Thursday, April 29, 2010

Favorite Sports Memories

I have been to some pretty awesome sporting events in my life:
  • BYU football team beat 5th ranked Texas A&M the first game of the year
  • The NBA Finals, Jazz vs. Bulls game with Nick and his brother Jeremy outside in the parking lot of the Delta Center on a huge TV with thousands of other fans (I think they lost that game - still awesome!)
  • A professional lacrosse game in the Denver Broncos stadium with Jeremy, Justin, and Breanne.
  • A few MLB (pro baseball) games including some spring training games in Arizona (my favorite place to be in the spring).
But I think last Friday night topped them all. My Dad called me Friday morning and asked if I wanted to go to the Jazz playoff game against Denver. Of course I said yes since I haven't been to a Jazz game in like 7 years. He said they might be pretty good seats because his boss was offering them to him. He called back and said they were on the 8th row!! And they came with a VIP dinner before the game. I was pretty pumped all day waiting to go. I was just telling Kalli a couple weeks ago how much I would love to see a Jazz game from just a few rows up.
Well, as excited as I was to see the game, it was way more amazing than I had thought!! The whole game I was just taking it all in, hardly believing that I was there with such great seats. It was so fun to just sit there and watch, I wanted the game to last a lot longer (even though I had a headache from all the noise!). We were so close, it was like we were in the game. You don't know how big, fast, and athletic these guys are until you see them up close. It was awesome!


Check out that ticket! Pricey; however, I thought it would be more for those seats.


We had to check out the seats when we first got there. We were pretty excited about them at that point! (we watched Korver hit like 90% of his warm-up shots from all over the court)


We went up to the dinner buffet in a ritzy banquet room on the top floor of the Energy Solutions Arena. It was a pretty small room with an awesome view. There were about 20 other rich suckers eating some of the best food anywhere! (My Dad was pretty excited about the shrimp!) We felt a little awkward and out of place, but happy to be there none-the-less. Needless to say, we felt pretty rich that whole night.


Even watching them warm up was exciting.


Their layup drill was more like a dunk exhibition. I didn't get the best part of it, but for a while they were all just dunking it as hard as they could - Ronnie Price (UVU alum!!) was having his own dunk contest. He was doing some awesome stuff!




The noise was almost unbearable! The crowd was pretty rowdy from the start. My Dad and I were both hoarse by halftime just from trying to talk to each other. My Dad didn't say much the second half because he literally lost his voice.


This kid was hilarious. Every time-out he would get up and dance and try to get the crowd pumped up (not that we needed to be). He looks old, but he must have been in his 20's and a little handicapped (I hope).


The party at the end of the game! I think the only thing that would have made it a better experience is if the Nuggets would've at least put up a fight the last quarter or two.



Just chillin courtside! They let the fans come down on the court after the game. We didn't really want the night to end so we took advantage.


It's going to be hard to top this one. It kind of makes me think it would be worth it to just splurge every once in a while and spend $200 a pop for that experience! (Maybe not on a teacher salary)

6 comments:

julie and nick said...

SwEEt! Looks so fun. I remember when dad took me to a playoff game, I think I was in High School. We were up in a suite room and I thought I was the luckiest daughter alive. Oh, to do that on a regular basis.... wanting money so badly right now. Cool post. julie

baxtersrus said...

Sweet! Chad and I were joking that he took his favorite son.:) Looks like a fun father/son outing! Glad you could experience something you loved so much!

kallina said...

Well, since I go to his house to watch every game with him that's on TV, he probably just knew I would enjoy it most. And I'm his favorite!

Lindsay said...

I'm so glad you got to go, Joel!!! Looks like you guys had a BLAST! Mmm... that food looks SO GOOD, too! What an awesome night you'll never forget.

richelle said...

Thanks for sharing Joel- Great documentation... That looks like a once in a lifetime...

Calvin said...

congrats, sounds fun... almost as fun as teaching keyboarding