"Listen to the crowd, they're ALL on their feet. Nobody's left........the old Grand Lady on West Madison Street........"~Pat Foley after Jeremy Roenick's winning goal in overtime

Before my friends from all of the world correct me on this (cough, cough Dr. Bob) I should re-name this the Ten Great Sporting Events in *North America* that every red blooded Hog has to see just once in his lifetime. However, I'm not interested in sports played in Germany, Britain or China. I'm not interested in watching some guy jump over a bar, or throw a discus (I've been to the 1976 Olympics BTW: boring as all hell; at least the events were, but the parties weren't) or a bunch of guys in shorts kick a black and white ball around a football field for 90 minutes with nobody putting the bloody thing into the HUGE net at either side of the field.

Almost one year ago today, my cousin Bernard died suddenly. At his wake many of his friends and relatives shared some of the great memories we had of Bernie. The ones that stuck out the most for me were the Blackhawk games at old Chicago Stadium. Bernie was a huge hockey fan and going to a game with him was pretty amazing. Chicago Stadium in on to itself was a treat for a sports fan. Mind you it wasn't comfortable, but the place was almost always electric, especially for hockey games. Sure, the Bulls teams of the 90's packed the place in and it could get rocking loud. The Stadium held as many fans as the new United Center does, but in far, far less space. The rafters angled at such a degree so as to squeeze every last fan into the place. For hockey games on most nights, fans were lined up in the standing room section behind the last row in the second balcony. Hawks announcer Lloyd Petit used to say "they're hanging from the rafters". That's where my cousin would watch games. A couple of times I went to hockey games with my other friends who actually had seats and the games were awesome there, but it was in standing room where the real fun was.

Even before the game started the place was crackling with anticipation. The mighty Barton pipe organ really had power and gave the building a *presence* no other sporting arena could have, the cigarette smoke was already wafting into the air and the turnstiles were turning as anxious Hawk fans were ready to climb the impossibly pitched stairs to the second balcony where their seats were located.

When Wayne Messmer, who almost always stood next to that mighty pipe organ, began singing his incredible version of the Star Spangled Banner before every game you realized you were in a special place. Nobody could sing the anthem like Messmer could and no crowd REACTED to the anthem like the Stadium crowd did. The powerful pipe organ in the background shaking the ground you stood on and the cheering crowd would exhort Messmer to new heights on each and every verse. The momentum would continue to build with the crowd getting louder and louder. When he started in on the last stanza the crowd would begin to roar and Messmer would sing even louder with even more power. When he got to "oh say does that star spangled banner..." the crowd would kick it up a notch. By the time he got to "and the home of thaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh bra----aa---a---aaave!" you had goosebumps on your arms, no matter how many times you heard it.

Nobody does it better and no venue or crowd reacted to it better.

When the game started the opposing team was already at a disadvantage.

The Hawks almost always sold out and this was before hockey had hopelessly diluted its product and Dollar Bill Wirtz ruined one of the great franchises in sports. A game against the North Stars, Red Wings or Blues was always a special event, filled with excitement. Fans form the opposing team were always there to give the evening a special "edge". The games would be extremely physical and hard fought and they were entertaining as hell. Sure it helped that the Hawks actually had talent on those teams: Roenick, Secord, Larmer, Savard, Belfour, Chelios, even Dominik Hasek. There were nights that my cousin and I would leave the stadium with our hands raw, ears ringing and our voices almost completely shot.

A Blackhawks game at Old Chicago Stadium. WOW!!!!! The Madhouse on Madison. A sporting event that you had to be there to truly experience. The smells, the sounds and the raw power of that old building. Truly one of the ten great sporting events of my lifetime. But! Now it's gone, never to be experienced by anyone else. Too bad some youngsters out there will never be able to experience what it's like to sit at that extreme angle, on top of the action with the crowd roaring in front and in back of you! Never to be heard or *felt* again!

This thought and an announcement by the New York Yankees that Yankee Stadium will be no more put a sense of urgency into my quest. I've always wanted to go to a game in the House That Ruth Built, but I've been putting it off. Now, with 2008 being the last year for Yankee Stadium as we know it, I have to make plans to see a Yankee game next year. No, I don't want to go to the All Star Game there. I want to go to a regular season game, preferably against the Red Sox, but I can't be too picky at this point. I'm looking at a 2 week window in June, and it looks like the Yankees will be home the first weekend in June and most likely against the vaunted Kansas City Royals. So far, the Yankee schedule isn't announced yet. I spotted the Royals going to New York on their schedule, but that's tentative for now.

I'd like to see a game at Yankee Stadium as well as Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium. To me, the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers are the three great teams in Baseball history along with the Giants and Cardinals. I've been to Busch and AT&T Park already, so that leaves the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers. Even if Yankee Stadium were to be spared, it'd probably rank above Fenway and Chavez Ravine in terms of importance for me. There is so much history, so much tradition associated with the Yankees and their 26 World Championships and 39 pennants. If Wrigley had this going for it, I probably would overlook some of its shortcomings, but us Cub fans have only a handful of Baseball Moments to attach to Wrigley Field, whereas a Yankee fan could on for hours about all of the significant games played in Yankee Stadium and go on and on about all of the Hall of Famers who graced it's playing surface. My brother in law who lives near Philadelphia wants me to come in to see him and we'll go in to New York together by train. Something tells me that I'm going to want to do this on my own pace just so I can soak it all in.

I've been told by a couple of people that I'm going to be disappointed in Fenway, much like I tell people they'll be disappointed by Wrigley Field. I've made my feelings about Wrigley known here a couple of times, but most recently in an article dated September 10. However, my sources tell me Fenway is even more uncomfortable and even more disappointing. Even with those caveats, I'm going to have to commit to going to a game there. This will be one time where I'm going to insist that the Red Sox play the Yankees. I need to take this rivalry in first hand, but especially from the Fenway perspective.

Dodger Stadium has an appeal to me for a completely different set of reasons. I've always been fascinated by the Brooklyn Dodgers and their history, especially the teams from the late 40s through the mid 50s. Their excellence extended to their new home, a state of the art ball park out west in Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers played a few years in the LA Coliseum until Dodger Stadium was complete. When it was finished it was the envy of baseball for almost three decades and for the most part, still is. The sheen of the Dodgers has started to wear off a bit after they'd been sold recently. Compounding this, the cross town Anaheim Angels have stolen a lot of the thunder away from the Dodgers. There is a lot of pressure on the front office to field a very competitive team to maintain their fan base. Grady Little, their manager is on the hot seat despite having a winning record this past season. Even with the Dodgers struggling with their fans, there is a tremendous appeal to the actual ballpark itself. This year, the Cubs were playing in Dodger Stadium and we were watching the Sunday afternoon game at my buddy Dave's house. Dave has 110 inch projection TV in his media room and it almost looked like we were sitting amongst the palm trees and that gorgeous California sunshine. I want to see both a night and day game here and I'm going to stick around until the ninth inning, unlike most Dodger fans.

The fourth event I'd like to see is the Kentucky Derby. Talk about history! There have been well over 125 Derbies run. The pomp and the circumstance and the traditions attached to this one sporting event is almost unparalleled among others on this list. The ladies' hats, the mint julep, My Old Kentucky Home, The Twin Spires, The Run For The Roses, and of course the great party in the infield of Churchill Downs all combine to make this a true EVENT, even though the race itself is only two minutes long. Along with the Yankee Stadium game this is an event I plan on attending this year. For many years us Hogs have used the Kentucky Derby as the finish line for our Commitment To Excellence that begins every year after the Super Bowl. I can't think of a better way to end my "CTE" than to actually attend the Derby itself. As Ken Burns' noted in his miniseries on Baseball: there are two sporting events that occur at the perfect time of the year, each capturing a certain feeling, a certain mood. That was the World Series the first week in October signaling in the beginning of fall and the Kentucky Derby on the second Saturday in May signaling in the beginning of spring. Now that Baseball's owners have thoroughly screwed up the schedule, that leaves just ONE sporting event that occurs at the perfect time of the year.

My next event is going to shock some of my friends amongst the "Southerly Hogs". I've long made fun of NASCAR and the idea that this is a "sport". A sport whose season lasts almost the entire calendar year can't seriously be considered a sport. There has to be an off-season of some sort so that the champion can enjoy and show off their trophy and be recognized for all their hard work during the season. NASCAR's season is the Christmas Holidays and then they start all over again looking for a new champion. Silly really and greedy too (even worse than Baseball owners). The other weird thing about NASCAR is that the biggest event of the NASCAR season occurs relatively early in the season and that is the Daytona 500. The Daytona is the most prestigious, most recognized of all the races and it should by rights be held at the END of the season to make it that much more of an event, but far be it from me to argue the point with the geniuses at NASCAR. I'm reasonably confident in knowing that even though I know absolutely nothing about the sport, I'm going to have an easy enough time following the course of events.

This past year, our beloved Chicago Bears made it to the Super Bowl. I wanted to keep "championship" type sporting events out of my ten sporting events, but I've been convinced to include the Super Bowl only because of the hype and the over hype that accompanies it. That, and the sheer celebrity attraction the game has. There Super Bowl is probably the most genuine event of it's kind in that it realizes that there's nothing genuine about it all. It's all marketing schtick from the commercials to the half time shows. I'd like to be able to take it all in for the entire week leading up to the game. I doubt that I could afford it, so I'm going to have to save my pennies, especially if the game is played in Miami.

The other "bowl" I'd like to attend is a little more earthy and homespun. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena has always been an attraction for me ever since I was little boy. I grew up in Big Ten country and I looked forward to watching the parade as well as the game itself. Unfortunately the Big Ten would almost always come up short in a lot of these games. Who could forget Jim Plunkett and Randy Vataha leading Stanford over a heavily favored Ohio State squad? The Rose Bowl is one game and one stadium I'd like to visit.

I always thought that as I grow older, I would take up golf. For some reason, I still haven't. Maybe it's because the game isn't an integral part of our friends' lives. I do have buddies that golf and I'm sure that if I took up the game that I'd be pretty decent at it, or at least serviceable. Philster tells me it'd be the perfect game for me since I'd obsess over it. Well, that may or may not be true but I've always found that watching golf, especially on TV to be a terrible waste of time and even worse, terribly boring. Sure there have been great finishes to great tournaments and the drama of the entire event comes down to a few last holes to determine the champ. Then, it can be watch able, but overall, I find the game to be pretty tedious to watch. But, I have to admit that I have to go see a tournament just once in my life and to watch a true Golf legend in person. I can't think of a better place to watch this then in Augusta, Georgia at the Masters. Yeah, I can hear my friends snickering now, but don't be surprised by that phone call.

I'm sure many people would love to go see the "Final Four" wherever it's played, but for me, I'd rather watch a college basketball game during their respective conference season when a team is playing their archrival at home. I can't think of a more intense experience than watching the game in Durham, NC when the Duke Blue Devils square off against any number of ACC foes, but probably most significantly the North Carolina Tar Heels. We've all seen and heard about the Duke "crazies" and I'd love to be a part of that excitement just once in my lifetime. It has got to be as close to watching a hockey game at the old Chicago Stadium as you can get, without the beer of course!

Which leads me to my last sporting event and I'm going to need help. I've gotten a lot of input from people in the know. Yes, the Rose Bowl is a great sporting event, but that's more of a historical event like the Masters or the Kentucky Derby is, but I want to experience College Football the way I'm going to experience College Basketball and that is to watch the game amongst the home crowd during an intense intra conference battle against a hated rival. I've almost narrowed my choice down to an SEC game. But where to watch it? Nyland Stadium? Tuscaloosa? Baton Rouge? The Swamp? Many folks have given me positives and negatives to all of these choices. Then there are my Big Ten brethren who tell me not to forego a game at the Big House in Ann Arbor, or a game at the Horse Shoe in Columbus and then there is the experience of a lifetime in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. Then, I have friends that tell me to stay close to home and go to South Bend. My tenth sporting event is still up in the air. I'd like somebody to give me a compelling reason to pick one of these games over the other. I can't go to all of them!

The Chicago Stadium is long gone. Yankee Stadium will soon follow, but there are sporting events to see in other classic venues all around this great country of ours. So there you have it. Nine Events and I need help on the tenth:

Help me choose which College Football Home Game to attend:

Responses to this article

Here's Messmer singing the National Anthem from the 1991 All Star game and people could say the crowd reacted that way because of the Gulf War at the time. I'm here to tell you it was that way EVERY night!

Things I found on You Tube when researching this article:

Michael Jordan's last shot in the 1998 Finals. Oh if he only would have stayed retired! Sure he's the greatest of all time, but he would have stayed that way FOREVER if the last image of the greatest would have been that follow through on this shot.

Kobe? LeBron? Yeah, they ARE great, but they couldn't shine Michael's shoes!

A true Man among boys (he'll knock you out)!