The “Nuts of a Warrior” scarf is now available for sale in the Dark Clouds online store. Order yours today while supplies last!

Tomorrow is the HOME OPENER (not to be confused with the Dome Opener)!  8500+ were at the dome, how many can we get to Blaine tomorrow night?  To celebrate the day there will be festive food on the grill, but you’re welcome to bring your own as well.  Surly is again providing us with a complimentary beer for everyone at the tailgate with a game ticket and a valid ID showing they are over 21 while supplies last!  When we run out and you had the forethought to become a member you can use your Dark Clouds member card at Tournament Liquor to get a discount on more Surly!  Don’t forget to sign up for the ride share if you can give people a lift (or need one yourself).

The grill will be fired up by 5:30, the game is at 7:30, the post game celebration is at Bricks.  Oh yeah, you can also use your membership to get a complimentary membership in Bricks Craft Club!

To the Sweetwater!

To thank Brick’s for sponsoring the Dark Clouds membership program as well as give all paid members another opportunity to use their affiliated Brick’s discounts! Since we’ll be traveling to Blaine, we’ll also be kicking off our 2012 Ride Share campaign.  Sign up on the Google Map, bring as many people as you can, win groveling adulation. Even if you aren’t able to participate as a designated driver, you still have a chance to win prizes with a special edition of Dark Clouds trivia with the Jims at half time!

Let us know you’re coming on Facebook.

Minnesota Stars forward Amani Walker. Photo by Teresa Petersen

Amani Walker is probably the nicest guy on the Minnesota Stars team. He is soft-spoken, eloquent, always friendly, helpful, and just the very nicest guy out there. (At least off the pitch.) When he was asked what he wanted the fans to know about him, he said: “I’m just Amani, I guess. I just want to be nice and friends with everybody and get along with people. Not try to impose too much, I guess. It’s a weird question to ask.”

Maybe, but the new (and existing) fans want to know more about the players. We want to know who they are, aside from the things we can look up online or see on the pitch. With that in mind, he was asked what he wanted to tell the people who didn’t know him last year.

Amani answered, “Nothing. ‘Hello’ I guess. ‘Welcome?’” He laughs. He’s already meeting new people this season, and not always at team events. “I met somebody actually in the Apple store, I guess one of his friends is a Dark Cloud, and he was part of the Timbers Army and moved to Minnesota so now he’s going to be part of it, the Dark Clouds. It was actually kind of weird, random, in the Apple Store. It was cool, though. I’m just happy and thankful that we do have our supporters; somebody who we can work for and go to when we have success and when we’re not doing so well. It’s a nice thing to have and thank you guys for doing what you do.”

You have to admit, Walker is one of the more easily-recognizable players on the pitch. At 6’-2” with shoulder-length (or longer) dreadlocks, he’s easy for fans to keep track of, although defenders often have trouble.

The conversation about being recognized led to a question about other easily recognizable players. He was asked if there were any new player nicknames or stories the fans should know about. Walker said, “Who has a new nickname this year? I’m trying to think. Aside from Evan’s god-awful mustache.” Many of the fans already know about Evan Sassano’s ‘stache and have been having Photoshop fun online with the images. During the Nebraska road trip, Sassano also had a beard. “Oh yeah, he was Jesus. But see, me and Kevin Venegas called him Castaway. We couldn’t remember Tom Hanks’ name in Castaway. That’s what we called him for a long time; it’s definitely what he looked like, like week three in Castaway. [laughing] That’s what he looked like, just scraggly; it wasn’t doing well.

“It’s just been a fun preseason. Long drives, a lot of stuff that’s just been overall fun. It’s good to get everyone back and start playing again and get excited for this [opening] weekend.”

The players are getting ready for their season, and so are the fans. Amani was asked what he thought was the coolest thing he’s seen fans do for a team or player around the league.

He mentioned his new teammate Martin Nunez, formerly with Puerto Rico and Ft Lauderdale. “Well definitely, Martin hated the Dark Clouds, HATED the Dark Clouds, for years. He always said he hated coming here, but he also said that’s good, you should want to hate the fans. You should want to – he used to talk back and everything, and got over it. But he used to hate it; that environment, that presence, the little stuff you do, like Taka Time, that kind of stuff. It’s great and it gets people going. We call it Taka Taka Time now, it picks up all throughout the team and creates a different kind of buzz in the locker room which you have fans that are doing stuff and always being creative and trying new things out. I really like Taka Time. What else did I like last year? Just the feeling, the flares, the flags, the banners, everything that you guys put out was great. It made it feel good to play at home, you know what I mean? You go to Atlanta, you don’t feel that way; you go to Edmonton, you don’t feel that way. Montreal was special last year just because it was 12,000 strong, but it’s still a small stadium, but you feel like a big presence with you guys. Almost all of it was because of the Dark Clouds.”

Aside from Martin, has Walker heard of anyone around the league that’s bugged by the Dark Clouds? Any players or teams? Amani answered, “Besides Jonny Steele last year?” and laughed. Jonny Steele became a Dark Clouds favorite – to taunt and distract. He continued, “I think everybody feels uncomfortable when they play here, because of our supporters. And that’s the biggest part of the home-away type deal. If you go into somebody else’s stadium and you feel just as comfortable as you did, as if you never left home, what’s the point of traveling? We could just play this at home. But if you can honestly make them uncomfortable, make them – you know, when we score a goal, make them really feel it, that helps us more than anything. It’s that atmosphere, that feeling that we have a lot of people behind us that want us to do well. So not only do we have to do well to win this game, we have to do well for them. I don’t think anybody’s really happy to come here to play… and that makes me happy.”

When asked about strong rivals in the league, Walker said, “The way the league has built this up, [the first game against] Carolina is going to be tough, with us winning the Championship and them winning the regular season, so I think that’s going to be a good game for us.

“Carolina, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa, they’re going to be huge ones for us, not only because we played them in the playoffs last year, but because they are strong teams to begin with. They were good teams, and good battles, and we had a lot of good games against them. Some went our way and some didn’t. So I think those three in particular are going to be big. Puerto Rico is always good; they never show and don’t feel like playing. They’re always a good team. And I think Atlanta and San Antonio are making big strides to play well and be big in this league; San Antonio especially have big dreams of going beyond their stadium and their owner, and the plans that they have for the next 5-6 years, it’s going to be huge, so they want to start off as well as they possibly can.

“We just played Edmonton [in a preseason scrimmage], and they’re a good side, and an all-Canadian team this year, I believe. So it’s always going to be different to go up there and play and have them play us; then it’s national pride. [laughs]

“I think Carolina, Ft Lauderdale and Tampa, when we’re down there, it’s going to be particularly tough. Especially with the exchange of guys that we’ve had, with Scotty [Lorenz] and Jack [Stewart] going to Ft Lauderdale, and Luke [Mulholland] going to Tampa. I think those games will be the good ones. The hard-fought ones, but the fun ones nonetheless.”

Sweetwater Bar & Grille is the place to be Sunday at 3:00 to watch the Stars take on the FC Edmonton Donkey Grillers Association. The Sweetwater is located at 161 Saint Anthony Ave # 820B, Saint Paul, MN as shown on the map below:

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Sweetwater Bar & Grille is the place to be Saturday night at 6:30 to watch the Stars take on the Strikers in a rematch of the 2011 NASL finals with your fellow Dark Clouds.  The Sweetwater is located at 161 Saint Anthony Ave # 820B, Saint Paul, MN as shown on the map below:

View Larger Map

Of course, if you prefer yelling at athletes in person rather than on the T.V., there’s still tickets available to join Los Locos for the Timberwolves game at the same time.

After attending the Dome Opener in force Los Locos have invited the Dark Clouds back to Target Center.  Those of us who attended a game in March against New Orleans had a blast and would encourage anyone who is interested to take them up on their offer.  Los Locos have nine tickets on hold for us for the Saturday April 14th game against the OKC Thunder. The first nine people to e-mail los-locos@dark-clouds.com will get the freebies. They are even going to borrow one of our songs to serenade the Timberwolves with on their way out of the tunnel onto the court!

Here are the logistics for Saturday. If there is something you don’t see mentioned here, please ask us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook.

Schedule of opening weekend events

See our post here.

Tailgating

The lot on the southeast side will be open for tailgating. Look for flags and tables somewhere near gate C to find the merch sales and free Surly. The band Secondhand Ska Kings will set up south of there at the pavillion near gate D. People will be arriving as early as 4:30pm.

Free Surly

The free Surly will be handed out from 5:30 to 6:45. We hope to be setting up near gate C. There is a limit of one per person. You must show a valid id to get one and you must have a game ticket. We will punch your ticket.

Free Bus

Metro Transit will provide free rides to and from the stadium. Show your match ticket between 5:30pm and 11:30pm to get a free ride. Full details are here.

Supporters Section in the Stadium

We’ll be in the general admission section 101. That is on the opposite end of the stadium from the tailgating lot. Sorry, you’ll have to walk your ass over there.

Dark Clouds Membership Cards

We’re hoping to have the cards printed in time so you can pick yours up before the game. Even if you don’t get yours in time, you can still take advantage of your $20 merch credit. We’ll have a list of members on hand so we can verify you.

Dark Clouds Merch

We’ll have some shirts and the 2012 supporters scarf on hand for sale or for your $20 DC membership bonus.

The Stars have a busy weekend leading up to the Dome Opener on Saturday night.  Here is the itinerary.

Thursday:

6PM: Shine On with the Stars at Brit’s for the season kick off and kit unveiling.  Meet the team, see some of your fellow DCs, have a blast!

Friday:

6AM 5:45AM: UPDATE- The newscast will come to us!  We’ll meet in Peavy Plaza at 5:45, make a lot of noise and WCCO will come out to talk to us about what we’re doing there.  If you can at all make this event, please do!

Join the morning newscast for WCCO on Nicollet mall.  You bring your Stars and Dark Clouds gear, your banners, your instruments, your voice and the Stars will supply you with coffee and donuts.

11AM-1PM: Head to Peavy Plaza where the Stars will be signing autographs, doing trivia with prizes and Dear Leader Djorn Bucholz will be drumming up more support for the Stars.  If 6AM isn’t your flavor, here’s another chance to get out in your Stars and Dark Clouds gear to press the flesh and convince as many as people as possible to join us Saturday night.  Again, contact Amanda Buhman at 952-239-5756 (cell) or 612-767-2403 (office) for details.

Saturday (GAME DAY):

9AM: Dark Clouds EPL Trivia at the Local with the Jims.  Cheer on the Jims as they berate and belittle the regulars there into coming to the opener.  Also, win stuff.

3PM: Get to the Metrodome early and help the Dark Clouds set up the tailgate and the tifo in the stadium before the big game.  Show up at gate C and enter the stadium with the group.

5 4:30PM: TAILGATE!  Surly, food trucks, Secondhand Ska Kings.  Get yourself in the right frame of mind for screaming your lungs out for 90 minutes.

7:30PM: Kick off.  The Carolina Railhacks won’t know what hit them.  The fans in the dome won’t know what hit them either when we unfurl our four 10 x 30 foot panel tifo display. Join is in section 101 for the bedlam!

EDIT: All these events and more can be found on our Calendar. Check it out.

The Dark Clouds supporters have worked with Surly Brewing to bring you FREE Surly at ALL Minnesota Stars home games!

Through the generosity of Surly, we’ll have ice cold Surly on hand in the tailgating area before every regular season home game. Anyone over 21 years of age who arrives with a photo id and a match ticket can get a free Surly. There is a limit of one per person while supplies last. The free Surly will only be available for one hour each day starting at one and a half hours before kickoff time. At a half hour before kickoff, we’ll close up shop and begin the march into the stadium.

This capitalizes on the smashing success of last year’s free Surly during the playoffs. Surly and soccer go well together. Spread the word and we’ll fill the stands with Surly fans.

You may recall from last week’s 2012 supporters scarf announcement that we teased about the inclusion of the Surly logo on the scarf. That, the free Surly, and Dark Clouds Silver Lining are parts of what we hope to be a long relationship with Surly Brewing.

Follow @SurlyBrewing on Twitter and Facebook for more announcements from the brewery. And remember, as a Dark Clouds member, you also get a full membership in the Bricks Craft Club, which gets you 10% off Surly at Bricks and at Tournament Liquors in Blaine.