Fire’s goalie draws national attention

A year ago Sean Johnson was a rookie, the Chicago Fire’s final 2010 draft pick, just hoping the team would find a place for him.

Now, a month from the season opener, the second-year goalkeeper might be the Fire’s best player.

At least he was honored as the team’s best on Monday night at the Comcast Sports Awards, missing the team flight that day to Florida for preseason training to hobnob with the Bulls’ Taj Gibson and the Blackhawks’ Duncan Keith.

The awards banquet came just a month after Johnson made his first appearance for the U.S. national team, playing the second half in a friendly against Chile.

“It was a great experience being in camp with those guys, working with veterans like Nick Rimando and Matt Pickens and learning from them as well,” Johnson said via telephone from Ave Maria, Fla. “It was a great experience and should help in a lot of ways. I’m going to take some of those things away and try to apply them over here with the Chicago Fire.”

Fire fans are eager to see just how much it will help. Johnson is a fourth-round draft pick with a future to envy, a 21-year-old with a strong work ethic and amazing athleticism who must be a rock in net for the Fire this season.

Ask him if he was nervous about going to U.S. camp or earning his first camp, he’ll quickly say no. He felt he fit in fine, he felt like he belonged.

This is a guy who talks about that work ethic anytime he’s asked about how far he’s progressed, and it’s a work ethic that impressed his coaches enough to give him the starting goalkeeper job last August in his rookie year.

He’s a guy who flew his mother, Joy, to Chicago to be with him at the Comcast Sports Awards, and when he received his award, he told the crowd, “She’s my Valentine tonight, and I just want to say I love you.”

He’s a guy who takes his job and his responsibility to his teammates seriously, but he also enjoys joking with his teammates and the ping-pong game they played during a break in training.

“Our team, we had our ups and downs last year,” Johnson said. “We have to figure out a way to win games.”

It’ll be easier with the 6-foot-3, 217-pound patrolling the penalty area.

The word from Portland:

Last season there were rumors that Fire players weren’t very happy with coach Carlos de los Cobos. Former Fire midfielder Peter Lowry commented on that a little Tuesday to The Oregonian.

“I wasn’t happy with what they saw in me and the opportunities I had gotten. I felt like I had earned the opportunity to do more (in Chicago),” said Lowry, picked by the Portland Timbers in the MLS expansion draft in November. “I didn’t want to be there anymore.”