NCAAs coming back to Philly!!!!

[Chickenman Testa]

Maybe we can hear Pyle and crew complain about Philly not realizing that the stadium complex does not look EXACTLY like it did - that maybe a massive entertainment-dining complex was built right next to the arenas.

But that would take 5 minutes of research

I just listened to Thursday’s Frl and nailed it. My god. Maddening. They made a slight nod to Spey who told them about xfinity Live, but still.

And maybe their cheap ass company can spring for a hotel that doesn’t charge hourly rates.

 

[JasonBryant]

Thing about Vegas if the dates do indeed stay the same is that the NCAA basketball first round is the bigger draw to Vegas for the gambling on March Madness. It's their biggest sports weekend of the year. If they still can't confirm the season shifting, there's no way NCAA wrestling would make a dent in Vegas.

I love the return to Philly, even though I live in the Twin Cities now. I did a quick rundown on Short Time and a more robust breakdown on my Rokfin channel - but a lot of this is if people aren't savvy or familiar with mass transit, the large eastern cities that rely on it (New York, Philly, D.C., Boston) are going to be troublesome. I will be honest that the metro system in Moscow is less confusing than the one in NYC and I can read Cyrillic only at a beginner level.

I've been to seven of the 11 cities picked (for all divisions) and tell you what I know about them in aforementioned story, which I will not plug to make sure I don't come off cherrypicking for subs with the NLWC event coming up.

(grin)

 

[regularfan]

I don't know how much this plays into it, but in Division I, the NCAA pays for schools to fly if they are 400 miles or more away and buses if they are less than that. I have to believe they don't want to be paying for flights for every single team. Given that fact I am kind of surprised it ends up in the midwest as often as it does.

 

[Tom McAndrew]

I love the return to Philly, even though I live in the Twin Cities now. I did a quick rundown on Short Time and a more robust breakdown on my Rokfin channel - but a lot of this is if people aren't savvy or familiar with mass transit, the large eastern cities that rely on it (New York, Philly, D.C., Boston) are going to be troublesome. I will be honest that the metro system in Moscow is less confusing than the one in NYC and I can read Cyrillic only at a beginner level.

Jason, thanks for the take. As someone that has spent a large amount of time in large Eastern cities, I've always been baffled that anyone would find their respective transit systems difficult, troublesome, or whatever else you'd like to call it.

I'm not sure if it's familiarity, or savvy, but I recall being in Paris, and not knowing more than a few spoken or written words of the language, and easily figuring out the transit system. I did the same thing in London, where they speak some version of English. NYC's subway system takes a minute or two to figure out, as there are so many different lines, but it's really not all that difficult. It seems that once you get used to mass transit, most systems are not all that challenging. I've had no problems with NYC's system, D.C.'s system, the MBTA in Boston, the PATH system between NYC and New Jersey, the BART system in San Fran., etc.

I freely admit that familiarity does help, but I find Philadelphia's system to be one of the easier mass transit systems to comprehend. The subway, which excluding buses, is the only way to get to the Wells Fargo Center (WFC) via mass transit, only has two lines. You're either taking the Broad Street Line (which is the only that one that goes to the WFC) or the Market-Frankford Line, and the two lines only meet (where you can transfer) at one station, the City Hall/15th Street Station.

I'm quite pleased to see the NCAA Championships returning to Philadelphia. I'm also somewhat surprised, in that the word that leaked out after the last round of Championship submissions, was that Philadelphia did not score all that well in that cycle. I seem to recall that the two bigger issues that were mentioned was a lack of practice/warm-up space, as well as the lack of nearby restaurants. The later issue was addressed rather well by the XFINITY Live complex. I'm not sure what the WFC came up with to address the practice/warm-up space issue.

 

[El-Jefe]

Dan Gable didn't say "everything else in life is easy except for the Philly subway."

Philly's rail system is easy. Frankly the only challenging one in the country is NYC -- and even that one isn't so bad if you can avoid the Penn Station assault on your senses.

PS, I grew up far from any city and before turning 25 had only used The Loop by myself. If it's problematic, the hotel front desk is happy to help.

 

[pawrestlersintn]

For those lacking the confidence of Tom and EJ, download CityMapper to your smart phone. It's like Waze for mass transit within cities, and it now includes Philadelphia. Turn on location services, type in where you want to go, and it will get you there six ways from Sunday, fastest, cheapest, etc.

 

[AgSurfer]

The talk about subways and safe vs not so safe places brings to mind another story. It was spring of 1973 and I had just returned to the US after an extended stay in Europe and the Middle East. I had a few crazy adventures that I hinted at in some other posts here, but I thought all of that was behind me at that point. I arrived in the US via JFK airport, (or whatever it was called in 1973) so I decided to stop by and see a wrestling friend at Columbia University since it was relatively close by.

I took a subway to get there, and about 5 minutes before I was ready to get off, a somewhat intoxicated person approached me and demanded that I give him my seat. I thought about it for a second, then realized I was almost at my exit point so I decided it wasn't worth the trouble to confront him. I just got up and let him sit down when another passenger came up and really got in the drunk guys face. They got into a scrap and then one of them pulled out a gun and pointed it at the other guy. I backed away towards the door because the train was slowing down and getting ready to stop. Just before I jumped out, I saw a cop come crashing through the door from another car with his own gun out in front and he told the guy to drop his weapon. At that point, the exit door opened and I jumped out. Believe it or not, I was actually laughing. I had been out of the US for about 8 months and had only gotten back maybe an hour ago. Only one hour in the US and I was watching an armed street fight on a subway car! True story!

 

[JasonBryant]

I grew up in Hampton Roads ... very little in the way of mass transit to speak of. After moving to PA and having to use major metros around the globe (Moscow, Paris, Budapest, Istanbul), it's simple.

But I also know that East Coasters tend to look at anything over a 2 hour drive as "too far" - so on the flipside of my Midwestern neighbors hating mass transit, my former East Coast natives tend to think of a six-hour drive anywhere as a non-starter. Here, that's easy. So it goes both ways in regards to comfort and travel.

 

[Chickenman Testa]

I grew up in Hampton Roads ... very little in the way of mass transit to speak of. After moving to PA and having to use major metros around the globe (Moscow, Paris, Budapest, Istanbul), it's simple.

But I also know that East Coasters tend to look at anything over a 2 hour drive as "too far" - so on the flipside of my Midwestern neighbors hating mass transit, my former East Coast natives tend to think of a six-hour drive anywhere as a non-starter. Here, that's easy. So it goes both ways in regards to comfort and travel.

Your 2nd paragraph hits home. I used to think our 2 hour drive (on back roads as my mom was frightened by highways) to Ocean City from SE Pa was a journey. Then I moved to Texas and I take my boys out for almost weekly 2+ hr drives in the hill country. It takes 10 hours to get to the NM state line from almost the center of Tx.

 

[a_mshaffer]

Your 2nd paragraph hits home. I used to think our 2 hour drive (on back roads as my mom was frightened by highways) to Ocean City from SE Pa was a journey. Then I moved to Texas and I take my boys out for almost weekly 2+ hr drives in the hill country. It takes 10 hours to get to the NM state line from almost the center of Tx.

or sitting in traffic for an hour or so... NoVa traffic- 60 minutes to get 10 miles. A lot depends on the drive. 2.5 hrs from Henrico to Highland Co, Va is broken with highway, bypass, 2 lane road, then a series of mountains... breaks up the the ride nicely!

 

[El-Jefe]

That's mostly fair -- to be completely fair, it's more about East Coasters who live in/near cities.

Growing up, we took a number of road trips from Central PA exceeding 10 hrs. We weren't unique. (Then again, nobody I knew flew to Europe.)

But getting my wife into a car for more than 3 hrs ... I may as well ask her to shave her tongue. Even when it's somewhere she wants to go, she'll insist on overnight stays. We recently lost out on a free stay in Charleston SC because she insisted on overnight stays, but then didn't like the idea of unloading and reloading the car extra times.

And not to pick on her -- she's hardly unique among people I've met around here (metro PHL).

 

[matter7172]

I just listened to Thursday’s Frl and nailed it. My god. Maddening. They made a slight nod to Spey who told them about xfinity Live, but still.

Spey grew up less than an hour from NYC and less than 2 hours from Philly, so he has a different frame of reference.