Blue & Gold

Zips Looking to Stabilize Offensive Line. George Thomas courtesy of the ABJ.

Day 2 breakdown from George Thomas.

+1. I'd love to be able to walk from some of the (most likely south side of) downtown establishments to the arena. It's so much fun walking by the various restaurants & bars in Cleveland while making your way to the Q. It just makes it a great evening/night out. I'd love to have that experience in Akron.

Yup. Jeremiah's going JUCO.

Here is GT's finished article taken from the above notes.

Excellent Day 1 Breakdown from George Thomas!

The article to which the Dr. linked above ^^^ mentions Curtis Black. So I'm guessing he's on the roster, though he's not listed. (?)

I want whatever KD wants. I trust him on this. Having said that, I'm open minded to anything - multi-purpose/all-purpose, next to InfoCision Stadium/next to Canal Park. In looking @ mapquest, it doesn't look like the lot across from Canal Park is any further a walk that the JAR is from the new dorms going up on Grant Street. Though KD probably wants the arena next to InfoCision (and again, I'm for whatever KD thinks is best), I still like the idea of the arena being downtown & being able to walk from the restaurants to the arena. It just seems like it'd make it a great night out. The JAR is so inconveniently located.

IIRC, Porter's first season was a little under-whelming. We're we afraid the program had slipped from the Lolla days? So we may want to keep that in mind during Embick's 1st year.

Nice. They deserve that. But that probably means a new baseball field at the Buchtel Field location is a no-go? Dominoes falling... does that mean Lee Jackson baseball field will remain and the arena will go across from Canal Park?

Thanks, good Doctor! Good to see both Benny Cunningham (S - Medina) & Kevin Mills (OL - McKinley) on the roster.

It has to do with the corner and end seating. The seats are (quite a bit) further from the court than in a basketball-specific facility. The center court seats are basically the same.

Are you in favor of a basketball-optimized multi-purpose arena, or a hockey-optimized all-purpose arena?

Pat, I'll answer this one for you. Over the course of years talking about this, we've discussed the pros/cons of a basketball-optimized arena floor plan versus what we called a "hockey-optimized" floor plan. We used to call the former a "basketball arena" and the latter a "hockey arena." Even though neither of those descriptions was entirely accurate, it just helped us clarify what we were referring to. Now we've gotten to referring to the basketball-optimized floor plan as "multi-purpose" as it could host many events other than basketball, but not as many as what we now refer to as an "all-purpose" arena, which could host everything the multi-purpose arena could, then some (hockey, indoor football/soccer, circus, monster trucks/motor cross, etc.

That's what I've heard too. The atmosphere isn't what it used to be. It's big & open & I've heard that it's actually kinda quiet in there during games. That is what KD wants to avoid. However, VCA seats, what, 19,000-ish? We'd only be looking @ 10,000 tops. Still, the floor plan would be very similar.

What arena was that?

Here is a link to The University of Columbus' Value City Arena calendar of events. Though I know our situations are (unfortunately) far from similar, I thought it would add to the discussion d/t the fact that OSU chose to build an all-purpose arena to replace a multi-purpose arena (St. John's Arena - basketball-optimized). I must confess that I've heard more than one Columbus fan say they don't like watching Buckeyes basketball in Value City Arena as much as they did in St. John's Arena - but maybe they're just old fogies. OSU uses VCA for men's & women's basketball, men's & women's (?!?!) hockey, as well as concerts, monster truck shows ( ) and the circus. Also interesting is that the city of Columbus didn't need another all-purpose arena, as they already had Nationwide Arena (Columbus BlueJackets). OSU decided to go with an all-purpose arena anyway.

Is there an Ohio North-South All-Star game that Isaiah Johnson would likely take part in? I can't find any information on such a game.

The hook is baited.

Correct. They play at EJ Thomas.

Per GoZips.com the baseball team is changing the location of their opening weekend series against Northern Illinois. They were originally slated to play at Canal Park, but have moved the games to another minor league stadium in Avon. Is Lee Jackson unplayable? Really makes you think that's where they want the arena.

This may be hard to explain, but where are the lobbies/foyer areas; where do people enter the arena to find their seats? Also, I'm a bit confused. I see five loges. Opposite the loges I see the press area (IIRC). But what do you have in mind for the end-zone areas on that level?

We're hoping he's a diamond in the rough. West Virginia is not heavily recruited, and his highlight video is pretty sick (it's at the beginning of this thread). Aren't all highlight videos sick? Yeah. But this kid's is especially sick.

Bob Dyer on Keith Dambrot.

George Thomas courtesy of Akron.com.