Itinerary: Arco Arena, Sacramento

I have a thing for intimate arenas. These days, new arenas tend to be colossal monstrosities — heck, it’s now acceptable to hold basketball games in the middle of giant football stadiums. So smaller, cozy arenas tend to be old and outdated, but they also hold a little bit of nostalgia. I remember seeing a Trail Blazers game once at the old Memorial Coliseum in Portland — it felt like they were playing in a high school gym where the baskets retract toward the roof so that you can hold the prom there. But wherever you sat, you had a good look at the action.

All that being said, Arco Arena is outdated despite being only 20-some years old. It has a lot of drawbacks — cramped corridors and seats obviously designed before the recognition of ergonomics as a science being just two of them — but the good thing is, you can see the game no matter where you sit. Until the Sacramento Kings get their long-awaited new arena, their fans at least have that.

Soaring like a Jet

In the interest of fairness, and since I strive to operate as nonpartisan a blog as possible, I’m letting my buddy Jersey Boy write a guest entry on attending the Jets-Chargers playoff game at Qualcomm Stadium last Sunday from a visiting fan’s perspective. After all, he was the one who flew cross-country to be there, not me. So I’ll let him take it away, and I’ll stand back and try not to let the twisting of the knife hurt me too much…

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Jersey Boy and the thrill of victory

From the time I turned 16 through my 24^th birthday in 2003, the New Jersey Devils won three Stanley Cups, which for many sports fans is more championships than their teams will combine to win during their lifetime. For that reason, I try to keep the complaining to a minimum when griping about my teams – the Mets, Jets, and Devils (the Knicks and I have had a rocky relationship since the start of the 2000s, and I don’t see it ending anytime soon).

With that said, these last few years have left me to wonder if I really did sell my sports soul to the Devil in exchange for those three championships. Since that time, I have seen the Mets blow a Game 7 at home in the NLCS (Thank you, Yadier bleepin’ Molina), then collapse in consecutive seasons on the final day of play. I’ve watched Doug Brien miss a pair of field goals in the AFC divisional round in Pittsburgh in 2004 – either of which probably would have propelled Gang Green into the AFC Championship Game, and then last season’s collapse from 8-3 to 9-7 and out of the playoffs (thanks, Brett Favre). Last April, the Devils blew a 3-2 series lead and a 3-2 lead in Game 7 to the Hartford Whalers – eh, Carolina Hurricanes – when Hall of Fame goalie Martin Brodeur inexplicably allowed two goals in the final 120 seconds of regulation. Stunning doesn’t begin to sum up that loss for a team that captured the Atlantic Division crown despite Brodeur missing approximately 50 games due to injury.

Save, save, save!

I don’t hear too often of people making pilgrimages to attend games at NBA and NHL arenas the same way fans plan out elaborate trips to see MLB ballparks or NFL stadiums. For the traveling sports fan, the NBA and NHL are nice, but they’re usually just events that you try to see if you just happen to be in a city and there just happens to be a basketball or hockey game there one of those nights.

Still, because of factors like the recession and this currently being off-peak season for travel, there are certainly deals to be had if you want to catch some ball or some puck. It pays to look around on the leagues’ Web sites, or at least those of individual teams, and following those same sources on Twitter to see what kind of promotions they might be running. And teams seem to have graduated beyond just first-5,000-fans-gets-a-flimsy-mesh-cap promotions these days. Here are a few examples: