Hey all, this is Adam Sedie, the producer of Pitch Pulse, writing to share my experiences during the MLS West Final. Never in my life have I encountered such a sporting event. That being said, lets jump into it!

After parking in what felt like Algeria, my colleagues and I conducted a pilgrimage towards will call to get our tickets. Seriously folks, it was close to a 15-minute walk. Eventually the huge HOME DEPOT CENTER sign became legible as we slowly arrived.

You have no idea how far the paring was from this sign.

I thought surely we had missed a goal due to a loud uproar pouring out of the stadium. After nearly slipping in dim lit mud trails working our way through and around the stadium to reach the will call, we ran into another set back. There was a line around 200 people deep waiting to pick up their tickets from will call.

At this point the grim reality was beginning to set in that we might get tickets and find seats with only a slim chance of witnessing any goals, or with little to any time left in the match.

After handing my ID to a roving Home Depot Center security person, I held my breath, fearing that this could only get worse by never seeing her or my driver’s license again. We fortunately got the tickets as well as my ID (thank god!) and begin charging in.

As we were walking towards our seats, we heard rumblings and buzzing stadium-wide, and the confusion became clearer when a patron searching for the shortest beer line divulged to us that the lights had gone out and the game was still paused while they are fixing it.

All in all, our freaky Friday the 13^th luck had changed and we only missed the first 17 minutes of the match. No goals were scored, and the earlier roar was actually that of the fans screaming as the lights went out. YES!

We nested ourselves in the Houston Dynamo supporters’ section right as the match restarted.

The game was well fought by both sides, but the Dynamo seemed to be more aggressive in the second half. That was of course before the power died for the second time.

The Galaxy fans quickly decided to kill their boredom by taking it to the Dynamo fans.

Chants of “Houston sucks” surrounded and engulfed the Houston fans. That was until Dynamo supporters retaliated with a clever impromptu “We have Lights”song, immediately evolving into a rendition of “Pay-Your-Bills” that puzzled, eventually silencing Los Angeles fans.

Ultimately, it appeared the second power outage cooled the Dynamo’s momentum, and the game basically became a defensive quagmire. The regulation time whistle had blown.

In overtime we saw David Beckham whine to officials about what he thought was a incorrect throw in call awarded to Houston.  Although he swung his arms an almost hit the referee, Beckham was not warned or issued a yellow card. His unsportsmanlike conduct surely deserved one, but Beckham is the golden boy and could do no wrong this night.

Beckham was lucky to not get a yellow for his behavior.

Things got ugly for the Dynamo during overtime, and after Landon Donovan converted the penalty kick to put the Galaxy up 2-0, the writing was pretty much on the wall.

It was a hard fought battle between two teams, and I only wish that it would have been uninterrupted so that match would have been played by two teams playing at their natural rhythm without the distraction of power failure. Looks like Friday the 13th gave the Galaxy a home field advantage.

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