For those that have been reading my blogs through this time, we have reached a momentus milestone of 200 posts! Hooray for this! What do we do to celebrate this? Why, another stadium review of course! This time, to north central Illinois, to the city of DeKalb, IL to be exact. This is where Huskie Stadium is, and where the Northern Illinois Huskies call home. NIU has been home to many college legends like Michael Turner and Jordan Lynch, who led the Huskies to a BCS Bowl game. With that, this stadium that holds 28,211 was the site of a pre-Labor Day contest between the Huskies and the Holy Cross Crusaders (Sorry, Badgers fans, I am opening up that wound now). End Result: Northern Illinois walked away winners 19-17. As with every stadium review, it goes Amenities, Atmosphere, Location, and Price and a last review of the event is what we see here. Let's go!
Amenities:
NIU makes sure they have plenty of options of food and drink around Huskie Stadium so fans will not be lacking there. They also have a lot of room for tailgating, tents and fan zones outside the stadium so they do really well here as well. The merch areas have a lot of different things. I got a shirt and a plushie for a reasonable price of under 40 dollars (most days at sporting events if you get a shirt at 40, you are lucky). The bathrooms are a bit weird in some areas, as you have to walk down to get to them. Not necessarily a negative thing, but one that is odd. It is a fairly basic type stadium though and the people and staff maintain a pretty clean stadium overall. Will give it 4 out of 5.
Atmosphere:
I have to say the Huskies did themselves no favors getting the crowd involved in this one. With it being on Labor Day weekend, it was going to be a tough sell against an FCS opponent to sell the game out, and it was no where close on that. However, the team didn't give the fans much reason to cheer until the fourth quarter and getting the win. I know the atmosphere here can be a lot better, but I do have to rate based on the game and day I went. This really isn't on the fans, it's more on the team. The fans seem to be a fanbase that wants a proven and constant winner, so they can have more people come in to maybe sell out the stadium. Again, don't hate me NIU, this was more on the team not giving you more to cheer about. 2 out of 5.
Location:
A college stadium on campus is never something to not give a positive remark to. It's also around the basketball arena, the softball and baseball diamonds so it gives a sort of athletic complex feel to it. NIU is kind of on the outskirt of DeKalb a bit, but it's easy to get to. Parking is easy as well. So the location is a good one. They are about a mile-ish away from the major food areas and social places that aren't already on campus. However, solid location, and with as much area as NIU has for all the tailgating and fan festivities and such, cannot go wrong. Solid 4 out of 5.
Price:
About 25 dollars for the ticket isn't bad, and is comparable to more of the group of 5 teams in the NCAA. However, 20 dollars for parking was pretty steep I thought, even by those same standards (I don't typically go to D1 stadiums so I could be skewed). The food/drink ran me about 10 dollars combined and wasn't terribly outlandish in terms of being good or bad. Both were just fine. As I mentioned earlier, the merch was decently priced for what I got, so no qualms there. Again, I think 4 out of 5 works.
Review:
I haven't visited a MAC stadium before this one and NIU is the closest to me. Honest impression is a solid stadium, that has a lot to offer. I think the 14 I gave is a solid one because I am not sure what other MAC stadiums (maybe I should say MWC now as NIU is going there) would be better. So solid stadium NIU, just keep trying to improve as you go forward!
No comments:
Post a Comment