The Traveler's Guide

Overall, a great summary of the range of things to do. Definitely a significant undertaking on your part and fairly thorough. Visiting soccer fans should consider themselves very fortunate for the effort you put in, especially as this is a lot more information than most soccer travel guides provide for fans.

Believe me, I'm honest when I say that I think your effort is fantastic and the result extremely valuable. But you did ask for comments and cited your own thick skin... so please don't be put off by my excess of comments -- the fact that I've got so much to blab about is really only testament to the sheer volume of information that you've presented for visitors.

General Comments

If the Soccer Guide folks will edit this for you, I'd recommend adding in some subheaders in the first half of your piece, such as splitting up the Colorado attractions and the Rapids' history. Makes it a lot easier to scan through the article for certain bits of information.

Too many parenthetical comments. Makes it read more like something on a discussion board or in a chat room. Most of your parentheses are not grammatically necessary, and in many cases you're providing information that isn't always necessary.

For example, you invest more words in talking about the the Cougar's previous stint as the Comets in Commerce City than you put into talking about the Cougars and Shea. While entertaining to see that they played in an unfortunate location, it hurts the flow of your sentence and distracts from the focus of your piece -- which is to provide current information for a visitor. At the very least you can keep those comments in but remove the parentheses, and use semicolons or commas instead.

One very popular and worthwhile link for visitors is denver.citysearch.com, which is extremely popular among travelers as it's a common interface used for a number of cities.

When you mention Denver attractions, you make only a brief mention of "many museums." Given that museums are often of great interest to visitors, I think it would be worth the extra sentence or two to mention some of them by name -- specifically the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Science (and IMAX theater). For many visitors the DAM is of particular interest as it has the world's biggest collection of "Western" art and photography, particularly work from the late 1800s and early 1900s.


General comment on transportation: When I read through travel guides, I love to see the things that are noted as being accessible via public transportation. You do make mention of getting to Invesco via light rail and Holly's in Littleton, but that's about it. You do have a link to the Ratz site, but why not present that information here? (and if the Ratz don't continue to exist... what then)

I don't know about getting to Fort Fun, but you could mention that Boulder is very accessible via RTD -- a a $3 bus ride from Market St. Station puts right into the Pearl Street area of Boulder -- with buses running hourly from 5AM to midnight.


General comment on Denver soccer history
Given that this is a guide purely for soccer fans, the more area-specific soccer trivia the better. Probably Worth mentioning that Dr. Bob Contiguglia lives in Dever, Esse Barhamast is a Colorado native, that Colorado Springs is home base for the National Olympic Training Center.

And definitely worth mentioning that US National Teams are 4-1 in 4 international friendlies in Denver (MNT vs Uruguay, Scotland, Derby County, Mexico; WNT vs Brazil) with an average attendance of over 30,000 for these games.


Specific Questions/comments:

Punt? I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

I wouldn't call Estes Park and RMNP "close to Boulder" -- at minimum, they're a good 40 minutes' drive beyond Boulder -- and if you're going to recommend them, a common travel guide suggestion would be to say that it's worth visiting "if you've got the full day to spend." Same goes for your later comments on the Springs.

Also, for what it's worth the Stanley Hotel was only filmed for the ABC miniseries remake of "The Shining." While Stephen King did write half of the original novel while staying at the Stanley, the more well-known version of the movie (filmed by Stanley Kubrick and staring Jack Nicholson) was filmed at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. Perhaps this is nitpicky but being a travel guide you don't want to give people vague or incorrect information, consider saying that the Stanley was the "inspiration for The Shining" or that "Stephen King wrote The Shining while staying at the Stanley."

worthy links:
http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/
http://www.estesnet.com/
http://www.nps.gov/romo/

Again I'm beign picky... but Fort Collins is more East than North of Estes Park (technically, East by Northeast)... and the only way to get there is travelling due east on 34 to Loveland. Again, just to be sure.

Also I'd like to think that folks in Fort Fun would have more to say about their town other than there being microbreweries and CSU (there are also quite a few brewpubs and microbreweries in Boulder, as well as the American Homebrewer's Association). I know at least that the Linden Street area is just as good as Pearl Street in Boulder -- arguably better, as it hasn't been overrun by the stores like the Gap and Banana Republic. The Fort Collins Museum is also a very worthwhile trip, it's only a block or so off of College (right in downtown) and is great to check out if only to see the preserved frontier/settler homes.

Worthy link: http://www.ci.fort-collins.co.us/

You may want to consider adding that even Denver locals consider the Coors Brewery Tour a "must-see." Yeah, the beer may be piss but it is the largest single brewery in the country and the tour is truly incredible. You even get to taste the product before it goes through all of the extra filtering processes, and believe it or not, it's actually damn good. Too bad they don't sell it like that. Also with regards to Golden it may be dominated by Coors but Main Street in Golden is a nice set of blocks.

You make mention of "finishing touring all the breweries," but really there aren't too many actual brewery tours out here, they're all pretty damn spread out and with the exception of Coors, you'll need to call ahead to any of them to get a tour.

Fulham was in the 2nd division at the time of is transfer... I also don't think it needs to be mentioned with regards to the Open Cup. Be wary of your personal opinions on team performance in recaps intended for a wide audience (e.g. you place name-blame on Feuer and Hahnemann but say the attack was merely "ineffective," and don't mention the final score of the game).

Give the Iron Man the credit he deserves -- he was just inside the top of the box, and had a defender on him to boot. "Near the spot" makes it sound like it was too easy. [grin]

This sounds like Mooch quit so the Rapids could bring on Hankinson.

Myernick didn't end his run in 2001, it was ended for him -- he was canned in November of 2000, which although we had Balboa's goal we also had a scoring drought of 9+ games. If you're going to mention the ugly details about other seasons, be consistent.

Also the way this is phrased it sounds like he was dumped in favor of Hankinson, when in reality the Rapids didn't name the new coach for 3 weeks, rolling out Hankinson barely before Christmas. Remember the agony of waiting for that announcement, and thought that Dave Dir would be our coach? [shudder]

Similarly, don't be so negative about why people show up to the game in your writing... fact is, regardless of why people show up, the place ERUPTS when the Rapids score. Balboa winning with seconds left on the clock, Spenny and Carrieri getting hat tricks... the players are all a buzz after these games, talking about how amazing it is to play in front of this crowd. The fans may not know soccer, but the last time I recall the crowd not giving a crap about the game was when we lost to Columbus.

Speaking of which, it might be worth mentioning that we generally destroy the opponent on the 4th.

Recommend you say that the Rapids have "finished in mid-table." Otherwise this sounds more like personal opinion.

Also worth mentioning that at times in your guide you explain things to people as if they don't know much about the sport, but here you use the term "table," something that's really only used by people that follow the European leagues.


Perhaps it would be worthwhile providing the Rapids' all-time record at home?

Recommend including their web address, www.soccer2000.com, as not only is this a web-based piece but you also mention many other links.

Speaking of which, I'd hope the Soccer Guide folks will make these links clickable someday.

Do either of these clubs still exist? I haven't heard from or seen anything by either group since the playoffs. If so, you could at least put the email address for MHC in there -- rapids_nuts@hotmail.com

Along these lines, I think a link to the Stadium page on the Rapids site and/or the Invesco site would be handy.

Again this is an opinion -- and this being my opinion, but it's been ages since the Camera had anything resembling decent coverage of the Rapids, and they've hardly been keeping par with the News or the Post.

While I like to see some local flavor in these travel guides, I think personal opinion on many things like this is best left off the page.

Also, doesn't the Colorado Springs Gazette give coverage to the Rapids? They always had a reporter in the locker room after games.

To be accurate, the BRR lost to the CCC in the championship. Sad but true, and you should stay consistent with how you handle the rest of the piece. I'd also recommend saying that they were the "2002 USL PDL Runner-up" rather than "Finalist."

As for their colors, I was told a week ago that that they'll continue to wear white at home.

Don't the Cougars play a lot of their games at DU? Also, I'm sure you're not speaking with any bias about Highlands Ranch. [smirk]

For directions to Shea, it would be worthwhile to give me an idea of how long it takes to get there. And warn them about rush hour traffic.

Yet you list Brooklyn's with the disclaimer of "only recommended as a pre-game tailgate alternative." Also, I've gotten soccer on at the Pepsi Center Brooklyn's on repeated occasions, usually when I'm there before an Avalanche or Nuggets game.

Aztec Sol: Food and beer selection may be limited, but if you're going to criticize them for that then you should praise them for their incredible tequila selection!

Nalen's: recommended as not only have I seen them put soccer on one of their (two) TVs on request, but you're virtually guaranteed to spot people wearing soccer jerseys most any night in the bar. Every time I go in their with a jersey on, strangers approach me to talk soccer. Not to mention one of the best Guiness pours in town.

Interesting that you left out two of the biggest sports bars in downtown: Jackson's and ESPNZone. I can't comment on ESPN, but I've never had problems getting a TV at the LoDo Jackson's tuned to soccer.


Again, I am very impressed with all of the information that you presented. Cheers, mate. Your next pint is on me.

 

One very minor correction -- the URL for Holly's has a hyphen in it:

http://www.soccer-2000.com

And I only know that because I was there this week looking for Pugg goals locally.

 

greatzar and greenie need to get lives.