OT: Pictures of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium
WOW! It looks outstanding. A Gazillion times better then that piece of trash Dome. Cant wait till we play them there.
http://www.gopherhole.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1013
Keep that lolpher shit off here.
the away locker rooms
It's so teeny-tiny CUTE! I could just SQUEEZE it!
No, seriously. Nice place.
FOR ME TO POOP ON!
August 6th, 2009 at 10:17 AM ^
and exactly what I thought.
It's soooooo cute!
I'm sure they'll make a Barbie version.
EDIT: What I should have said is:
Will they make one for grown-ups.
The home locker room is 60 yards long.
The scoreboard is the 3rd largest in the country, behind Texas and the Cowboys.
I can't wait for September 12th in the stadium. FWIW, TCF Bank Stadium is being called "The Vault." Take that.
Now that's a good nickname to go along with the bank theme...
Hopefully for the Gophers, the winning seasons aren't all locked away in the past.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:11 PM ^
you're doing it wrong. Its LOLphers.
Do they REALLY want to see the Gopher football game scores to be that big?
Like, so ANYONE can see them?
They got balls, I'll give em that.
-1 just because i hate the gophers.
That place looks great. You're right - that dome did suck donkey balls.
well that's the best high school stadium i've ever seen
There's a lot of history in that program and I personally think it would be great to see them gain some national relevence again; not just so we'll have some sweet jug matchups with B10 title implications but for the strength of the conference as a whole.
I think the stadium's a great start.
PS: I don't know about you, but that picture of the sink is the one that really did it for me.
Looks fantastic.
I work in Minneapolis, and am lucky enough to get into the corporate suites around town from time to time, and they really do it right around here. They really nail the northern / lodge theme, and this really reminds me of the Xcel center (MN Wild hockey) in a very good way.
From these pictures, TCF looks much more like a pro venue than college, which is okay, but lacks a lot of that sense of history that I love about college venues.
Good for them though - anything would have been better than the dome, but a beautiful on-campus venue is a big win for the gophs.
do you have tickets to TCF?
I have four season tix. Scrimmage on the 22nd. Looking forward to it.
I work for General Mills, and there are always a lot of tickets floating around the building because the company supports a lot of local athletics, so I get to a fair share of local games. We'll see how it goes with the new stadium, but I'm optimistic.
I'm actually just here for the summer right now before returning to Chicago to finish the 2nd year of my MBA, so maybe by next summer/fall when I return the demand will have eased a bit.
congratulations. I work at Thomson Reuters in Eagan. Lots of good workplaces in the Twin Cities. We also have the executive boxes in every stadium. It's a nice perk.
Demand in 2010 will not cool for TCF. The home schedule includes USC, Penn State, Ohio State and Iowa. Tickets will remain tough to get.
Luckily, one of my best friends manages the Wheaties business... and the relationship with ESPN, so a fortuitous connection.
Think he's hooked up the ESPN box for the MN/Cal game this fall.
Shameless plug, check out wheaties.com because they've got a pretty cool new project underway.
I lived right next to the stadium last summer. It is really, really nice. It also has a great view of the MPLS skiline through the gap for the scoreboard.
I can't wait to see us break into the vault and leave with the jug.
They are the official MCard bank, and then they go and sneak off to sponsor someone else's stadium.
Those 2 timing bastards.
T win
C ities
F ederal
Then for their sake I hope Minny doesn't find out about it.
This is a dangerous game their playing.
Here in MI I was told it stands for "The Customer First." Clever girl...
Er. Clever marketing.
I agree with what was said earlier in that it looks more like a NFL stadium than a college stadium but it looks one million times better than the dome.
The "View from the President's Suite" (about 10 pictures down) is not so great for watching the game :) Hopefully this has been addressed, or will be by the far the largest oversight.
It looks like they saved money on the visitor's locker room. At least they didn't paint it pink.
From the article:
"Thanks to an anonymous donor stepping up, a $500,000 brick wall was added around the field as a last-minute addition and has nearly been completed."
A $500,000 brick wall? Does anyone know what the total cost to construct the stadium was?
$240 million.
Or, about $100 more than putting up skyboxes and suites at Michigan Stadium.
I know the Twins are also getting a new stadium. Are the Vikings going to stay put? (You'd hope that one of the three tenants could manage in a stadium that isn't that old to begin with.)
on the Metrodome is up in 2011.
The Vikings have looked around for numerous partners to build a stadium, and the owners still are asking for about half a billion for stadium help from the Legislature.
Minnesota just plugged a $4.5 billion deficit through our governor line-iteming items out of the budget. Next year our budget will likely be worse. Although building stadiums creates jobs, pays wages, and keeps people working instead of drawing unemployment insurance benefits, our myopic legislators will probably not realize this and will instead veto any Vikings stadium bill.
Meanwhile, the City of Industry, California, has approved $800 million in local bonding to build the necessary infrastructure to have a stadium ready for 2011. Coincidence?
They took the Lakers, they may take the Vikings.
That would be sad. They've got to work something out. Minnesota can't lose the Vikings. Having said that, it sucks that a stadium built in the 1980s is now considered obsolete.
August 6th, 2009 at 11:41 AM ^
I thing SOMEONE would SUGARCOAT his pants if he read that. That's like the Great Wall of bricklaying.
awwww what a cute little field. silly lolphers
The stadium itself looks like a huge improvement over the Crap Dome, but it is going to absolutely annihilate the record for the most ugly furniture in one building.
Also, do visitor's locker rooms always look that terrible? Ugly metal lockers, harsh flourescent lighting, cramped, etc. I understand that you don't want the visiting team to be comfortable, but if you're going to make their locker room unpleasant, why not just go all the way and give them a 20x20 room with no furniture and the heat jacked up to 110?
I assume the woman's restroom will be properly equipped with contraceptives for the next time Iowa is in town???
do they have urinal troughs?
or has EVERYONE lost respect for tradition?
August 6th, 2009 at 10:04 AM ^
Urinal Troughs are LEGENDARY.
I will be sad to see them go... though not as glorious as Michigan Stadium's former waterfall urinals.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:02 AM ^
What's the deal with the painted seats in the upper deck (where MINNESOTA is spelled out) not being even along the top?
Other than that, it's a nice little stadium. I wonder what the capacity is ... but I'm too lazy to take 5 seconds to google it.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:08 AM ^
The capacity is a belowvrage 50,000.
Yes, very small for a Big Ten stadium. You know football isn't too popular at your school when your stadium doesn't even fit all the undergrads.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:28 AM ^
This morning, local news are going bananas about the new stadium alcohol policy.
They used to sell beer in the Metrodome, but wanted to restrict it in the new facility. The president of the university proposed selling only in luxury suites / club seats, but some sort of legislative body shot that down. (At Wisconsin, that's what they do.)
Anyhow, there's a new policy (also recently adopted at WI, apparently), called "Show & Blow" which means that they take your name if you are drunk / unruly at a game. You get kicked out and if you want to come back to more games, you have to take a breathalyzer to get into the stadium.
Not sure how it will work or whatever, but ... just a touch of overkill IMO.
EDIT - additionally, they are talking about how both MN and WI have cameras all over the stadiums that they actively monitor during games, and MN is planning to actually review them AFTER games to potentially retroactively punish people. You've got to be kidding me.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:32 AM ^
How can you teach kids how to play football when they can't even fit inside the building? The building has to be at least three times bigger than this!
August 6th, 2009 at 11:31 AM ^
And they got AIR FORCE for their home opener at their new digs. Not that that has anything to do with anything. I'm just sayin'....
New place looks really nice though.
Cal - Berkeley.
2010 opener = USC.
Beat that Michigan fan : )
August 7th, 2009 at 11:18 AM ^
Woo, one military academy and two uncompetitive losses.
You go Gophers
August 6th, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
Why is it aboveground? I thought it would be all underground, like a series of tunnels and shit.
Stupid fuckin' geauxfurs.
It's better than the Metrodome, but it's not that awe-inspiring. I hate open endzones. Also, the gray seating in most of the stadium is pretty bland. They should paint all the benches maroon. This looks sort of like Northwestern's Ryan Field, but with more advertising.
I do like the brick around the field, though, and I had to laugh at the visiting locker rooms.
I think it looks great. Sponsorship = Lame, though.
I think it is a pretty sweet looking stadium. Anybody who has been to the metrodome to watch a game understands that even a high school stadium would have been an upgrade... It will be sweet to have November games up there in the cold.
The thing that I don't get about this is the video board is off-centered in the endzone. I don't know why, but I don't like that.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:23 PM ^
(1) So the big-time donors (suite holders, etc.) can see it from the south side of the field;
(2) so it doesn't block the Minneapolis skyline to the West;
(3) so it doesn't block the sun in the late afternoon (the QBs, WRs and D-backs will undoubtedly love that).
The Vault? It looks like an ATM...Hopefully, we will rename it the Drive-Thru..I have a carved wooden desktop version of the Big House, that looks bigger than the vault..