Saturday, November 15, 2008

BankAtlantic Center review

Travelled to south Florida to watch the Detroit Red Wings take on the Florida Panthers. Wings won, 3-2 and Johan Franzen scored the game winner. Pretty good game, but was disappointed that the Wings once again gave up the lead, a two-goal lead, and needed a power play to get the third goal. The game was about 600 fans short of sellout. No rats were thrown, but one fan threw an octopus onto the ice. Isn't that just supposed to be a playoff thing?

Anyway BankAtlantic is a pretty decent arena, but in my opinion it's in a horrible location. It's located about 14 miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale in Sunrise. I guess the Panthers organization researched and found a majority of hockey fans are located out there, but I prefer downtown arenas. Also the only mass transit to the arena is by bus, which is another negative.

People were nice, and the lower level sight lines were decent. I didn't check upstairs, but I can't imagine they'd be very good as they're above two levels of club seats. Anyway the major surprise to me that some vendors sold Molson Canadian. It wasn't on tap, but in 24-ounce cans. That they had it was great though. Molson Canadian and hockey are synonymous to me. However it was $12 a pop, and I thought $10 at Staples Center was bad. If I'm not mistaken that was for 16-ounce beers.

So now I've seen the Wings play in following arenas. Eight down, 22 to go.
Detroit - The Joe Louis Arena
Colorado - Pepsi Center
St. Louis - Scottrade Center
Nashville - Sommet Center
Chicago - United Center
Columbus - Nationwide Arena
Los Angeles - Staples Center
Florida - BankAtlantic Center

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