St Pete Times Forum Update

Monday is the Lightning's home opener against the Florida Panthers. Well, other than being my team, the renovations are looking like they're coming along nicely. There's more to it on the inside, but where the ice is, that whole part should be done. They replaced every seat, redid the boxes, and took out a few sections for a pipe organ. OH YEAH. They also have f'ing Tesla Coils that will shoot off lightning every home goal.

They were saying how they might not be ready, and they want it to be perfectly completed instead of risking safety. The video above is a test. Imagine the goal horn and lightning going off at the same time. It should be a great atmosphere.

2005 New Orleans Saints

So I was on the Chris Creamer boards, looking at the "Best football fields" thread. This guy posted some oddities at LSU's Tiger Stadium. One of them, was this gem of the New Orleans Saints playing there after Hurricane Katrina.

I remember they did this. One of the 4 games they played there was against the Bucs. I remember, actually we were driving home somewhere going through St. Pete on the highway that passes the Trop. The announcer said  something to the effect of, "If anyone wants to come watch a game, there are a lot of seats left at Tiger Stadium." Obviously the stadium wouldn't be to capacity, and just now I'm seeing a picture of it. Well, in that game they're either playing Carolina or Miami. You can't make out details but it's an all light uniform set, and Chicago and the Bucs wear navy and pewter.

The team had 3 regular season home stadiums. The hurricane came the week after a preseason game at the Superdome vs the Ravens. But still recovering, in week 2 they played the Giants at the Meadowlands. Week 4 and 6, they played Buffalo and Atlanta at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The next 4 home games were at Tiger Stadium, then they rounded the season out back in San Antonio against Detroit.

Then they fixed the Superdome, and it still looks like a dump.

But there is your history lesson everybody!

Mini Jerry World

Remember the Super Bowl?

I'm not sure if this is awesome, or just really really sad, but this guy made a New Cowboy Stadium in his living room. COMPLETE WITH VIDEO SCREENS. I thought my stadi-bros would like this.

Keeping Stadium Neighborhoods Alive in the Off-Season

There’s only one thing more depressing come October than the end of baseball season: the sight of an empty ballpark. All those vacant seats, the hot-dog concessions closed, the field empty, and the gates padlocked until the following spring. It’s a bitter scene for baseball lovers.

But it’s an economic conundrum for cities, too.

 Progressive Field in Cleveland may have come up with the best solution yet to the empty ballpark. Last year for the first time, the team converted the field into a vast winter playground. The Indians laid an ice track around the field for skaters and built a snow-tubing hill from the bleachers onto the outfield. “Snow Days” drew to downtown Cleveland last winter about 50,000 people who otherwise would have been bundled up at home. And because Progressive Field sits nestled in the city’s downtown (when it was constructed in the early 1990s, planners intentionally spurned surface parking lots), the event fed into the surrounding entertainment district and restaurants.

  Here's the article.

Marlins Ballpark Update

The new ballpark in Miami is starting to come together. It looks really small, at 37,000 people, but I think it will look good in the end...

...other than the home run celebration thing...

Yeah, every home run hit by the Marlins, this thing will go off a-la apple at Citi Field. Here's a youtube video. Yuck. Hopefully Mike Stanton does his thing on the road.

BC Place for the Whitecaps

One little update on the last post, the Whitecaps tarped off the upper deck. I had to find this out after I called bullshit the picture below.

http://www.whitecapsfc.com/news/2011/10/vancouvers-bell-pitch-downtown-featured-fifa-12 The Whitecaps are saying that the new BC Place will be on Fifa 12. I saw it, and figured they had a generic stadium and called it BC Place because the upperdeck and windows weren't there. Turns out it's legit, and you can now play there on Fifa 12, the only MLS stadium in the game.

The New BC Place Stadium

This is actually pretty funny. I was looking at some stadiums on worldstadiums.com, and was looking at Vancouver. I knew they were renovating BC Place stadium, and so I looked it up. Turns out, the first game played there with the new renovations took place Friday. The BC Lions hosted Edmonton and won 33-24. Then the Vancouver Whitecaps hosted the Portland Timbers today, but lost 1-0.

The renovations took place from April 2010 to September 2011. All together, over $150 million took place in major renovations. These included seating replacements, washroom and concessions renovations, and replacement of the ETFE roof with a new retractable roof. The work was done in two phases. The first phase involved upgrades to seating, washrooms, concessions, and luxury suites, as well as the reinforcement of the existing ring beam at the top of the building and was completed in October 2009. Work on the retractable roof began in May 2010, shortly after the completion of the 2010 Winter Paralympics and the final deflation of the air-supported roof. 1,140 tv screens were added, and the second largest hanging video board is located hanging above the field(only Dallas has a bigger one.)

Originally built in 1983, it was one of those crappy generic domes like the SIlverdome, RCA dome, and Metrodome. In one of the videos below, the host said when he played, the air just seemed to sit and it felt like you were running through mud. The stadium was always known to be very loud, but it wasn't that state of the art. The Winter Olympic ceremonies took place there, which is probably the biggest moment. Unless you think 7 Grey Cups might contend. The dome actually collapsed Metrodome style in 2007, not because of snow however.

Empire Field is a temporary stadium that housed the Lions and 'Caps for the last two and a half seasons. They built it in... 3 months. Which is very speedy. Especially for a stadium with 27,500 seats. Sure, it probably wasn't that amazing, but it's impressive. The stadium will be torn down now that BC Place is all new and shiny. So from now on, the Lions and Whitecaps will play games at the new stadium, and it really looks great. The 2011 Grey Cup will be hosted there, and that should be very nice.

 Here are some videos on the renovations from the BC Lions' website.
Second level, concessions- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/21033
Fourth level, seating, presentation, and roof- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20997
The field, and scoreboard- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20971
Gates, and locker room- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20949