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Let the double entendres begin.
Welcome to the Portland Bangers, the new pre-professional soccer team in Portland, owned and managed by the same folks behind the Portland Pickles baseball team. The Pickles announced the new team’s name, mascot, colors, crest and coaches today at a press conference at the Pickle Jar team retail store downtown.
“We are very excited to be the Portland Bangers,” said Alan Miller, co-owner of the Portland Pickles and now the Bangers. “For those of you who don’t know, the banger is a soccer term. As well as other things.”
(Soccer translation: a really forceful goal, often shot from far away. Other things: British term for sausage. An incredible pop song.)
The mascot will be Saucy T. Sausage, a “fearless and feisty” pink sausage link inspired by Portland’s reputation as a culinary destination. Baseball mascot Dillon T. Pickle was on hand for the press conference, as were confetti bombs, a smoke machine, a live DJ and a wine toast.
The team will play at a stadium in the Concordia neighborhood of Northeast Portland with games starting in mid-May, Miller says. There will be seven home and seven away games. The team will be holding theme nights and all the same types of antics that the Portland Pickles are known for.
Former Portland Timbers players Jorge Villafaña and Diego Valeri will be head and assistant coach, respectively. The Bangers are a USL League Two soccer team consisting of collegiate players on summer break.
“We think there is an opportunity here to blow this thing out of the water,” Miller said. “We have had a tremendous amount of success with the Pickles, working with collegiate talent, and really bringing this whole place to a new level it deserves, and we’re excited to do that with soccer.”
The Pickles also announced this week that a documentary about the collegiate wood-bat baseball team will debut on MLB Network at 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 15. Called Pickles Pickles Pickles after the popular chant that breaks out in the Walker Stadium stands, the film “takes viewers behind the scenes of a franchise that embraces both the absurd and the authentic—where a dancing pickle mascot is just as important as the next wave of MLB stars honing their craft," according to the team.
Watch the trailer here: