The Price is Right

The Price is Right featuring the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team airs on Friday, June 13 (11:00 AM-12:00 Noon ET; 10:00-11:00 AM PT) on the CBS. For a clip of the team's appearance you can go to all_access video player on ussoccer.com, or you can watch the show (or DVR it) and see if someone won the Showcase. The U.S. team taped the show during its most recent training camp in Los Angeles and the all folks at the show couldn't have been nicer, including host Drew Carey (who knew a few of the players from the charity event last year at The Home Depot Center in which he smoked'em on the video game FIFA 07). Above Drew greets U.S. team captain Christie Rampone.

Pranksters

Needless to say, there is quite a bit of downtime on the road with the WNT. On rare occasions, that downtime leads to the execution of a clever prank. Most we don't catch on video and some are not suitable for our viewing audience, but in early May when the USA played in Birmingham, Ala., Heather Mitts and Natasha Kai pulled off a good one on several teammates. We got it all on video.

WNT Blog Disclaimer: Please do not try this on your friends or family. These stunts were performed by trained professionals. (Just kidding. Actually, please DO try it on someone...but if you're under 18 don't tell mom where you saw it first. All you need is a funnel, a quarter and a bottle of water).

Dance Party Seoul

There was a big stage outside the mall where the USA went today and there was music blaring from a sound system, so Christie Rampone and her daughter Rylie, along with Angela Hucles decided to perform a little dance routine, much to the amusement of hundreds of South Koreans walking by.

24-Hour Mall

We Americans are used to 24-hour convenience stores, diners and even supermarkets, but malls? After a great training in the morning, a bunch of players took a short trip after lunch to a 24-hour mall (which as it turned out, and according to a sign on the door, is only open 22 hours a day, but we think that's quite enough), where the team did some light shopping. The mall as absolutely packed with clothes and accessories stacked nine floors high, which was a bit of a sensory overload, but it was good to get out of the hotel and keep moving around as the second day in Asia is often more difficult than the first as far as staying awake. Above Angela Hucles prepares for some serious shoe shopping.

Hot and Hazy

The USA's trained today outside of Seoul Olympic Stadium, used for the 1988 Olympics. Seoul has been hot and hazy since the USA arrived and temps today were quite warm and sticky, sitting in the low 80s with nary a breeze. The forecast is for temperatures in the mid-to-low 80s for the entire Peace Cup, meaning the USA's hot weather training in Los Angeles may reap some benefits. Speaking of the 1988 Olympics, while women's soccer was not yet an Olympic sport, the U.S. men's team featured some names that would go on to do some great things for U.S. Soccer, including but not limited to...the late great David Vanole, current Washington Freedom head coach Jim Gabarra, former U.S. captain John Harkes, and Paul Caligiuri, who a year after the Olympics would score "the shot heard 'round the world" against Trinidad & Tobago to put the USA in the 1990 World Cup. The team also had three guys currently running MLS clubs from the technical side in John Doyle (San Jose), Peter Vermes (Kansas City) and Frank Klopas (Chicago). How did we get from the Peace Queen Cup to 1988 Men's Olympic Soccer? Answer: jet lag makes bloggers woozy and nostalgic.

Nice Touch

We've been espousing the professionalism in the organization of the Peace Queen Cup for quite a while now, and here's more proof. How many tournaments outside of a World Cup or Olympics actually put the tournament logo on the ball? A: Not many, if any. Pretty cool, we think.

Man (?) At Work

Odd sighting of the day came on the way to training when the team bus passed a guy at the entrance of a tunnel directing traffic. 'Cept it wasn't a guy. It was a manikin dressed as a road worker with a right arm that moved up and down with an orange baton in his hand, you know, the kind those guys on the tarmac use to direct planes into the gates. We think he was asking cars to slow down. Either way, we have to give the Seoul Dept. of Transporation props for the efficient use of creepy human looking automated traffic manikins. Saves manpower for sure.