This is one journey we have been looking forward to with eager anticipation.

Why? Because it’s to Indianapolis, one of our all time favorite USRT destinations. Indy is a sports lovers paradise - Conseco Fieldhouse, the best of the best of all 4-sports venues; a vibrant and energetic downtown scene with shopping, restaurants, nightlife, hotels and entertainment, everything we wish that Buffalo could become. Victory Field is one sweet ballpark and it’s right downtown too. The NCAA Hall of Champions is closeby, the Indianapolis 500 motor track, and if you’re a disciple of the movie “Hoosiers”, then the Hinkle Fieldhouse at Butler University is a must-do pilgrimage.

Adding to the glitz and buzz is Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home of the Indianapolis Colts, and when we attend Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, once again we will cross the finish line and claim bragging rights of having attended a home game of each of the 122 teams in the four major sports in their current and active venues.

We’re staying at the Sheraton right downtown and right near Victory Circle, so we will be right in the middle of the action and walking distance to the stadium. Very cool!

But there is more to this trip… we start things off Saturday down in Bloomington, where we will see the Indiana Hoosiers take on Iowa in Big-Ten college football action. Then on Monday, as we head home we will take a little detour up towards Detroit (well Windsor, actually). The OHL Windsor Spitfires will be saying goodbye to “The Old Barn”, Windsor Arena, in another month or so, and this gives us a chance to see a hallowed and storied venue (and former NHL venue, once home to the Detroit Red Wings), before it is gone for good. Puck drops at 3PM on this Canadian Thanksgiving, and our creds are at will call!

On the down side, we will have to miss the Sabres opener and that’s a bummer. We got Sirius in the car but now they supposedly have an “XM on Sirius” feed which means we can try and catch the game on radio. Hope it works, not sure if that’s some sort of premium tier. And of course, the baseball LCS’s are on as well so plenty of sports on air for the ride down.

We will TRY to do postings from the road. Truth be told, Sheraton’s wifi and internet service sucks and is always an adventure. But nonetheless, tune in for updates!

I love coming to the Ralph. What can I say?

For some reason, I look past the heavy intoxication of the fans, the crappy way that they treat opposing teams fans, the constant sight of security intervening in out of control affairs…everything. And I just watch the game as if no one was around me, realizing how fortunate I am to be able to live in one of thirty or so areas in this country which has the highest level of football on the planet. Pretty cool, eh?

Today I took Andrew along with me to the Ralph and met up with Peter Sharp and his friend Paul from Canada, we’ve met “Sharpie” through our occasional meetups with fellow road trip pal Sean McDonald Being gracious hosts that we were we introduced them to the world of roast beef on weck, and they responded in kind by providing authentic Canadian brews for our little shindig.

On to the game. I had some interesting conversations with the family(fellow Bills fans) in the days preceding, and they all came to the same conclusion about it.

” Classic trap game, they better be careful”. I winced, realized it had all the makings, and hoped they’d be wrong. They weren’t.

In the first half, the Bills were sloppy on O. Dropped passes, wasted opportunities for points, and Jason Peters doing his best imitation of a matador added up to a halftime deficit for the Bills. In the second half it was topped off by Roscoe Parrish’s absolutely boneheaded decision to field a punt at the goal line which set off a chain of events that led to a Raider TD that put the game in their control. Parrish was probably thinking of his press clippings about how awesome’s he’s been at that moment.

The Bills O finally seemed to come to life at this point, and a TD narrowed the gap. But a big play TD for Oakland shortly thereafter should have put the game away for the Raiders. And in past years it would have.

But not this year, it was all Bills from there on out. A touchdown, a defensive stop, and a field goal as time ran out gave the Bills a dramatic 24-23 win. The type of win that sooooo many other teams have hung on the Bills in past seasons.

Other stuff of note.

If Lane Kiffin hasn’t been fired for his lack of rapport with Al Davis, he should be gone for not making any attempt to stop the clock in the final minute. Force the Bills to run a couple more plays, maybe the Raider D holds and they get time for a last shot. Nah…

Nice to see the Greatest Bill of All Time(sez me!) finally get his name on the Wall. Don’t know what the rules are as far as eligibility, but the fact that his name didn’t up immediately after his NFL retirement is a damn travesty.

Jason Peters better get back in game shape, quickly. He was a disgrace early on.

I love Trent Edwards, but he has GOT to start performing in wet weather. Fortunately for him the next two games should be indoors(St. L, Ariz).

Go ahead, repeat to yourselves……Your AFC EAST LEADING Buffalo Bills!!! Sounds pretty damned good. Doesn’t it

Mike Simoncelli is a college student majoring in sports management at Medaille College and has been working for the Buffalo Sabres as a part of the media crew in the pressbox. We ran into Mike during the summer and he told us he was traveling to Indy with the Bills equipment staff for their preseason game, so we asked him if he would take a few shots and give us a report. Here is Mike’s submission for our readers, along with our appreciation…

Lucas Oil Stadium Fulfills The Hype

As the Buffalo Bills team flight descended towards the Indianapolis airport the afternoon before their third preseason game, I looked out my window and spotted the structure everyone had been buzzing about. That structure was Lucas Oil Stadium, and the first word that came to my mind was simply “wow.”

With no objection from me, we went directly from the airport to the stadium to unload all of the equipment, so I did not have to wait long to get an up close look at just how majestic this stadium was. My anticipation was not disappointed. The first thing I noticed was the shape of the stadium was different from most other stadiums I have seen, in that it was more rectangular than round, making it look more like a factory than a stadium. I was also astounded by the fact that nearly the entire exterior was brick, which made even more obvious the amount of time that went into putting this building together.

The inside of the stadium was breath taking as well. There are six levels of seats on the sidelines, two of which are for suites. In each of the end zones there are large windows, and on what I believe is the west side of the stadium, the windows open up whenever the retractable roof is open. Those windows may cause problems for receivers during day games however, because the ball gets lost in the glare on mid-level and high throws.

When the game started the crowd sounded as if they were cheering during a regular season game. This was not surprising to me based on what I found while walking through the city prior to the game, as everyone was decked out in their Colts gear, even the night before the game.

I was pleasantly surprised by the city overall as there appears to be a lot to do downtown as far as restaurants and bars go, and there is even a large mall only minutes away from the stadium. This city is definitely worth taking a road trip to for a game as you’ve got a beautiful venue to watch it in, and an upbeat town to spend your downtime in.

-Mike Simoncelli

Heading to Indy to see the Indianapolis Colts? Then you better hope your ticket doesn’t read “Sec 433, row 13, seats 27-28-29″ (pictured above).

The media was given a tour of the new stadium yesterday, set to host its first football game on August 24 when the Buffalo Bills play the Colts in a preseason game. What they found was about 200 obstructed view seats, in each of the four corners of the stadium up in the nosebleed seats.

For what it’s worth, the Colts ticket operations people say that “these seats are not part of the ticket program”.

Whatever that means.

But then according to the Indianapolis Star, one of the suits from the front office offers this nugget:

Pete Ward, senior executive vice president of the Colts, said that fans who buy partially-obstructed seats would know in advance that their view will not be unobstructed, like most of the seats in the new stadium.

“Absolutely. It is printed on the ticket,” said Ward.

The official USRT visit to Lucas Oil Field is set for Sunday, October 12, Columbus Day weekend. Tickets have been procured (via eBay) and *shudder*, here’s hoping we’re nowhere near a support post!

Seems like people are all aflutter about Sully’s recent column bemoaning the corporate stadia/arena naming craze. Knowing the rest of the Buffalo sports blogosphere as I do, the reasons had to be because of the article’s content and not its author. Right???

(snickering heavily)

Got me thinking though. Just how good is the average sports fans’ knowledge of stadium names in today’s day and age? The venue building boom of the last decade or so has left many a fan’s head spinning concerning the amount of names one has to remember, and that’s not including venues that have had multiple names thanks to corporations being bought out and reemerging under new titles.

With that in mind and being that sports venue gurus that we are, I throw out a little trivia quiz of “Name That Venue”. I’ll name fifteen or so venues, and it’s your job to figure out where they are located(and preferrably who is the main tenant’s’). Email me with the answers(at right).

One rule: stay the hell off our USRT site/blog for answers! Work for this one, pleeeeeeeze.

Prizes…. knowing that you’ve got a better memory than Sully. Isn’t that enough????

Note - The venues listed below are located in metro areas that currently hosts at least one of the four major pro sports leagues. One is home to a college team. One is in a former major league city, and another is located in a city that may soon join that club. Have fun with it:-).

A. Energy Solutions Arena
B. MTS Centre
C. American Airlines Center
D. AT + T Park
E. Comcast Center
F. McAfee Coliseum
G. FedEx Forum
H. LP Field
I. Ford Center
J. Sprint Center
K. Jobing.com Arena
L. Miller Park
M. Quicken Loans Arena
N. Rexall Place
O. Target Center

Bonus - What was the first corporate name of Gilette Stadium(Foxborough)?

-Peter Farrell

The NFL released their 2008 regular season schedule this afternoon.

The Buffalo Bills return to the Monday Night Football schedule on November 17 against the Cleveland Browns, and that is certain to be the “hot ticket” on this year’s home schedule.

The opener is set for September 7 against Seattle. And the one thing everyone was certainly watching was who was going to be the opponent for the game up in Toronto.

The answer to that is the Miami Dolphins. Remember a few years back when the NFL realigned its divisions? Buffalo then had the golden opportunity to move into the AFC Central, and annual games against geographical rivals - Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati. “No way” said The Old Geezer, who waxed poetically about the great Buffalo-Miami rivalry and how he didn’t want to lose that by shifting divisions. Well guess what? These days Don Shula is off selling his steaks, Jimmy Johnson is on his boat and combing his hair, Bryan Cox is giving the finger and spitting in someone else’s direction, and nobody really gives a rats ass about the Fish anymore. And now the Dolphins will have the nice warm and cozy Rogers Centre to visit in December, and at worst a neutral crowd in their grills. Nice job all around!

Today was USRT schedule planning day, and with Pete being off from work, we both met up at Dunn Tire Park and the Bisons day game, fired up the laptop in the pressbox and waited for 2PM to come around.

The planets did not align well at all… we had hoped for a Colts home game on 9/28 so we could tie in two major college venues on the same trip; the Colts are on a bye week. For 10/26, we wanted a Saints game in New Orleans, so we could also visit the LSU Tigers that weekend. The Saints have a “home” game that weekend… but it will be played at London’s Wembley Stadium. Dave Ricci asked pointedly what kind of wusses we really are that we just don’t hop over to the UK that weekend. We ignored Dave and left him to his merciless heckling of former Bisons and now the Syracuse Chief’s Hector Luna.

So as of now, this is kind of what our fall USRT football schedule looks like, although only the Indy weekend is a lock:

Sat 9/21 Akron at Army (NCAA-f)

Sat 10/11 Iowa at Indiana (NCAA-f)
Sun 10/12 Baltimore at Indianapolis (NFL)

Sat 10/25 Alabama at Tennessee (NCAA-f)
Mon 10/27 Indianapolis at Tennessee (NFL)

Sun 11/23 Grey Cup - Montreal (CFL)

For the October trip, Florida is our “Plan B” - Saturday in Gainesville with Kentucky at Florida, then the Bills and Miami at Dolphins Stadium. We’re going to wait for the NHL schedule in July and see what else might fit before making final plans.

I’m gonna do it.

Something I’ve never done since I showed up in Western New York in the immediate aftermath of the Super Bowl Years.

I’m gonna do my part to try to keep this team in town, because dammit I don’t know how else to do it. For me, the best way is to get me season tix for the Bills.

Yes, I can hear the naysayers now….”WHAT!!! Why are you lining Ralph’s pockets with your money after the way he trashed our city!!!” Brings me to my first point:

Buying Bills season tickets doesn’t line his pockets any more than say…Jerry Jones’ pockets. The NFL’s division of weekly ticket revenue is pooled 60/40 amongst all home and road teams in the league and not just the Bills and the visiting teams at the Ralph that season. You can thank Arizona’s Bill Bidwill for this, it was the NFL’s way of compensating him for losing his biggest draw(Dallas) when the NFL realigned its divisions for the ‘02 season.

Hence, a 50$ ticket is divvied 30$/20$ and then those numbers are split by the amount of games played that week. Hmmmm….Ralph gets less than 2$ of my ticket money out of that half a hundred? Suddenly I don’t feel as worked up as I probably should be.

The season ticket base is a way in which fan support can best be measured. While more than half the league’s teams sellout their games on season tickets/and/or leave a small float for public sale the Bills have always had a low season ticket base(yes….47k is low by league standards, even if good by ours). A Ralph sold out on season tix(and hopefully a waiting list) would send the strongest message that Joe Fan could possibly send to the NFL and those arrogant rich folk in Toronto that want to steal our team that F*CK NO..we don’t want this team to go anywhere!!!!

Think something like that hasn’t happened before? It has, and very recently as well.

Think 2005, think New Orleans. The overwhelming destruction of Hurricane Katrina had left the Superdome in shambles and the Saints to head to parts elsewhere to play the ‘05 season.

Of course, amidst the devastation and destruction one would have thought that owner Tom Benson would have rallied with the rest of the city in rebuilding New Orleans by adamantly stating that the Saints would stick around in the meantime.

No. In a move that would make Ralph look like Robin Hood, Benson thought that the immediate aftermath of the biggest natural disaster in American history would be the PERFECT time to bang the drum to yank the Saints right out of town to San Antonio(his hometown). Anywhere but the Bayou.

Of course, fans of the Gulf Coast went ballistic hammering on Benson in similar fashion that we are now with Ralph Wilson. They also did something else:

They sold out the Superdome for all home games prior to the season for the first time in the history of the franchise. Benson be damned! We want this team here!

Fans there could have easily thrown up their hands, told Benson to go to hell and swear that they’d never attend another Saints game. Lord knows those people had(and in some cases still have) FAR more important things to deal with at the time than finding cash to see their shitty NFL team play.

But that simply would have made Benson look right in attempting to bolt town. And staying away from the Ralph will do the same for Wilson and the Toronto cronies that look down their noses at us.

At best, we get our wish and the Bills stay around for years to come…at worst, we see the final years of Bills football in Buffalo and we go down in this struggle, but dammit…. we do not go down quietly and with nothing but our best efforts.

Thanks to the folks at the Weather Channel and their ten day forecast we can now begin paying close attention to what conditions will be like on New Year’s Day.

For today’s look at the forecast for Orchard Park, NY click here.

I have pontificated in the past about the boorish behavior and the goings on at Ralph Wilson Stadium, but sometimes we pick up on some bad stories at peer NFL venues.

If you asked me which stadiums are the most intimidating for visiting fans and/or the most likely places you will see a violent incident off the field, I would immediately choose Giants Stadium in New Jersey, and McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. New Yawkers are generally a boorish loutish class of fans, while Raiderfan is just intimidating by nature, and the scary costumes provide no comfort.

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a story on the goings on at “Gate D” of the stadium, where apparently fans congregate on the spiral ramps and exhort female patrons to bare their breasts, throwing debris and hurling profanities if they don’t comply.

According to several fans and stadium workers, such behavior has been going on at Jets home games for years. But it apparently had not been a problem at Giants home games.

So apparently this has been a Jets tradition for years, and is now spilling over into Giants games. Nice.

A look at The LA Coliseum during a Dodgers game shortly after their move from Brooklyn.

OK, not really but this story coming out of SoCal reports that the Dodgers are going to wrap up their spring training season with a three game series against the Red Sox with the middle game being played in cavernous Los Angeles Coliseum. The game will be played as part of a celebration of the Dodgers’ fifty years in California.

Must be nice when you can build a new stadium which is one of the absolute jewels of the National Football League. Then your team wins a boatload of Super Bowl trophies. Now the Gillette Stadium neighborhood is undergoing a vast transformation of its own.

Since the old days when the old Schaefer Stadium was first built out in Foxboro, this has pretty much been cornfields, empty land up and down US 1, with one way in and one way out. While US 1 is a much wider boulevard today, right next to Gillette a new shopping center makes its debut this month, anchored by (insert your fruitcake shriek here Tim Tielman) Bass Pro.

But there’s much much more on the way - Phase 2 of this project will see a new “lifestyles center” in another section of the stadium property as Patriot Place, a mixed use hotel, movie theatre, office and retail center, begins to take shape for a planned 2008 opening.

While the hot discussion here in Buffalo in recent days centers on a new waterfront/downtown stadium, is it farfetched to envision a total (not cosmetic) makeover of The Ralph? Add retail, housing, mixed uses, and serve the neighborhood with both a light rail extension to downtown, as well as a high speed rail corridor to transport patrons from Canada and points east. This sort of concept could turn the corner for saving the football team in Western New York.

Thanks to Keller for sending this along.

OK, so I’d rather see a new home for the Bills go from the ground up and like many others I believe downtown would be neat. However, another renowned AFC franchise that plays in a stadium built in the early seventies is taking the renovation route like we did but in a more comprehensive fashion than was done here nearly a decade ago.

Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium is in the early stages of a 375M$ renovation project that will be completed in time for the 2010 season with monies coming from a 3/8% sales tax increase as well as 125M$ coming from the Hunt family themselves.

Some links to more info and pics here, and here, and here for the complete report.

Another older venue that underwent a complete facelift was Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. While it was a great old school venue, it was also in great need of modernization and the good folks of Northeast Wisconsin, taxpayers as well as Packer shareholders alike plunked down about 300M$ make this a reality. The renovation was complete in time for the 2003 season.

Of course, we think this is also a good reference to check out the New Lambeau with….

If this is the route to go with the Bills and their facilities. Do it all the way instead of the half ass job of the late nineties….second major scoreboard, wider concourses for fans in both levels. Major entry plaza @ Southwestern and Abbott, more places to stand and view the game from. The top of the upper deck, while a nice idea was a bad location. I suggest making the space above the endzone suites and below the scoreboard a plaza/viewing area.

Just a few suggestions and ideas….have at it!

I check out ElmwoodBuffalo Rising pretty regularly - the city development articles are enlightening, the food stuff OK, and the rah-rah-riness is always served with extra sugar. The most entertaining part of most of their pieces come from the commenters - the regulars on that site have got to be the stupidest collection of knuckleheads ever.

Evidently, one of the commenters made it to the big time with his very own reader submission. And right from the get go, the article discussing where to place a new football stadium in this region devolves into mush and loses all credibility.

Why, you ask? I will tell you…

If you want to build a new stadium with the same size and configuration as Ralph Wilson Stadium, here is what you will get… a 70s era facility with few amenities or creature comforts, dank narrow concourses, few open public spaces, no architectural significance, and an obsolete facility from the get go. Today’s modern NFL stadium doubles as a convention facility, a retail hub, a multiuse year round structure with diverse applications. Now, take Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium, Houston’s Reliant Stadium or St. Louis’ Edward Jones Dome and superimpose those on a map of Buffalo, and you can begin a sensible discussion. My guess is that any one of these buildings have a footprint 50-60% larger than that of The Ralph.

And as usual, the BRO family of kooks come through with their banality in fine form…

Chiknlil….Let’s find a place that is attractive, but protected from the weather. The last thing we need is the perpetuation of Buffalo as a cold wasteland whenever we are featured on national TV.
Wasn’t there a plan to put a covered stadium in Lancaster, just south of the Thruway? What happened to that idea?

Attractive and protected from the weather… How about South Beach? And yes idiot, there was an idea for a covered stadium in Lancaster… in 1969!!!

Read on…

Bison 716…I say Niagera Falls is our best bet!!! A Super Bowl is more likely to happen there, maybe the Olympics (winter-most likely) the fact that the “BUFFALO Bills” (remind you…BUFFALO) is asscociated with Niagera falls is great for our city, as long as we can figure a way to get rail from downtown to the stadium.

A Super Bowl in Buffalo? The OLYMPICS??? What medication is this guy taking?

RiaingDamp666…Why not build stadiums at all of the locations above and let The People decide which ones they want to go to. That’s the democratic way, isn’t it?

Ugh, how do you even respond to that?

I am ashamed to admit it, but I actually used to post comments on BRO. I got off that kick about a year ago at least.

Mark at our sister site All Things Buffalo offers a reasonable take on how we should proceed with the stadium plans. As usual, Mark is spot on. Then check out the comments… Steel, the flamekeeper of the BRO Amen Corner, proceeds to pick Mark apart.

Indianapolis!

For many years the Colts were mentioned as one of the teams on the list of “future LA stadium tenants”, but that all changed with the groundbreaking for Lucas Oil Stadium in September of 2005. This retractable roofed stadium(cost 500M$, with the Colts kicking in 100M of that) is part of a project that will also expand the nearby convention center to cover where the current RCA Dome now stands.

All this set in the midst of Indianapolis’ historic Wholesale District. Retail, nightlife, restaurants all within a short walk of Lucas Oil Field(and its sister pro sports venue Conseco Fieldhouse).

Opening kickoff at Lucas Oil Field comes in the fall of 2008, to be followed soon thereafter by a visit from a pair of Buffalo’s finest road warriors/sports bloggers.

Will the good folks of this region private and public, do or be able to do with the Bills what Indianapolis and surroundings were able to do with the Colts regarding their long term future in town? If the Bills are to stay here, this is a necessity. If not, Toronto or Los Angeles among other places certainly will.

More renditions of LucasOil Stadium here.

Hmmm, small market….new domed stadium….revitalized downtown district…..could this be a blueprint for a new Bills stadium and surroundings?

At long last, after so many false starts and failed plans, the New York Jets and New York Giants will finally begin work on their long anticipated replacement stadium in New Jersey’s Meadowlands.

The new 82,500 seat facility is scheduled to open in 2010, and will feature many modern day amenities, including changeable subdued lighting which will burn blue or green depending on which team is playing there. A massive Great Wall with louvered murals will also change for their respective teams, as weill massive video boards on the outside of the facility.

The new stadium comes with a price tag of $750-million.

More from the New York Times.