The team still has an interim coach and interim general manager. But the heat on Toronto FC was turned up when MLS released its First Kick schedule Monday. As was widely expected, TFC kicks off its season in Vancouver against the Whitecaps on March 19. The game is exactly what CBC, which would love to expand its reach for soccer broadcasts, would need to create a new national brand that shows that it could create a soccer broadcasting franchise built on the Hockey Night in Canada model. The next week, Toronto FC returns to BMO Field to welcome the Portland Timbers for the home opener.

While the rotten smell left behind by the voting process for the 2018 and, especially, the 2022 World Cups is still strong in FIFA’s Swiss headquarters, there is one bit of good coming out of the Qatar bid. And that’s the continuing rumblings that the tournament will have to be held in January — to give the players and fans a reprieve from the Qatari summers, where temperatures regularly soar past 40 C. Because, once and for all, it would smash the notion of the “international calendar,” a large truck of snake oil that has been pushed onto the world’s footballing community by rich, European clubs.

Sporting Kansas City’s position, that Canadian-born U.S. national team striker Teal Bunbury is not on trial with Stoke City, continues to be refuted by the English Premier League club. On Thursday, Stoke City posted a list of eight players it is linked to in possible transfer-window deals and, voila, Bunbury is on the list. Bunbury, who won the M.A.C. Hermann Trophy in 2010 as the most valuable player in the NCAA, scored five goals in his first MLS season with the then-named Kansas City Wizards.

Is Teal Bunbury switching sides again? The Hamilton, Ont.-born son of Canadian national-teamer Alex Bunbury, recently alienated most soccer fans on this side of the border when he decided to play for the United States rather than the country of his birth. Now, is he also hoping to leave Sporting Kansas City? Stoke City has officially stated that this might be the case. Bunbury appeared with Stoke’s reserve side Tuesday and, paired with former Chelsea and Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen, was reportedly very impressive. Bunbury scored against Wigan’s reserve side.

Eleven of the 32 players available, just more than a third, were selected in phase two of the MLS Re-Entry Draft Wednesday afternoon. If all of the 11 players chosen today come to terms, that means a grand total of 13 out-of-contract players were able to find work. Only two — and both were minor deals — were taken in the first round, where players are guaranteed to make in 2011 at least what they did in 2010. The other 11 will likely all go for less money than they did in 2010.

The Vancouver Whitecaps might only be joining MLS in 2011, but the club’s youth development programs is still miles ahead of TFC Academy. The Whitecaps Residency got another feather in its cap Monday when the Canadian Soccer Association named Bryce Alderson the country’s male U-17 player of the year.

Earlier this week, the Vancouver Whitecaps named Carl Valentine, a member of Canada’s 1986 World Cup squad, as the club’s official ambassador. Valentine was a member of the 1979 Whitecaps squad that won the NASL Soccer Bowl, defeating the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Giants Stadium, just a week after Vancouver stunned the heavily favoured New York Cosmos in the semifinal. “Valentine, at 21, the kind of young recruit NASL teams should be looking for—rather than the big-name, passe players they are forever signing—was continually showing thrust and speed,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Clive Gammon about Valentine’s performance in the Soccer Bowl. As well, you can’t miss the fact that, on the Whitecaps website, right beside the logo, reads a simple statement: “Since 1974.” This a team that was forged in the NASL, and doesn’t talk about the league in embarrassed hushes.

Two players. That’s the grand total of eligible out of-contract players who got new deals with new clubs during Wednesday’s first-ever MLS draft. And neither was what you would call a marquee name — striker Joseph Ngwenya was taken first overall by D.C. United — and defender Aaron Hohlbein, who spent time in second-division soccer last season with Miami FC, was taken by Columbus Crew. The star names, like Designated Player Juan Pablo Angel, were left untouched. Actually, pretty well everyone was left untouched through Stage 1 of the Re-Entry Draft, where teams are required to at least match what the players made last season.

Two names stick out on the list of players who are available for the first-ever Re-Entry Draft, which goes Dec. 8. Juan Pablo Angel currently holds the title as the best Designated Player signing in MLS history. Jeff Cunningham is one goal behind Jaime Moreno for the all-time career lead in goals. Both are on the list of players whose options were not picked up or are out of contract and are eligible to be selected in the Re-Entry Draft. But, when it comes to personality, the two players couldn’t be more different.

e Dec. 5 MLS Re-Entry Draft is a straightforward process, but there will be a couple of considerations for Real Salt Lake general manager Garth Lagerwey and Columbus Crew GM Mark McCullers. The Crew and Real Salt Lake will meet in the CONCACAF Champions League quarter-finals; the first leg of their aggregate two-game series will go Feb. 22, while most teams are in the midst of their training camps.