| MLS announces complete regular season schedule
Major League Soccer unveiled the complete 2008 regular season schedule and national broadcasts on Thursday. The league's national television partners - ESPN2 and ABC, Fox Soccer Channel, HDNet and TeleFutura - will combine to broadcast 113 games. In the league's 13th season, each of the 14 clubs will play 30 regular season games over 31 weeks, for a total of 210 matches from March 29 to Oct. 26. Each team will play each other twice (home and away), for 26 games. The remaining four games will be played against different intra-conference teams (two home and two away), with consideration given to rivalries.
First Kick, the opening weekend of MLS's season starts on Saturday, March 29 and is highlighted by a rematch of the last two MLS Cup championship games as the New England Revolution host the Houston Dynamo.
guardian of the galaxy
For these teams, any move will be scrutinized and any misstep will result in public ridicule. These fans will be unforgiving. For example, consider the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have missed the playoffs the past two seasons. It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the Leafs make the playoffs this year but, as only two teams in the league have worse records, the Leafs prospects are less than golden. Torontos first order of business should be to make themselves competitive in their own division, where they are the only team with a losing record. They can do that one of two ways: they can plan for the short term and buy a free agent (the band aid approach to franchise maintenance), or they can blow this team up and start over. As trade rumors are center Mats Sundins constant companion, it is apparent that the Leafs have decided to rebuild by packaging their brightest, but aging, star.
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