Fan voting is underway for the league’s postseason awards. You can do it here on the league website. Three of the seven finalists for MVP play for Athletica: Lori Chalupny, Hope Solo and Eniola Aluko. (Though if Marta doesn’t win, I’ll be surprised.)

There’s also a defender of the year award that Tina Ellertson is one of five finalists for. (I nominated Kendall Fletcher, but she didn’t make the ballot.) Hope Solo is one of five finalists for goalie of the year. She’s got a good shot, I would think.

And Amanda Cinalli is a finalist for the sportswoman of the year award. Voting on that one is done by players only.

Awards will be handed out at the WPS Awards Gala on Aug. 29, the night before the All-Star Game. I’ll wear my tux. (Assuming I’m invited.)

There’s also a Golden Boot Award to the leading scorer (Marta) and a coach of the year award.

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I should have written this a few weeks ago when I knew it, but I kept getting distracted. Sorry.

The WPS expansion draft will be held Sept. 15. Each team can protect 10 players. (I’ll leave it to you to figure which 10 Athletica players you’d protect.) A team has to leave at least six players unprotected. Presumably, this means if you had only 15 players under contract for the following season, you’d only be able to protect nine.

You can’t lose a second player until every other team loses a player. Each team must lose a second player before a team can lose a third player.

After you lose your first player, you can protect two more. After you lose your second player, you can protect one more. Each expansion team can draft up to nine. That’s 18 total, which means four teams will lose three players and three teams will lose two players.

The international draft for foreign players is Sept. 22. Philly goes first, then Atlanta. Each team can pick five, though they would pick less if they claimed more than one international in the expansion draft.

The college draft is Jan. 15 at the NSCAA convention in Philadelphia. Atlanta goes first, Philadelphia second, and the teams also get a pick each at the end of the first round ONLY.

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Lastly, the league announced that the All-Star Game has picked up a sponsor, the Coast Guard.