Made it to my first football game at the TCF Bank Stadium this past Saturday. The Golden Gophers squared off against the Syracuse Orangemen. The Gophers were victorious by a score of 17-10 and have a 4-0 non-conference record.
It's hard to believe Mariucci Arena opened in 1993 and I had never stepped foot inside of the building until 2012! What a great looking arena it is. Very open, easy to get into your seats, not a bad seat in the house for that matter. I had been inside the old arena, several times, when it was attached to the Barn [Williams Arena]. I'm not sure what took so long for me to go, perhaps it is because tickets are so hard to get, but I will return much sooner in the future. Mariucci Arena is home to the Minnesota Gophers hockey team.
The crazy college basketball tournament week has started, followed up by the best Final Four tournament.
The new Gopher Stadium finally built back on campus seats 50,805 and is horseshoe in design. There is room for future expansion to bring the total seating capacity to 80,000 seats. I'm unsure where the expansion would take place to raise the number of seats. Easily they could remove the horseshoe shape and complete the oval, but is that the expansion they are talking about or is there a much simpler option that I'm not seeing?
One of the entrances to the new Gopher football stadium. I have not been inside to a game yet, being as this was the first season, tickets were a bit tough to get. Not that I tried hard to get them this year. It is on my list of places to see a football game in the future years.
It wouldn't be right to post one side of the stadium and ignore the other. This is the south side of the new TCF Bank Stadium. There is a bit more character on this side with a few more levels, the press box is there somewhere and who knows how many of those are suites.
Made a return visit to the new Gopher football stadium. There wasn't a practice this evening, but there were enough lights on inside to snap a couple of shots. If my orientation is correct, this is the north side of the stadium.
Tubby Smith is in his third season as coach of the Minnesota Gopher Basketball team. Tonight's opponent was Steven F Austin. The game was close until around three minutes left in the first half, the Gophers pulled away at that point and never looked back. The crowd started leaving with about five minutes to play, so the place looks really empty. But with a nearly 40 point lead, the game was well in hand.
I finally made it over to the University Of Minnesota to see the new TCF Bank Stadium at night. Minnesota Gopher football returns to campus after twenty plus years of playing football games in the Metrodome, several miles off campus. My visit was brief as I was there to see the Gopher Basketball game. I didn't have a tripod with me, but made do with what I could find nearby for this nighttime capture. The stadium is quite impressive and was larger than I expected it to be. The football team was having a practice, so some of the lights were on, just enough for this photo.
During the last Minnesota Gopher Basketball game with new head coach Tubby Smith, the photographer for the athletic department spent about five minutes in the empty seat in front of me. He had two cameras with him for taking photos. One with a shorter lens that he used when the play was on the near side of the court. A much larger camera and lens was used, the one shown in the photo, when the action was in play on the far end of the court. It was really interesting to watch, every time the the ball was on one side of the court or the other, he would seamlessly switch cameras. Though it's not quite visible in this photo, there was a remote trigger attached to the camera, when he snapped a photo, there was a quick flash of lights that was barely detectable to the fans in the crowd. But there it was, the guy who made the lights flash was sitting right in front of me taking photos for various UofM magazines.
The Gopher Basketball team faced currently number 3 in the RPI rankings Ohio State over the weekend. Ohio state proved with authority why they are ranked so high over the Gophers who are on the opposite end of the scale in talent. While the Gophers did give them a game for the first 12 minutes of the contest, it was an easy win for the Buckeyes. In today's photo, Greg Oden is about to block the attempted shot by Brandon Smith. The final score for this one, Ohio State 85, Minnesota 67.
As I mentioned yesterday, across the street from the Mariucci Arena was Williams Arena, otherwise know as "The Barn". While other cities tear down their old facilities and build brand new ones, the University Of Minnesota has revamped, added on and will make this building last for generations to come. The Barn houses the women's and men's basketball teams.
The Men's College Hockey polls currently have the Minnesota Gophers ranked number 2 in the country. The Gopher Hockey team have played in this new Mariucci Arena since the 1993 season. The moved from across the street where they played in the old Mariucci Arena that was attached to Williams Arena, otherwise known as "the barn".
