Since my husband and I arenn't likely to get season tix this year (we're 1 group
out of 1000+ that sent in applications for the remaining 250 season tickets - 200
of which are standing room), we decided to get a group together for the HOF game
last Friday night. Standing room would not be a good option for me, as I'm 5 months
pregnant, and I don't like standing for that long!!
 
Overall, I was very impressed with the arena, though I think the Olympic size sheet
may cause the Gophers some problems. The one thing that hasn't been mentioned here
yet, however, is the abysmal PA system that was installed. We started out sitting
in one of the corners (by the Minn. band for those of you who were at the game), and
we could not hear a single thing the announcer was saying (and not because the band was
so loud! It was bad even when the band wasn't playing). It was like one of the
skits on Sat. night live where they have the mumbling people working at the
PA of the subway stations. We moved over to the opposite corner in the 2nd period
and the sound was a little bit better, but not much. I can't comprehend
how they can spend 20+ million on a new arena, and have such a shoddy speaker system.
This could even be a safety issue. What if someone was paged for an emergency message?
 
A number of people called the Sunday morning sports shows and complained about this, and
I even read an estimate in the paper about how the U of M got an estimate for $150,000
to upgrade the system. The powers that be thought this was too expensive, so they mentioned
they would be looking into getting some of the equipment from the Met Center (the Dallas
Stars old home).
 
go go gophers...
shari