Once again, Matt VanOekel will be an NASL play-of-the-week candidate. He could be the league’s player of the week, week after week after week. You get the feeling that the brass at NASL is just being nice, letting other players have the awards.

It’s an illustration of just how ridiculous the rules on yellow-card accumulation are. Two yellows over the space of several games in a tournament — really, it’s not worthy of a suspension.

There were some hints dropped Friday that suggest that the loan of Canadian keeper Nathan Ingham from FC Edmonton to TFCII could be the beginning of something greater.

In a release issued Thursday, ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams) states that the Jalali brothers were arrested in south Edmonton Wednesday. ALERT states that Sadi’s Infiniti was pulled over, and that police found 16 bags of cocaine and $5,285 in what it calls "proceeds of crime."

Five MLS teams — a quarter of the league — have yet to a record a road victory. Six more have just one road win each. Put that together, and 11 of 20 teams — 55 per cent of the league — have zero or one home win each in 2016.

Despite having defender Shelina Zadorsky sent off in the 18th minute, despite a penalty miss, the Canadian national women’s team opened the Olympic soccer tournament with a 2-0 win over the world No. 5-ranked Australians in Sao Paulo.

This is a group of players who are used to being underestimated by their opposition. And forward Dominic Russo, who was named as one of the three finalists for the PDL’s most valuable player award, is a prime example of the team’s devil-may-care attitude.

It’s the longest road trip in a North American pro sports league. At just a little more than 5,600 km, it’s about the same distance as a flight between Toronto and London, England, or a jaunt between Ottawa and Oslo, Norway.

The Ottawa Fury has not only won three NASL matches in a row, the club is spiking in terms of minutes on the pitch it is providing to its Canadian players.

Maybe the Carolina RailHawks need to hire a shaman. Maybe someone at the club has wronged a Canadian in the past, and to fix it they’ll need to have Drew Beckie sing William Shatner quotes to the tunes of Rush songs.