Yes, the Canadian Soccer Association’s rules are quite clear. A match that is abandoned must be replayed in full. But Winter can still do the right thing. He can order his troops to take the opening kickoff and then fire the ball into their own goal.

"The match is abandoned this evening," said CSA General Secretary Peter Montopoli. "We were in a position to try to have the match played this evening but once we got to that position, being on the field, the referee decided that the pitch is not playable. "The regulations are very clear. The match will be replayed in its entirety tomorrow at 11 a.m., here at BMO Field. We start from zero time."

But Thordarson decided to use Saturday’s date in New England as a chance to test his squad players. Striker Long Tan, who any Whitecaps fans would be forgiven for not remembering still played for the club, got the start with attack partner Omar Salgado, the teenager chosen first overall in the 2011 Superdraft. The Revs won 1-0, as Shalrie Joseph converted a penalty kick after Whitecap Blake Wagner was adjudged to have stepped on the foot of Rev Benny Feilhaber just inside the box.

Projected to come out on the short end of a one-sided affair against the relentlessly offensive visiting Whitecaps, Marc Dos Santos’s pink and black-kitted crew surprised by showing far better ensemble play than they did on Saturday in its NASL game against Tampa Bay FC and made the game a close one, losing a 1-0 decision to Major League Soccer's Vancouver representative.

The Vancouver Whitecaps announced Thursday that striker Atiba Harris had successful surgery on his right meniscus on Tuesday. Whitecaps spokesman Nathan Vanstone said there is no speculation on a time frame for Harris’s return to training. “He just had the surgery, will work with our medical team, and we fully anticipate a complete recovery,” Vanstone wrote in an e-mail

The right opponent, in this case, is Manchester City. But is it the right date? The Whitecaps announced Thursday that it will play Manchester City on Monday, July 18 at Empire Field. It’s part of the World Football Challenge series. But, how will that game stretch coach Teitur Thordarson’s ranks? A high-profile international is a great PR exercise. But, the Whitecaps are scheduled to play at home to the juggernaut that is Real Salt Lake on July 16, and then travel to San Jose on July 20.

The Whitecaps and their fans can have no complaint about the result — a 3-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo. Indeed, you could argue that things could have been a heck of a lot worse. A four- or five-goal margin would have reflected the run of play.

Program the PVR. Make sure your Internet connection is fast enough to allow for multiple streams. This weekend marks a landmark in Canadian soccer. Four professional clubs are in action; FC Edmonton and the Montreal Impact kick off their NASL campaigns Saturday with road games in Florida. And MLS? Toronto FC visits the San Jose Earthquakes Saturday night. And the Vancouver Whitecaps head to Texas to take on the Houston Dynamo on Sunday. Of the weekend’s action, only Montreal and FC Edmonton overlap.

And, while the Whitecaps came back in stoppage time to draw Sporting Kansas City 3-3 on Saturday, they surrendered a 93rd-minute last-gasp goal to New England’s Ilija Stolica and had to settle for a 1-1 draw with the Revolution in front of 19,396 fans. But the talking point won’t be the Stolica equalizer. It will be the bizarre sequence that followed Eric Hassli’s penalty-kick goal in the 56th.

It was as if the script was written by Vince McMahon. The heel takes some early liberties. Then, the crowd roars as the hero gets off the mat. In this case, the heel was Teal Bunbury — the Sporting Kansas City forward scored twice to stake his team to a 3-0 lead over the Vancouver Whitecaps at Empire Field. The hero? Camilo da Silva Sanvezzo, who scored twice in stoppage times as the Whitecaps roared back to snatch a 3-3 draw in what has to go down as one of the most exciting games in MLS history.