November 2, 2007
The Carolina RailHawks made a big splash yesterday with the announcement that they had signed 2007 USL 1st Division leading scorer Daniel Antoniuk.
Antoniuk scored 7 goals and led the league with 9 assists for the Atlanta Silverbacks in 2007. Antoniuk joins a Carolina club that struggled to score goals. The RailHawks finished their inaugural season with 24 goals for, which put them ahead of only the California Victory, the USL 1st Division other first year club.
Carolina's attack was led by former Rhino Connally Edozien (7 goals & 15 points) and Kupono Low (6 goals and 16 points).
With Joey Worthen working out with the Vancouver Whitecaps and the speedy duo of McColm Cephas and Kevin Jeffrey being unproductive last season, the second year RailHawks could see a significant makeover.
It will be interesting to see how the other teams in the USL 1st Division respond to this move by Carolina.
Other News & Notes:
- Chicago has advanced past Supporters' Shield winners DC United and into the Eastern Conference finals. Chicago is now 5-0-2 all-time versus DC in the MLS playoffs. But, DC finally scored a goal (two in fact) as the all-time playoff scoreline is now 13-2. From here on out I will be sporting my bright orange Houston Dynamo t-shirt. Well, until Pat Onstad and company finish their season......
- It's official that the new San Jose Earthquakes will call Santa Clara's Buck Shaw Stadium home in 2008. They will add about 5000 temporary seats to bring the capacity up to 12,000 seats for Earthquakes games. There is also a cool editorial on the Earthquakes quest for their own stadium. An editorial that is positive about a soccer stadium project? I didn't know that was possible!
- Freddy Adu is taking PKs for Benfica. Even if it was a less than full strength roster, that is still really good news for the American phenom.
- NBA star Steve Nash is denying that he is looking at buying Tottenham Hotspur. So how about talking him into buying the Rhinos and taking them to MLS? Frank and Steve need to get Martin on the phone, ASAP!
- Bobby Boswell sums it up well.
- Clint Mathis was a great story early in the 2007 season, but you knew things couldn't last. Cleetus, where art thou?
- While the Panama City Pirates have a soccer ball in their logo, I love the name and the look. My guess is that they'll have a hard time recruiting college aged soccer players to go down to Florida to play in the summer......
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
