I watched the Iowa - Northern Illinois game from the north end zone. Section 254, Row 19, Seat 13 to be exact. The building is pretty and the individual seats are much nicer than the benches at Iowa. The bathroom situation was also a lot better.
But unlike the other pro stadiums that I’ve been to, the concessions sucked. Badly.
I waited in line at one stand for a beer at half time. That stand happened to only serve beer. After waiting in line for several minutes, we all realized that they had run out of cups and nobody had any idea if more were coming.
After the third period was about 5 minutes underway, I rushed up to give the beer sellers a second try. After waiting about 5 minutes and realizing that nobody in line had actually moved, I returned to my seat for the rest of the game.
My dad decided to take a stab at rounding up some beer toward the end of the third. He was the next person in line with about 1:30 left in the third period. There is a rule/law saying they have to cut off serving alcohol after the third quarter. They decided to start a minute or so early and refused to pour anything for my dad.
Now I know that it sounds like we were sitting around getting hammered all day, but in all actuality we only managed to get one beer each. At $7 for 16 ounces, they really should focus on making that whole process a lot more streamlined.
My biggest complaint about the crazy UFO football stadium, though, is that there is nowhere on any of the big screens to get any game stats. You can see the down and yards needed for first down. You can see the score. Any other stats have to wait until the box score shows up on the internet.
Very lame. Or maybe I am just spoiled from the amount of stats they show at Kinnick Stadium.
My sister and I rode the train in to Union Station and then walked the 2-3 miles tot he stadium. It was a fun way to spend the early afternoon. After the game we just wanted to hop in a cab and ride back to the station. We didn’t walk by any taxis until we were halfway back.
Anyway, I finally got into Soldier Field, the team managed to realize they need to run the ball after way too much passing early in the game, and at least we didn’t lose to Appalachian State.