Well - I have finally returned from Foxboro and thought I would weigh in regarding the events. First of all, I must say the VIP package was awesome. Friday - Check into the hotel and chat with Waldo who is waiting in the lobby. Talk about his knee a little, etc. Say Veronica Payesse close-up - wow does she have this look on her face that says I am stupid and lost at all times. Went to Commissioner's Party - pretty cool, although the only two beers were Bud and Bud light (at least serve Red Hook another Bud product). Saw some players - resisted urge to kick Chronopolous and Jolley in shins. Kyle Martino = really bad dancer. Saturday - Went to MLS Awards Gala. Saw Eddie Pope and Wade Barrett in lobby. Congratulated them on great game on Thursday. Told Wade he would be welcome in DC any day. Rob Stone and Dave Dir were hosts - either really funny or dumb as hell. A lot of jokes were flops. Funniest speech belonged to Cannon who started with: "I would like to thank all the little people: GI Joe, Barbie, the Smurfs, . . . Landon Donovan" - classic. He thanked his wife (and cried) and had a mini award made for his goalkeeping coach. Won some respect for Jolley and Ruiz with their speeches. Ruiz actually said Twellman deserved MVP as he was the best player in the league. Resisted urge to kick Rongen "sqaw in the nuts" as Cartman would say. Sunday - what great seats. Right at midfield, 10-15 rows up. Greatest sight my eyes have seen - Guinness vendors right as you come in the stadium. Game, yawn. Both teams played not to lose. That is all. Except I hate Connecticut. 6PM on a Sunday night and the entire fricking state is one big back-up.
Nice report. Why did you resist those urges to kick those people? Isn't that what the VIP package is for?
But was it necessary for him to fall to the floor when the guy presenting him with the award tried to shake his hand? Dave
Re: Re: Report from Foxboro It was great - they had on the big Guinness hats and one guy was yelling: "Skip church, watch soccer, drink Guinness!"
I won a VIP package from the DC golf outing. It included four tickets to the Commissioner's Party, four VIP tickets to the MLS Gala, and four tickets to the MLSCup. I got the package for $250 and the estimated value was about $2,000 for tax purposes. I was also able to get the MLS rate at the hotel (saving $150 a night) and they gave me a package which had a nice MLS hooded sweatshirt, long-sleeve MLSCup T-shirt, MLS wool hat, MLSCup program, and MLSCup pin. I didn't see Reyes there but I think he just had tickets to the game. But I pretty much saw anyone who got an award and a bunch of other people. Peter Wilt, Chi's GM, can party.
Sounds like a good time. Guess I need to save my pennies and hope the golf outing next year is at a better time for me.
For some reason I thought there was a minimum bid of $500 so I declined to bid. Nice job getting it for that price and looks like you had a great time.
I was in Boston for the weekend and went to the game with my family. While I didn't have any celebrity sightings, it was a great day out at the game. I too loved the Guinness vendors. There was a kiosk as you came into the stadium and roving Guinness vendors with these giant top hats that looked like a glass of stout. Food and drink at Gillette Field was great and there was a lot of variety. Concessions at RFK are absolutely primative by comparison. Gillette Field is open on the ends above the lower deck and has an upper deck perched high above the luxury boxes on the side lines. The lower bowl was full and the upper deck which was sold as general admission was nearly full as well. Nice sight linees from the lower deck and the field is close to the stands. In that sense, at least the lower deck beats RFK. Also, unlike RFK, the speaker system at Gillette Field works (regrettably, they used it to pipe in music during the pregame and half time, not cutting it off until just after the kick off). The field looked great considering they share it with an NFL team. The yard markings and Pats logo were barely visible. A great job by the grounds crew. While the new stadium has many fine attributes, the crowd accoustics are terrible. For a full house, it was not very loud. Maybe a good number of the 61,000 there were newbees who aren't accustomed to cheering at soccer games. It was no comparison to the 1997 title game at RFK. The Fort tries to get the crowd going and they have their chants, but the only thing the crowd got going was a Rev-o-lu-tion chant. It would crop up now and then but it really couldn't catch on except in sections. Barra Brava, La Norte and Screaming Eagles create a much better game-day atmosphere than anything I saw in Foxboro. There's basically one road into the stadium (Route 1). We arrived early and got into the stadium lot without any problems. We bolted for the exit right after Ruiz scored and trotted out to the car because we had a flight to catch back in Boston. We got to our car and got out right away and were in downtown Boston in less than an hour. People who stayed to applaud the Revs or to watch the cup being handed out had a different story. It was a lot like Fed Ex Field at Redskin games. It some people hours to get out of the parking lot. While Gillette Field was nice, and certainly had finer food and fan facilities than RFK, I'll take our crumbling stadium any day of the week. The roof at RFK that amplifies and distributes crowd noise and the Metro that gets people to games without having to drive alone are enough to give RFK an advantage. And what other stadium has bouncing stands?
Yeah - the crowd pretty much sucked. I mean as a DC fan I knew the Sup-ah Revs chant where as most folks acted like they were dead. I could hear the players yelling to each other - it was that bad.
Loyal but quiet seems about right. Another observation from the game: DC really lost a good player when it couldn't sign Kante to a contract. He is big and tough and really impressed me.
Yup. Kante's offensive showing could've been better though I thought. While solid on defense he made some really errant passes out of the back 1/3 of the field that had to be covered by his teammates. Definitely a missed opportunity though, especially if Ryan and/or Eddie end up leaving our team.