The Portland Hearts of Pine men’s pro soccer team practices at Fitzpatrick Stadium on Tuesday as they prepare for their home opener on Saturday. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
When the Portland Hearts of Pine play their 2026 USL League One home opener Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium, it will be 28 days since they last scored a goal.
Maine’s professional men’s soccer team is in need of a boost from its fans, who came out in record-setting droves last season. Portland drew about 5,800 fans per match in 2025, tops in the USL League One. Hearts of Pine management expects to bring in over 6,000 per game in 2026 by expanding the standing-room-only sections.
“I’m really excited for the home opener. The whole atmosphere is spot-on,” said second-year midfielder Michel Poon-Angeron. “It feels like maybe 20,000 people at times.”
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The Hearts are 1-1-1 in USL1 play and 11th in the 17-team league with four points after three matches. For the second consecutive season, their home opener (6 p.m., ESPN+) opponent is One Knoxville SC, the defending league champion. Knoxville (3-1-1) is in a first-place tie with FC Naples and Spokane Velocity, each with 10 points after five matches.
Starting with its 1-0 loss to amateur club Vermont Green in the U.S. Open Cup, Portland has been shut out in three consecutive matches.
A 0-0 tie across the country at AV Alta FC in California was an acceptable result, considering it was Portland’s third match in eight days.
A 1-0 loss without a shot on goal a week later at expansion side Sarasota Paradise?
Suffice to say it’s not the start the second-year franchise was imagining, particularly since it returned 13 players who had combined to score 34 of the team’s 51 goals in its inaugural 12-8-12 USL1 season.
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Midfielder Ollie Wright, who led Portland with 13 overall goals (11 in league play) in 2025, said it’s far too soon to panic.
“We’re in a good place to kick on. Luckily, no one in the league has gotten off to a great start,” Wright said. “We (had) a weekend off to prepare and get guys back to 100% fitness, myself included. Goals have been a little bit hard to come by, but we were in a similar position last year and we found our form. So I think it’s just a matter of one or two going in and the floodgates will open.”
Portland Hearts of Pine coach Bobby Murphy gives directions to players during a drill at Fitzpatrick Stadium. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)
Nagging injuries to some players have limited coach Bobby Murphy’s ability to build a consistent lineup card. Twenty-two of Portland’s 26 players have made at least one start. Only five players have seen action in all four games — regular starting center back Kemali Green, returning midfield standouts Masashi Wada and Poon-Angeron, new left back Adam Armour, and new attacking midfielder Matteo Kidd.
Wright (hamstring) was one of five regular participants who did not make the trip to Sarasota. Center back Brecc Evans hasn’t played since the season opener. Midfielder Mikey Lopez was out with a one-game red-card suspension, and back Mo Mohamed (Somalia) and midfielder JayTee Kamara (Sierra Leone) — two key players who can generate offensive thrust from the right side — were away on international duties.
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Poon-Angeron said the fervor and support at Fitzy also comes with a responsibility to perform. It’s something the 13 newcomers are learning. For many of them, the opportunity to play in front of massive crowds influenced their decision to sign with Portland. But they haven’t experienced it. Yet.
“What this group will learn, and a lot of the new guys will learn, is what it means to play for this club,” Poon-Angeron said. “It’s a huge honor. It’s a huge privilege. As you know this atmosphere is electric and you’ve got to represent.”
The Hearts started the season well, winning the season opener 3-1 against the New York Cosmos with goals from Wada, a returning all-USL1 first-team pick, and pro rookies Konstantinos Goergallides and Aboubacar Camara.
Murphy welcomed a two-week break between games. After a preseason schedule that included stints in Bermuda and South Carolina, coupled with three road league games, the club hadn’t been in Portland for longer than five days in two months, he said.
The additional training days at home provided the club an opportunity to regroup, heal up, and for Murphy to reinforce what his preferred attacking, pressuring style of play demands.
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“We’ve struggled with just getting everybody together, and new guys really coming to terms with what it means to play for this club, the effort that’s required,” he said. “So I think that’s where we’re lacking a little bit. But we’ve had good days of training so hopefully we’ll be further down that path.”
Maine Senate hopeful, Democrat David Costello, speaks with a potential voter as he gathers signatures, required to be considered at the party’s convention, in downtown Brunswick, Maine on July 12.
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BRUNSWICK, Maine – On a sunny Sunday, Senate hopeful David Costello worked the sidewalk in downtown Brunswick asking for signatures.
“Woud you happen to be a registered Democrat?” he asked one woman before engaging in a back and forth conversation. She asks if he’s progressive.
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“Very progressive,” Costello said.
Costello is one of several Maine Democrats who see the fall of Graham Platner’s senate campaign as an opportunity to represent Maine in Washington.
Platner won June’s Democratic primary election handily. But allegations of rape by a former romantic partner last week forced him to drop out of the race. It leaves Maine Democrats scrambling to find a new nominee before the July 27 deadline to put a name on the ballot. Platner denies the allegations.
The Maine Democratic Party will hold a convention on July 25 where 601 delegates will choose that nominee. That candidate will need to capitalize on the enthusiasm Platner generated to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
An unstoppable incumbent or a top pick-up opportunity?
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, leans down to listen to a young paradegoer at the annual Moxie Day Parade is Lisbon, Maine on July 11.
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Collins remained quiet at the end of Platner’s campaign but at the annual Moxie Day parade Saturday in Lisbon, Maine, she walked with volunteers in red shirts.
“People appreciate the fact that I provide steady leadership — and the word steady does come up a lot,” Collins said at the parade, “and that I continue to work really hard for Maine.”
Collins has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997. She has managed to stay in her seat even as Maine has voted for Democrats for president statewide, including in 2020 when the state voted for Joe Biden. Collins last won reelection that year with a comfortable margin — more than 8.5%.
At the annual Moxie Day Parade in Lisbon, Maine, supporters of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, march with signs and giant letters spelling S-U-S-A-N, on July 11.
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Democrats see Maine as pivotal to their chances to retake the Senate. Platner’s departure from the race puts pressure on the party to choose a replacement candidate who can win over Platner’s loyal voters and appeal to independents who are key to Collins’ electoral success. Maine state Senate President Mattie Daughtry, a Democrat, is encouraged to see many of the candidates running on Platner’s progressive platform of transformational change. But she’s worried about voters being turned off by the process.
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“I do have that deep seated concern of how many folks are going to say ‘oh well, this man failed me. Why trust someone ever again?’” Daughtry said.
Daughtry did not endorse Platner and she quickly called on him to drop out of the race after the rape allegations surfaced. Still, she thinks his message resonated.
“I ran for office when I was 25 because I was really really angry. I was working 4 jobs. I couldn’t afford an apartment and I had no healthcare. And unfortunately that story has not changed and it is a lived reality for millions of us across this country,” Daughtry said.
“And we need to find who can pick up that mantle. Who understands what that life is like and really tap into that raw energy,” she added.
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Supporters weigh what’s next
Just one month ago, Alan Crichton was playing saxophone at Graham Platner’s primary night victory party. At a brewery in Belfast, Maine this weekend, he noted his ambivalence.
“I have so many mixed feelings. I like the guy. I like his message a great deal and I think he galvanized people who are just kind of sick of what’s happening,” Crichton said.
Now, though, Crichton calls the situation “a big old mess.” As a Democrat, he hoped the charismatic populist Platner would be the one to finally knock out Collins. Though, at this point, he’ll vote for whoever the Maine Democratic party selects.
“I hope it’s somebody who can kind of carry the torch that Graham kind of lit and held out there very strongly. He was a very inspiring guy,” he said.
Joseph Berube of Northport, Maine, gave up on politics in 1972 after Democrat George McGovern lost the race for president in a landslide. This year, though, he got excited about Graham Platner’s candidacy for U.S. Senate.
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Joseph Berube is an independent voter who lives in Northport, Maine. After decades disengaged from politics, Graham Platner sparked something in him he could hardly believe.
“Because I am so apolitical,” Berube said, “I want nothing to do with it. [But] I was actually considering giving money to his campaign.”
Charlotte Agell is on the opposite end of the engagement spectrum. A registered Democrat, she is very politically involved and has been for decades. She met Platner early on in his campaign.
“One of our neighbors said, ‘hey would you like to come to my backyard and meet Graham Platner?’ I had sort of heard of him,” she remembered. “When I went to that back yard event, I just by happenstance walked in with him. It was me and Graham Platner walking in.”
By the time that event ended, she had signed up to volunteer for his campaign.
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“I felt a kinship with everything that was coming out of his mouth basically. Very smart. Good at identifying the problem,” Agell said.
Core to Platner’s economic populist message was that the system has been failing regular people while the rich and powerful get more rich and more powerful. He had faced controversies throughout his campaign. He easily won the nomination anyway. But then came the rape allegation. Berube believes the rush to judgment was too swift.
“I agree with women’s rights and women shouldn’t be abused,” he said. “But to have one person come up and stand up and say, ‘he abused me,’ and then that’s it? It’s just not really fair to him.””I just think they didn’t want him,” Berube added.
Berube says Democrats chopped the legs out from under someone who had brought people back into politics.
“He was bringing in people like me and that’s what’s going to do this. And you know what, we’re in the middle of a war to save this country,” Berube said. “And we have the other side that’s fighting with the gloves off and we’re putting the gloves on. We’re in trouble.”
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Charlotte Agell has been processing it all a little differently. Agell admits to being a chronic optimist but says this was never about one man.
“You know, we’re not a cult. We’re just a movement that wants to take back this country for the middle and the working class,” she said.
Agell wants to believe this massive disruption won’t sap the momentum for change she felt.
“It’s really been like a rocket ship. We’ve all been on it. And that’s why, when these very serious things have been alleged and rightly he has dropped out of the race, we’re kinda still flying at 90 million miles an hour and saying ‘who can take the controls’ and we’re going to figure that out,” Agell said.
State Senator Chip Curry says the state party is doing the best it can with a tight timeline.
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“It’s a winnable race and we’ve got some great people. We’ve got to get there,” Curry said.
There are more than half a dozen announced candidates. And for Democrats the stakes couldn’t be higher. No clear frontrunner has emerged from the candidates who have put themselves forward to be considered. It’s also not clear if one candidate can capitalize on the momentum that Platner was building in Maine. Still, some are remaining optimistic.
“People are going to grumble. I’ve grumbled a little bit. But I think we’ll get through this,” Senate hopeful David Costello predicted. “I think whoever the nominee is will have tremendous support.”
The National Weather Service is predicting a scorcher for parts of western and northern Maine on Tuesday, with the possibility of thunderstorms, high winds and hail.
“The heat and humidity is going to supply energy to the atmosphere,” said meteorologist Hunter Tubbs on Monday. “That energy is going to clash with a cold front expected to come down from Canada tomorrow night. That clash has the potential to produce severe storms.”
The evening storms could bring large hail up to 2 inches in diameter and heavy thunderstorms, but severe winds are likely to cause the most damage, forecasters say. There is a low possibility oftornadoes, according to the severe weather bulletin.
The areas at most risk include Maine’s western mountains and the northern part of Maine, from its northern foothills up to the Canadian border, Tubbs said. There is some risk of severe storms in the south, but not as much, he said.
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Heat and humidity are expected to peak Tuesday, Tubbs said, with heat indices climbing into the upper 90s in cities like Augusta, Lewiston and Waterville. The heat index temperature — or how hot it feels when combining heat and humidity — is predicted to hit 104 in Fryeburg.
The humidity will ease Wednesday, Tubbs said, but the heat will linger into Thursday with highs in the low 90s. By Thursday evening, a gradual cooling trend will emerge that is likely to last into the weekend.
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Penny Overton is excited to be the Portland Press Herald’s first climate reporter. Since joining the paper in 2016, she has written about Maine’s lobster and cannabis industries, covered state politics…
More by Penelope Overton
The poster for “The Texas Carol.” (Courtesy of Lakewood Theater)
“THE TEXAS CAROL”
Don’t miss “The Texas Carol” set to be performed at various times July 16-25 at Lakewood Theater, 76 Theater Road in Madison.
The production by Jayme McGhan and Kevin Dean focuses on the Dinkel family as they head to Mee-Maw Jane’s East Texas ranch for what might be her last Christmas. The only problem? When the first two grandchildren arrive, they discover that Mee-Maw is already gone! Now how to keep that fact (and her body) from a family on the edge and salvage what remains of Christmas?
Starring Donna Irish, Shana Page, Will Stecher, Addie King, Caleb Landry, Quincy Morin, David Shedd and Earl Boyd.
Tickets cost $30-$52 for adults or $23 for children 4-17; lakewoodtheater.org.
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Brothers Will and Reid Nichols, of 12/OC, performing August 2025 at Thompson’s Point in Portland. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)
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12/OC
Bowl in the Pines plans to host 12/OC at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at 1 Geranium Lane in Sidney.
Born in a family kitchen in Portland, 12/OC began as a shared dream between brothers Will and Reid, 14 and 11 years old, cutting their teeth at jam sessions and open mic nights. Their sound quickly resonated beyond Maine, capturing the attention of country music fans near and far. With a chart-topping single holding the No. 1 spot on Maine’s premier country radio station for 16 consecutive weeks, their momentum became impossible to ignore.
Tickets cost $52.73-$84-61; bowlinthepines.com.
Singer-songwriter Alice Limoges. (Photo by Alex Burnett)
Alice Limoges & missofija
Stop in at The Playhouse at Waterville Station at 7 p.m. Saturday for an intimate double‑bill featuring two of Maine’s most compelling rising artists: Alice Limoges and missofija.
Limoges has been singing since before she could walk. Whether performing her award-winning poetic songs about love and nature, or shining a light on mental health, her canon is lit up by her storytelling, unique, soulful voice and textural instrumentals. She has released six original albums/EPs, toured festivals and colleges across North America, and performed on Jon Samson’s Grammy Award winning album. She placed in the 2021 International Songwriting Contest and won the 2025 Maine Songwriting Contest.
After writing her first song at 3 years old, missofija never looked back. Her unique sound is inspired by her background as an opera singer and by the folk songs of her Lithuanian upbringing. She uses profound, symbolic lyrics, intricate melodies and complex harmonic structures to send chills through every audience she performs for.
Tickets cost $20; theplayhouse.me.
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Trombone Shorty will play Bowl in the Pines in Sidney in July. (Photo by Jean Frank)
TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE
Don’t miss the Let ‘Em Go Tour set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Bowl in the Pines – Amphitheather 1 Geranium Lane, Sidney.
Perhaps the most recognizable ambassador for New Orleans music working today, Shorty has spent his entire life carrying the torch for Crescent City culture, and propelling it forward into the 21st century with his ecstatic live performances and intoxicating blend of rock, funk, soul, jazz, blues, hip-hop, and Caribbean influences.
Born Troy Andrews, Shorty made his first appearance at New Orleans’ iconic Jazz Fest at 4 years old, when he took the stage for an impromptu performance with Bo Diddley. By 6, he was heading up his own brass band, and by his early 20s, he’d released the first in a string of albums that would lead to performances everywhere from the White House and the Grammy Awards to Madison Square Garden and the 2025 Super Bowl.
Tickets cost $63-$120; bowlinthepines.com.
THE PRINCESS CONCERT
Check out The Princess Concert set for 3:30 and again at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Waterville Opera House, 1 Common St. in Waterville.
The performance will pay tribute to the iconic, heartwarming, and nostalgic songs from films including “Frozen,” “Wicked,” “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” “Moana,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Beauty & The Beast,” “Anastasia,” “Pocahontas,” “Aladdin,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Lion King,” “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and more.
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Tickets cost $30-$67 for ages 16-plus; operahouse.org.
BLACK WOLF BAND
Waterfront Wednesday plans to host Black Wolf Band at 6 p.m. Wednesday in downtown Augusta.
The weekly Waterfront Wednesday events scheduled through Aug. 5 will feature free music, food and family fun returning to the Kennebec River.
Each week, concertgoers can bring a lawn chair or blanket and settle in for live music from local bands and DJs. There will be a food truck at every event.
For more information visit mainstreetmaine.org.
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Looking for more? Check out theonline calendar listings for other entertainment offerings.
” data-image-caption=”<p>Portland Hearts of Pine coach Bobby Murphy gives directions to players during a drill at Fitzpatrick Stadium. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)
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Portland Hearts of Pine coach Bobby Murphy gives directions to players during a drill at Fitzpatrick Stadium. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)
