This deal makes total sense to me. After all, hockey is essentially soccer played on a colder field.

• Our fabulous new friend Darren Huckerby has been named Major League Soccer’s Newcomer of the Year. That’s because he is awesome.
• The Tottenham Hotspurs, an English Premiership League team, recently announced a partnership with the Quakes in which the Spurs get to help develop the untapped and massive youth soccer talent pool here in NorCal, and the Quakes get to stare slack-jawed at the mighty EPL team and learn via osmosis. There’s a bit of confusion, however, because many of the Hotspurs top-tier dealmakers have been sacked. No real word on exactly how that affects the agreement.
• MLS Cup playoffs kick off tomorrow night as the Chicago Fire faces the Columbus Crew, and Real Salt Lake squares off against the New York Red Bulls. It all starts 7:30 pm Eastern on ESPN2. I anticipate my payola from ESPN2 any day now.
• Ian over at The Offsides recapped the top 5 Quakes games this season. I missed one of those games, but thank God I didn’t miss the game listed as No. 1. It was truly spectacular.
• I attended a charity dinner the night before our 2-0 trouncing of Toronto FC in our season finale. I got to meet several players. I have pictures. I am waiting for some lazy bums to send me theirs. Then I will post like a mad fangirl.

Oh yes, the game. For those who don’t know/remember, the Earthquakes left the area for 2 years, migrating to Houston and changing its team colors, logo and name to the Dynamo. Well now we have our Quakes back, and now they’re playing their Texified former selves Saturday night at Buck Shaw Stadium, Santa Clara University, at 7 p.m.

The Quakes are unbeaten in eight games, which is a tiny miracle thanks to our boy Darren Huckerby. But the Dynamo are dynamite at the moment, sitting comfortably at the perch on top of the Western conference. Should be a tense and dramatic game, and the Quakes need to win as many games as they possibly can to earn a spot in the playoffs. The problem is, with so many of our old quality players decked out in Dynamo orange, which side will the fans be cheering for?

And who would have thought our little expansion newbie team would be considering the playoffs in its first season back? Wow…

Darren Huckerby - Photo by Joe Nuxoll / centerlinesoccer.com / isiphoto.com

San Jose, meet Darren Huckerby.

Or rather, Hucker-Hucker-Hucker-byyyyyyy. (0:55)

Largely unknown here but practically worshipped in Norwich, England, the soccer striker moved to our side of the universe less than a month ago to play with the San Jose Earthquakes. Considering he’s good enough to play in every league in a country that is unbelievably INSANE about soccer, you have to ask yourself, “Um, yeah, WHAT?”

Fans of the Norwich City Football Club were shocked, to say the least. Norwich City management unexpectedly released their hero in May without even giving them a proper chance for goodbye. And because of the loyal gentleman he is, Hucker-Hucker-Huckerby refused to play on any other English team that could possibly play against Norwich.

Their loss is our gain, soccer fan or not. And this is why:

The side effect is that an ever-growing number of Norwich soccer fans now wander around their hometown with the words SAN JOSE emblazoned across their chest. San Jose has overnight become an unofficial sister city to Norwich, with jersey purchases, soccer scarf trades, foreign media coverage and even a few fans pining for their next plane ticket over to see Hucks in action. And now that hardcore Quakes fans are closely following Norwich in a similar vein, this can only be a boon for both cities and their economies. (Just don’t remind them that San Jose coach Frank Yallop played 385 games for heated rival Ipswich Town. We’ll ignore that for now.)

Making the switch from English football to Major League Soccer must be difficult: The pay is dismal in comparison, the soccer is chippy and short-passing, and the atmosphere will, let’s face it, never be as passionate and widespread as England. But Huckerby can take advantage of his new locale in several ways:

1) Anonymity means he can walk down the street without being mobbed,
2) The weather means he can walk down the street without an umbrella, and
3) Mexican food means he can walk down the street without ever going hungry. (Might I recommend Iguana’s for a casual occasion?)

Huckerby has already proved to be a force to be reckoned with stateside. He scored two goals in two games so far as a Quake, lending a major hand (OK, foot) in bringing down BOOOOHISSLA GalaxyBOOOOHISS last week with a score of 3-2. And after a season of bottom-feeding cellar-dwelling sucktitude from San Jose, I confess it gives me evil pleasure to tell my non-soccer friends we beat David Beckham’s team, hearing them ask “Was Beckham playing?” and me rubbing my hands together at the altar of Hucker-Hucker-Huckerby and saying, “Oh yessssss.”