ORCHARD PARK - Ralph Wilson Stadium (73,967)

[eMKay]

OMG I'm there!

Quote from ESPN...

"Jan. 1: Penguins at Sabres. In all likelihood, this tilt will be contested outdoors at Ralph Wilson Stadium. According to a league source, the deal with the venue hasn't yet been finalized. The same source is convinced, however, that an agreement will be struck and the game will be played outdoors on New Year's Day as first reported by ESPN.com last month during the Stanley Cup finals. The Pens-Sabres game will be televised in the U.S. by NBC, which pushed to play the game on New Year's Day. If the event is finalized, it will be the league's second venture into the great outdoors. Montreal visited frigid Edmonton for the Heritage Classic in November 2003. That game drew a crowd of 57,167 despite below-zero temperatures at Commonwealth Stadium."

Ralph Wilson Stadium seats 76,000.
I cannot wait!

[eMKay]

Video of the mock up of the rink...If sold out (and it likely will be) it will be the largest crowd to ever watch a hockey game.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vBtJlCeRFXw

[eMKay]

[rantanamo]

wasn't there are huge crowd at Michigan St?

[eMKay]

Originally Posted by rantanamo

wasn't there are huge crowd at Michigan St?

74,544

The Ralph's capacity is actually 74,000, damn, I thought it was 76,000. Well, Michigan State overfilled their stadium to 103%, so can we.

[Quintana]

With all the space left around the rink I'm sure they could put up some temporary seating if needed.

[EADGBE]

This kind of thing could actually be designed into field-format stadiums in future. There's been a lot of talk about turning football grounds into athletics venues by adding a raised platform (thus reducing capacity), but it's just occurred to me that the opposite is true, too:

Simply take away the pitch (like in the Veltins Arena, Gelsenkircken) and beneath the pitch level, the stand incline continues downwards to a smaller area on which basketball, ice hockey, tennis or boxing could all take place. The best part is that it would actually raise capacity for instances such as this

...\
.....\
.......\
.........\....................../...... - Field-level, removable pitch
...........\___________/ - Underground 'crucible' - may require temporary seating.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm surprised that no-one's done this yet.

[Quintana]

The Netherlands once played for the Davis Cup at Arnhem's Gelredome. They only used a small part of the main stand though and erected temporary seating at pitch level:



Can't find better pictures than this one.

[nyrmetros]

This game will be incredible. I can't wait when we host this game in NYC in 2009 at Yankee Stadium. Rangers vs Islanders or Rangers vs Boston.

[EADGBE]

Originally Posted by Quintana

The Netherlands once played for the Davis Cup at Arnhem's Gelredome. They only used a small part of the main stand though and erected temporary seating at pitch level:

I've seen a few similar examples on here, like a similar arrangement for tennis in the Seville athletics stadium and also numerous basketball matches in the USA.

Going back to my earlier post, I see the new UA Stadium in Phoenix has a retractable pitch. I wonder if they designed in a sub-floor?

[eMKay]

It's official, tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am, I have my credit card ready.

http://sabres.nhl.com/team/app/?serv...ticleid=337526

[Calvin W]

Just remember folks Edmonton did it first! Hosting Montreal in front of 60,000+ at Commonwealth Stadium. A very cold day but it was a beauty!

[th0m]

Originally Posted by EADGBE

This kind of thing could actually be designed into field-format stadiums in future. There's been a lot of talk about turning football grounds into athletics venues by adding a raised platform (thus reducing capacity), but it's just occurred to me that the opposite is true, too:

Simply take away the pitch (like in the Veltins Arena, Gelsenkircken) and beneath the pitch level, the stand incline continues downwards to a smaller area on which basketball, ice hockey, tennis or boxing could all take place. The best part is that it would actually raise capacity for instances such as this

...\
.....\
.......\
.........\....................../...... - Field-level, removable pitch
...........\___________/ - Underground 'crucible' - may require temporary seating.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm surprised that no-one's done this yet.

I think the answer is pretty simple. For a lot of those sports events, either there isn't a need for such a large crowd, or the sightlines become horrible.

[eMKay]

Section 335, row 19 I'm in! My view will be something like this, but more towards center ice...

[skobabe8]

Thats awesome! And I'm not a huge hockey fan (Its hard to be in Chicago )

[eMKay]

Game sold out in 40 minutes, it would have been half that but Ticketmaster's website crashed and was down for awhile.

[eMKay]

Damn, I just crunched some numbers, even with this game the Sabres can't lead the league in attendence. They will sell out every game of course, but so will Montreal.

Bell Centre = 21,273 x 41 = 872,193
HSBC Arena = 18,690 x 40 = 747,600 + 75,000 = 822,600

Just a couple hundred extra tickets and we could pass Detroit (Joe Louis Arena = 20,066) for 2nd place.

[Scba]

This has got to be the stupidest idea I've seen yet from the NHL.

Sure, an outdoor NHL game is a good idea...but on NEW YEAR'S DAY? Bowl games, anyone? They might fill the stadium, but no one outside of Canada and Buffalo will be watching this with all the football games on. Why not have it in the week before the Super Bowl?

[Dimension]

people will watch

[eMKay]

Originally Posted by Dimension

people will watch

NBC doesn't have a bowl game to broadcast, so they gotta broadcast something