see a few brand new posters since the last Pulse Lets give out a Shout and as always, lets give a warm welcome to all new posters!
This week we would like to applaude and give Karma Kisses 
to:AS-ROMA10, DBFJC, braziliansoccer, KeeperTrainer001
madrew , aberger, HPFCGene, KTBugsFan, gottcha
anyudes, EVENKEEL, honeybadger, charityteams and Mgivv, Powerade, Quake, LouHoosier, striker3, jekswang, Thrall Star, tickytack, Onlyone#15, Sounders1974, striker722, spokaneman Welcome aboard!
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Islanders GU15's Rankings!
The 2011-2012 year brings a big change for
many of the girls, High School. With the
Summer tournament season complete the
girls are off to High School ball. Upon their
return they head to their Winter league play
and many questions remain. For the RCL,
who’s in and who’s out? Two Divisions or
Four? ECNL teams (Crossfire and
Washington Premier) in or out? More likely
they are out. And of course there’s the
ongoing politics within the State. The one
thing that is for sure is at the end of it all, we
will crown a State Champion. So the race is
on to be number one.
Rank +/- Team
1 - Crossfire Premier ECNL
2 - Washington Premier FC ECNL
3 - Eastside FC Red
4 - Northwest Nationals Red
5 - Columbia Timbers Red
6 - Crossfire Premier A
7 - Whatcom FC Rangers Gold
8 - Spokane Shadow Navy
9 - Sun City Strikers Lackey
10 - Federal Way FC Reign
11 - Harbor FC Premier
12 - Spokane SC Elite Premier
13 - Eastside FC White
14 - Dos FC Premier Red
15 - Tynecastle Saprissa Purple
16 - Washington Premier FC Black
17 - Washington Rush Nike
25 - Mercer Island FC Islanders
18 - MVP Marauders Navy
24 - River City Black
19 - Westside Revolution Silver
20 - Crossfire Premier B
21 - Columbia Timbers Blue
22 - River City Fire
23 - Emerald City FC Green
No. 1 Crossfire Premier ECNL
11-3-1
Last years State Champions saw action at
the Manchester United Premier Cup, Nike
Crossfire Challenge U16 Division and the
San Diego Surf Cup.
The team won their own tournament and
were very impressive in all of their early
campaigns. In February, along with WPFC,
they are scheduled for a tournament in San
Antonio.
No. 2 Washington Premier FC
ECNL 15-3-0
New coach and new life. Washington
Premier FC seems to have been able to turn
it up another notch with a very successful
Summer run.
They opened with a not very impressive
tournament in their own Rainier Challenge
losing to a vastly improved Harbor FC
Premier team in the semifinal, but then the
team started to roll. Winning both the US
Club Regional tournament and the National
tournament. Finalist at the Nike Crossfire
Challenge losing to number one Crossfire
Premier ECNL in a close match 1-0.
No. 3 Eastside FC Red
14-2-2
Eastside is Eastside, strong, fast and
aggressive. The only question for this team
is can they return to the top after being
knocked off last year by Crossfire Premier.
If Crossfire and WPFC move on then
Eastside will be the early pick to win it all. If
not then the road will be much, much
tougher.
No. 4 Northwest Nationals Red
6-3-1
New coach, not many matches and just to
many questions.
The team started the year in Utah at the
Avalanche Invitational, followed by the US
Club Regionals and ending with the Nike
Crossfire Challenge making it only as far as
the semifinals in one tournament.
No. 5 Columbia Timbers Red
7-3-3
New coach, not many matches and just to
many questions.
The team started the year in Utah at the
Avalanche Invitational, followed by the US
Club Regionals and ending with the Nike
Crossfire Challenge making it only as far as
the semifinals in one tournament.
This is a quiet team that you just don’t here
much from but they have always been a very
good patient ball control team.
This is a quiet team that you just don’t here
much from but they have always been a very
good patient ball control team.
This spot over the years seems to be the
revolving door. The question has always
been “can someone break the dominant hold
of the top 4?” So far the answer has been
“No.”
For the last couple of years the Timbers have
been knocking at the door but this year seem
to have come out stumbling a little allowing
17 goals in their 13 matches.
Whether they can really challenge the top 4
this year is yet to be seen. It is so early in
the year and right now you could almost flip a
coin between number 5 through number 10
for the top challengers position.
Teams to Watch
No. 19 Westside Revolution Sliver out of
Vancouver now 7-1-0, scoring 20 goals and
allowing 1. The one loss came to number 11
Harbor FC Premier 1-0.
No. 25 Mercer Island FC Islanders. The
Islanders, last years Founder Cup Champions
gained some strength this year at tryouts.
.
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Blue Chips Girls 94 Rankings!
I'm sad to say that BC has been out of the 94 loop lately. His rankings have always been one of the hottest threads here on WPS.
THANKS BC for all the time, hard work and sometimes even a few 'wickeds' you have endured giving us your rankings of the 94 girls.***********************
"...Out on the Pitch"
Sorry gang. I'm sure you don't want to see just Miki and her Cosmos team ( if ya do just PM me lol ) **Please continue to send pix's to the Pulse newsroom! Anything soccer related is welcome!** 
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Ask the Coach!
This week on WPS got me to thinking about the question (s) I asked the coach.
How, as a coach, do you know where to place your teams in Divisions, Leagues or even tournaments?
What criteria do you use? What a great question. I’ll break this down into the different parts that you presented it.
Leagues: That is usually already decided based on what affiliation your club has. For example WPFC is part of the RCL. Other clubs may be part of the PSPL or State league. So as a coach you generally just go to the league that the club you coach for is already a part of.
Divisions: In some leagues your division is already decided on past results in league. But lets say for this question you have the option to petition the league with the placement you would like. In that case a good coach should be realistic about his team and their ability. As a coach in league you should really want to give your to the chance to play in the league where they will play the most competitive games to help them grow. It doesn’t do them any good to place them in a league that they go 0-14, but it doesn’t do much good to go 14-0. Ideally I’ve always felt a good league record is 60% wins 20% loses and 20% ties. If you have that ratio then your team was placed in a pretty good league for them. They had more success than anything else but were still pushed by the teams around them. So in a 14 game season a record of 8-3-3 or 7-3-4 or something along those lines is a good record to have. You did your job as a coach in putting them into the right league.
Tournaments: This really comes down to what you want out of your team. You should have an idea first of all if your team is a P-1 “A” team or a P-4 “B” team. Any coach knows that some of the stronger tournaments in the area are crossfire, us club regionals, Lake Oswego nike cup, ect. So if your taking your team their and you are a P-1 team then obviously you are going to go into the top division. But if you’re a lower division B team it might be a good idea to select the second division. However, if you were lets say a B team that is attending the Beaverton cup, Snohomish, or one of those tournaments that don’t get a lot of P-1 level teams then it is a good idea to put your “B” team into the top division.
That’s the easy answer to the question, but what it really comes down to is the coach being realistic with the team they have, and leaving their ego at the door. If your team truly isn’t a P-1 team is it really fair to waste their money traveling down to California? The goal of any coach should be to develop their players to the best of their ability, and that means knowing the ability of your players and putting them in situations where they will be pushed, but still be able to grow and have success.
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"Help! Is there a Doctor in the house?"
Hey Doc!
In a recent thread, http://washingtonpremiersoccer.com/forum/index.php/topic,17333.0.html
there was talk about some 'miracle cream' that heped OS.
Can natural ingredient things be helpful for this or is this just mind healing body because you believe it works' type thing?
If OS means Osgood Schlatters, there is NO magic bullet. Voltaren gel is relatively new and represents a very good anti inflammatory cream, but it is prescription. Other than that, lots of ice, judicious rest , some physical therapy ...and they all get better.
*Send all medical questions for "the doctor" to the Pulse email address************************
WPS FAMILY CIRCLE FOUNDATION!!! 
Prayers and good thoughts go out to Mrs Dragon and the rest of the Dragon family as they deal with the news that she has lymphoma
Keep the Johnson family in your prayers too as they deal with the loss of their son/brother/friend Tucker
Our prayers and good thoughts are with you all!***********************
Ask the Ref!
Which LOTG do you think are the most important ( Top 10 if there is that many lol ) for us coaches, parents and kids to learn.All the laws are important, none more than another.
The law that should be followed the most is Law 18!
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OTHER NEWS AND GOSSIP AND TIDBITS:
Rumors of merging are going on all over the place.
Seattle United and NWN, Eastside playing house with Crossfire and WPFC becoming bedmates with a host of Clubs!
Who will win and who will lose in these talks? If it is not about the kids and only the kids, you've screwed up!!
WYS is still trying to get teams back from USCS. No promises are being made but I'm hear some back door deals are going on for making the RCL a little bigger. ***********************
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMCoaching application in and accepted.. ?
RMA..?
Named as Head Coach.. ?
Teams filling in.. ?
Head Coach bumped!!
Having thrown my hat into the coaching ring then having the lame excuse that because you have no kids playing at this age, we are giving someone else the team.
It's called GIVING BACK to the sport you have loved for the past 7-10 years!!
HS girls soccer... WTF?!? Seems like the coaches are only after one thing and it's not necessarily the "W". I'm not sure what they are after tho. Kissing up to someone maybe? Getting a kickback from a parent to put their DD on the team?
Why are they taking girls that have almost no experience and putting them on the Varsity team or even girls with little playing experience? And why in the world would you be cutting a SENIOR VARSITY player?
Things that make you go hmmmm!
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and once again the end of another great effort by all on the Pulse staff! Thank you for all your help in getting the Pulse out! If there is anything that you would like to have added, a theme to suggest or just putting in your 2 cents in a vent, PM me
If you would like to donate to WPS click below to go to the front page and click on the Donate button:
http://washingtonpremiersoccer.com/Thats it for this weeks Issue of the Pulse, hope you enjoy it...and as always never forget to... Play with Heart & Fire, Heart & Fire Always!
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