The gift that keeps on giving: 2021 Thorns media day

Portland Thorns FC held their media day on March 17. Throughout the day we were given glimpses through players’ Instagram Stories of the gems that might come out of the day dedicated to creating content.

The Thorns’ media team lived up to the hype and provided fans and media alike with stunning images, player reaction gifs and more. We are going to take a look at some of the best media day content that has been released (not all of the gifs are available yet).

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Thorns’ social media manager Kayla Knapp put out a call on Twitter for what fans would like to see from media day. Fans had one resounding message — dogs. The Thorns’ dogs are fan favorites. Lindsey Horan’s dog, Ferguson, and Morgan Weaver’s dog, Luna, have their own Instagram pages.

The fans got what they wanted. Luna, Ferguson, Moose (Bella Bixby’s dog) and Charlie (Christine Sinclair’s dog) took center stage.

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• Craig Mitchelldyer
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Not only were we presented with endless pictures of Portland Thorns and their dogs, but we were also given a coincidental glance that turned into one of the cutest gifs of all time by Bixby and Moose.

As more gifs are released, Ferguson, Luna, and Charlie are sure to be prevalent and we are all here for that. But the pure chance and surprise shown in Bixby’s facial expression is priceless.

Dame Time

This was another favorite when fans were asked what they wanted to see. The Portland Trailblazers’ Damian Lillard is famous for his performance at the end of basketball games. He takes over in the final minutes, hits a game-winner as the clock runs down and points to his wrist. That’s Dame Time. That’s the clutch gene.

The Timbers and Thorns now have their own Dame Time gifs where they point to the wrist as if to say it's our time.

Imagine when Crystal Dunn, Sinclair, or any other Thorns player scores a late winner, makes a game-saving tackle/save — that’s the definition of clutch. Now we have the perfect gif to encapsulate that clutchness.

Memes, Memes, and more ... Memes

You can’t post anything these days without the risk of it turning into a meme. This is not always a bad thing — it can create more buzz around a team and create a deeper sense of community within those who ‘get’ the meme.

And sometimes the team got in on the fun themselves.

Meghan Klingenberg was all about getting in on the memes, whether it was making reference to Rocky Rodriguez’s thunderous volley against OL Reign in the Fall Series or if she was making fun of her ‘gains.’

Madison Pogarch wasn’t going to miss out either as she and Rodriguez exchanged media day portraits with a half-smile.

Media day looks like it was a great success. It was the preseason gift that kept on giving and will continue to provide us with gifs that Thorns fans will use all season and beyond. It also gave us our first glimpse of new signings in Portland Thorns kits and stunning images of all the players.

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So now that you’ve seen the pictures and some of the gifs from 2021 Thorns Reaction Pack, which images are your favorites and what gif are you hoping gets released next?

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You can find the rest of the images on Portland Thorns FC’s social media accounts and the gifs on giphy.com.