The Pep Grill on Walnut street is the home of the Harrisburg Rugby Club. Maybe they'd be open to having the soccer supporters there as well. Olsen's place Mars, may also be a good place, but its more of a lounge. Riverside G-man would be great in the summer with the deck sitting over the river.
Senators Well I really meant if they could outdraw the Senators after rennovations are done. But I guess if they're only planning to add and extra 1500 or so they wouldn't stand much of a chance of out averaging the Sens.
The Pep Grill sound's interesting. Is that a sports bar on the corner of Walnut & 2nd? The G-man would be good too, and its close. Mars is cool place, but yeah...to loungy for soccer fans. What do you mean by Mars being "Olsen's place"...you mean Ben Olsen?
5:01 Downtown is at the SE conrer of 2nd & Walnut, the Pep Grill is on Wlanut Street behind/beside 5:01 Downtown. Ben Olsen is part owner of Mars.
There's a map showing most (not all) the downtown restaurants & pubs at http://www.harrisburghello.com/map.asp#
Thanks again. Another pub that I've been to that seems good is McGrath's on Locust. Its an Irish-style pub...maybe a little pricy. Also, does anyone have any better close-up pictures of the field on City Island? I haven't been there in years.
When I go home for Columbus Day weekend I can find you some in game photos of McDevitt games there. But there used to be a thread about a year ago for "best places to start a PDL team" or something. It was basically BigSoccer members trying to own their own PDL team and own shares, etc. I remember people putting pictures of City Island on there (older ones, but pics none the less).
there were also tons of pics in a thread about the demise of hershey. and that the team should move to harrisburg proper and city island. there were discussions even including the repair of a bridge and all kinds of stuff.
Received this info in an email from City Islanders office: Here is a sneak preview of what's coming up for the City Islanders: December 16th - Press Conference (Twin Ponds West) 1:00pm - announce first player signed - Season tickets go on sale to general public December 23rd - Press Release - announce two more players - New Website Online January 6th and 7th -Open tryouts - LANCO Fieldhouse (9am-Noon) Week of January 12th -informal kick-arounds begin at area indoor facilities January 14th - Press Conference (Angelo's Soccer Corner - Mech.) 1:00pm - announce player signing and uniform deal
Thanks for the heads up. Interesting that Bascome is on the Bermudian National Team. Looks like they'll get a go at Monserrat and then El Salvador in qualifying. Go Bermuda!
Wow. It's good to know that BS has a lot of central PA contributors. Perhaps someone can arrange a DC United bus trip?? Re: the Wildcats. From what I've heard from some Herco insiders was that is was all about the $$. Attendance was fair and the team was competitive, but the overhead was simply too much for the revenue to cover. Also, I know someone who participated in a Wildcat focus group to determine what more was needed to draw in more fans and one of the primary reasons for not attending more games was the cost of parking. Many people simply had a difficult time wanting to fork over $6 to park and then pay around $8 to watch the game. Finally, the decision to fold the team was made several months prior to the season end since someone I spoke to from the Herco marketing dept. told me that they were directed to not purchase additional Wildcat merchandise for the next year.
I think this is awesome that Harrisburg is getting a team. Whenever I go home to Boiling Springs to visit my folks, I'm hard pressed to find soccer news. Granted, I don't head home all that often, but part of that is because I'm usually in Lot 8/section 135 or a local bar watching United on the weekends. But, now that I could head home to catch a City Islander match on occassion, that'd be awesome. There also seems to be a pretty decent Central PA/DC United connection, no doubt because of Olsen (and Woodworth). I know that soccer is pretty big in that area, so I hope that this club does well.
Not to mention the "affiliation" the DCU had with the Hershey Wildcats in the late '90s. Besides, when MLS began, United was a powerhouse, so I was attracted to their playing style in MLS' first season. It helps that cable and satellite subscribers in the Harrisburg area can typically get Comcast Washington to watch home games.
I lived in Harrisburg the first two years of MLS and had season tickets for DC United. I would also go to a few Hershey games, but mostly drove down to RFK. I think it's great that a team is coming back to the area and hope that they do well.
This is probably old news, but Reading is now in the PDL. So that takes away a nice foe from the Islanders.
Yeah, I've been whining about the loss of the Reading rivalry all week. Oh well, at least now they can be my favorite PDL team.
Yeah, that sucks. Well, at least we still have the Pittsburgh rivarly. Even though its not an easy road trip for the fans to make, it still may be enough of an intra-state rivalry to generate some buzz.
My law practice takes me to Harrisburg all the time, so I'll be sure to catch a few matches. The father of the owner of Stock's On 2nd is another labor attorney...I'll see if I can talk him into getting his kid to make it a swanky soccer bar (at least on game days).
A pair of Mikes - Mike Feniger and Mike Henning - were announced today as the next two Islanders. Both are midfielders and both played for Hershey.
I remember playing against Mike Feniger, he went to Cumberland Valley H.S. Good to get some local guys in the team for local press.
When did Mike graduate? I finished high school at CV. The name sounds really familier, but I was only there for two years before I headed off to college, so lots of the names of people I went to school don't mean anything to me anymore