The_Admiral

Living in proximity to Lambeau, practically in its shadow, must be so weird. It's the sports world's closest thing to a company town. Undesirable.

On 2/5/2024 at 9:05 AM, zubazpirate said:

It feels like the CHL - the OHL and WHL in particular - has more or less reached its limits in Canada. The cost of entering is so steep, you basically need a 1/3 scale NHL arena at 1/3 the cost of a NHL building, and not many small towns with big dreams can pull that off. You could bake sale your way into the kind of Centennial Arena barns that our grandfathers played in, but you can't build a 6,000 seat palace with luxury amenities that way.

I feel like the OHL more than the WHL elevated major-junior arenas to an unsustainable level. There are lots of mini-palaces in Southern Ontario, none more so than London, but the WHL is a bit more catch-as-catch-can as far as I can tell with NHL arenas on off nights or weird old barns in small towns called Elk Crap. Do they still have the reverse can? 

Maybe this is me showing that I don't know how trains work, but if you can build a Metra station at the Roosevelt yard the same way there's one at its counterpart Western yard, then that grants access to everyone coming in on the south Union Station lines, which includes the all-important BNSF through southern DuPage, where, as I've said, Bears ticketholders tend to live. Could Amtrak make special stops there on gamedays? I don't want to get ahead of myself. Then you have a short trip on the Green Line for anyone coming to Union Station from the north end or from Ogilvie. Modest walk from Museum Campus for our Electric Line friends. 

The fact that government seems to be not letting Jerry Reinsdorf do whatever he wants makes me wonder if maybe they know Roosevelt/Clark is more necessary for the Bears than it is for the Sox.

9 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Fun fact: I actually took that route through Arlington Heights en route to setting up a mobile scanner at the Northwest Community Healthcare Center. 

I'm sorry. Your commemorative pin's in the mail.

I was talking to some people the other day about the surrounding infrastructure just generally not being up to the task and one guy kept coming back to the train station and how that would make it easier "for everyone." It occurred to me that people from the exurbs might actually not understand how trains work. I think they think the rail system is just a separate plane of expressways rather than something with fixed routes and schedules. That is, anywhere you've ever seen a train station, you can just take a left here and a right there and pull up in Rolling Meadows in time for the game. 

Maybe a Lincoln Yards stadium would have worked after all. I pass through there about once a month and it's still an industrial wasteland.

Yeah, little bit, except instead of worshiping the Packers, Arlington Heights just worships itself.

10 hours ago, BBTV said:

Does it need one?  How many of cities that normal people know have logos?  NYC = statue of liberty (I think), Chicago has the stars from the flag, LA?  Houston?  New Orleans I guess the fleur de lis, Atlanta?  

down-low brothers

I think the Liberty Bell is kinda neat. It's impressive but flawed, just like Philadelphia, just like America. 

7 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

But the perception among the suburban fanbase would be that it's better. I could see that helping the suburban cause.

This is the approach to Arlington Park from the east. If you are coming from Evanston, Wilmette,, Winnetka, or thereabouts, where season ticketholders are likely to live because Bears tickets are expensive, this is the road that you would probably take to get there. It's a medium/heavy arterial from the North Shore to here but two lanes most of the way through downtown Arlington Heights to the track and the houses along it are old, big, or old and big, making it impossible to widen without pissing everyone off or destroying homes with historic markers. I'm thinking of framing this picture because it's the first time since the pandemic that I've seen Euclid Avenue not backed up to hell at 4 in the afternoon. "Well, what about when the track was there?" Yeah, it was really chaotic and awful, and that was with crowds of like one-fifth the size.

38 minutes ago, Sykotyk said:

Isn't the big knock against the Soldier Field area the lack of 'mixed-use development' they all love so much now? That and parking is minimal?

1. Too hard to drive to from the suburbs

2. Too hard to walk to from train stations

3. The Blacks

4. Not enough parking

1 will be a problem anywhere on the map; anything that requires tens of thousands of people to drive in and out of a spot at the same time is going to be a giant pain, especially in an area as sprawling as Chicagoland. 2, not much anyone can do about that one; the rail system has been all but set in stone since the 19th century. 3, it's really more the idea of them than anything given the atomized nature of driving to the game. 4, I dunno, take a shuttle bus and forgo eating potato salad in a parking lot, you rubes. 

Arlington Heights would solve 3 and 4, but make 1 considerably worse, and 2 is irrelevant to most people, and the whole development appears to be a moot point since the Bears tried to big-dick Cook County and lost badly. Roosevelt/Clark where the Sox want to go (who also don't seem to have the money) would fix 2, but the rest would be about the same. There's just no perfect place to put a stadium here that I can think of, but at least we know the lakefront works well enough.

6 hours ago, BottomlessPitt said:

Hey, would a new Bears stadium fit where New Comiskey now sits or do the Bears just want to be the suburbs? 

There's so much surface parking around Comiskey that anything could fit there, but the Bears in Bridgeport and the Sox downtown is like some Gift of the Magi deal. 

Does Carron Phillips have to sit out for a while because of this or are they gonna let him put on his dashiki and complain about Kevin Stefanski?

On 2/7/2024 at 4:04 PM, spudrik79 said:

Shoulder patches are the chef's kiss 

The Panthers moved to an outlet mall off an expressway west of Fort Lauderdale so that they could get away from The Ethnics

On 2/5/2024 at 7:29 AM, BBTV said:

Wish companies would stop slapping liberty bells on every philadelphia product, wish the Phillies would drop it from they logo, and wish it wasn't (along with Rocky) an unofficial "logo" for the city in general.

If Philadelphia were to have a symbol, what do you think it should be?

3 hours ago, CS85 said:

The grey basketball court is the NBA equivalent of redecorating your kitchen with shiplap, cement countertops, and a copper farmhouse sink.

Inside the NBA on HGTV with Chip and Joanna Gaines, the Property Brothers, and also Charles Barkley

18 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Oakland has some real nasty parts, but it’s still just like any other major American city. I’ve been to Oakland like six times in the past year and it was fine. Fun, actually. Good food scene there if you know where to look, and just as much to do as any other city (probably more weed stores, though). Theres just certain parts of the city you know not to around in, especially after dark. That’s increasingly true now, but it’s always been the case with Oakland. 

Hasn't San Francisco become Poop City? No one's saying the Giants should move. Bay Area income inequality is really something else.

I'm not really wowed by the Sox stadium. I'm a traditionalist, and the Sox have played on 35th Street for 115 years. I don't really want that to change. 

https://awfulannouncing.com/online-outlets/chiefs-fan-sues-deadspin-go-media-blackface-racism.html

Zombie Deadspin getting sued for doing hotep stuff.

2 hours ago, LaGrandeOrange said:

SLC feels like an...unsexy? threat location. I know "welcoming ownership" is the most important thing at this point, but it's hard to imagine SLC provides much more upside than, say, Québec, who have had welcoming ownership for a decade.

BUT THE ALIGNMENT (if Quebec pulled a 2011 Jets and stayed put for a bit, they'd be a better time zone fit than the hybrid Pacific/Mountain Phoenix. The frozen-water league has too many teams on the arid half of the continent)

Whatever Oakland's problems may be, and they're similar to the many other American cities besieged by feral/antisocial behavior, I still believe there's no better place for them and that the league and union should do everything they can to keep them in the East Bay, up to and including throwing money at the Giants to claw back the "territorial rights" that don't have a right to exist. Here's hoping common sense prevails. "Disband the team for three years," go to hell.

It's only gotten worse since

Are you saying that crime and antisocial behavior have not skyrocketed in American cities over the past four years?

23 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

I expect him this week to publicly kick the tires on Northwest Indiana and activate an even dumber and redder subphylum of Exurban Hooting Rube than the one activated by talk of Arlington Heights.

Bill that may try to bring Chicago Bears new stadium to northwest Indiana gets update

Hurry up and get it over with, just bring on the facebook dads from Crown Point talking about lower taxes, come on, I have a lot to do this week.

This is getting too fanciful. The Bears aren't leaving. They're just going to make a complete hash out of building a stadium like they did 20 years ago. 

Remember that the Bears' small stadium is by design. They wanted a more select audience at games because these new-money bohunk-micks think they're Mayflower stock and that the Bears are a luxury brand. Didn't work; even with lower supply and more luxury boxes, Soldier Field is still full of fat loud morons. And I think it's also important to remember that in the new Soldier Field, the Bears got everything they wanted, made the rest of us pay for it, and now are already doing it again.

6 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

The lady commentating went on a mini rant about the University of Oregon's floor (with the forest design) and being distracted by Oregon player's buttcheeks due to how short they wear their shorts.

god forbid women have hobbies

10 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

Now, call me crazy or a cynic if you must, but I am beginning to believe the McCaskey family may not have the sharpest business acumen.

"We need help navigating the sui generis rat's nest that is Chicago politics, the same that we thought ourselves too high-minded to engage with for 40 years. The person who will help us: the dolt from the Big Ten office who sold nonexistent broadcast rights. He has what it takes." But maybe I shouldn't say that. He also took credit for closing a Minneapolis real estate deal involving a Minneapolis real estate baron. They couldn't have done it without him. 

I expect him this week to publicly kick the tires on Northwest Indiana and activate an even dumber and redder subphylum of Exurban Hooting Rube than the one activated by talk of Arlington Heights.

I wish the floors were a bit more colorful. All that black is kind of dismal, especially if the arenas are going to keep the house lights down. Is there a functional reason that they have to be black?

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

How the hell did Omaha get brought into any discussion of major league sports, other than "hey remember that weird time way back  when the Kings played 10 games a year there?"

I mean, I guess someone with money asked after the possibility of expansion and the league listened. Every now and then we hear about Louisville poking around the NBA, too.

Omaha could have been a passable one-team town in the NBA at one time given the lack of Great Plains presence and the relative irrelevance of Huskers basketball, but Oklahoma City sort of took care of that instead. The Grizzlies or New Orleans Hornets could have moved there instead and made it work, is what I'm saying. The NHL? Ehh. Doesn't excite me. Feels like an old IHL market. It's Kansas City's Grand Rapids.