Venues

I found an article online yesterday about the top 10 toughest places to play a sporting event in the world, and you know where(Tiger Stadium was #3. Most of the venues were soccer stadiums, including #8 Rangers' Ibrox Stadium, inexplicably, Celtic Park was left out of the list. Oh well, the guy must be a f***ing Rangers fan.

Here's a link.

After reading that it got me thinking about the sports venues I have gone to. I've been to 3 bowl games (Independence, Cotton and Peach). Out of those, my favorite venue was probably the Cotton Bowl, even though LSU lost the game(and won the other two). The seats were small and jammed together and felt closer to the field than either Independence Stadium or the Georgia Dome. I also realized after the Peach Bowl in 05', that football should be played outside, period. I've gone to 3 college football stadiums, LSU's Tiger Stadium, Ole Miss' Vaught-Hemmingway Stadium and Louisiana Tech's Joe Alliet Stadium.(pronounced eye-eh). Of course my favorite is Tiger Stadium, even sitting in the upper deck it feels like you're right on top of the field. The atmosphere around Vaught-Hemmingway was, as an LSU fan, very odd. It was very civilized and very festive at the same time, nothing at all like Baton Rouge (or Ruston for that matter). There are 3 Major League Baseball stadiums that I have experienced, in Dallas, Anaheim and San Diego. Definitely Petco Park in San Diego is my favorite, but that's not a knock on the other two. I have never been to an NHL game (hoping to go to my first in a few months), but I have watched minor league games in (you guessed it) 3 different arenas. The CenturyTel Center in Bossier City, the Desoto County Civic Center in Southaven MS. and the Nytex Sports Center in North Richland Hills. Certainly my opinion here is going to be biased but I can say, the most unique arena out of the 3 would be Nytex. Its really more a practice facility than an arena, 2,300 is the max attendance, and all of the seats are very close to the glass. The 1 time I was there, I was sitting on the first row of the upper "end zone" terrace and my feet were level with the glass, which was only about 6 feet in front of me. Needless to say, I had a pretty cool vantage point to watch the game from.

Anyway, I hope I can add to that list within the next year.