Game #73- Colorado Rapids

Colorado Rapids vs. Los Angeles Galaxy Dick’s Sporting Goods Park July 27, 2013 In Denver with some friends for a fun weekend getaway. With Ricky Weber, Pete Oskin, Tevia Oskin, Lindsay Myers and my Bel, we hit up some white water rafting yesterday which was a blast and then drank the night away in one of the new bars by Coors Stadium. Game day a couple of us went to hike around Red Rock Amphitheater, drank at the Golden City Brewery, a BBQ dinner at a local Denver friends house, and then finally went to the park. Dick’s is a really cool sporting center. Besides the main stadium, the surrounding area is filled with 25 soccer fields used for ultimate Frisbee, rugby, kickball, and football for the local sporting groups. The stadium is only a couple of years old and is very similar to the Home Depot Center in LA (now Stubhub Center, home of the Galaxy and Chivas), with open ends for plenty of natural light on the field and really cool sunsets. The game kind of sucked, at least as a LA fan. Because of the Gold cup and World Cup qualifiers, the team had very few good players on the pitch, missing Landon Donovan, Robbie Keane, Stuart Holden and Omar Gonzalez. So it wasn’t long before the Rapids went up 1-0 with a corner kick goal by Dillon Powers late in the first half (we got the pleasure of sitting near the Rapids “Goal Cannon”, scared the crap out of me) and then he got a second goal being fed a perfect pass by Edson Buddle in the second to give the home team a 2-0 win. The funny part of the game was the fact that Herbalife is based in Denver, and because the Galaxy is sponsored by Herbalife they had an employee recognition day at the game. Turns out they must have had free alcohol in the suites because everyone was trashed (by the way, I let Lindsay use my Beckham jersey with Herbalife plastered on the front, that attracted a lot of attention). I noticed one of the reps had a cool ticket stub and asked if she would let me have one. But because it was a suite ticket, she said I could come with her to talk about Herbalife and afterward I could have the stub. I passed, but Tev and Lindsey went. The lady they went with was in her fifties, had a ton of plastic surgery, and was hungry for some man meat…no thank you… By the way, on the way back to the hotel some idiot from New Mexico cut me off and hit our rented mini-van, no fun.