I'm officially inside Ford Field getting ready for tomorrow's Frozen Four semifinals. Playing this thing inside the stadium of an NFL team--or "NFL team" depending on how tough a grader you are--is a different experience just because everything from the stadium to the media workroom is about 10 times bigger than I'm used to.
Anyway, here's a couple of notes I gathered from just walking around the arena set-up a little bit.
Overall, the set-up of the seats isn’t too bad. It’s obviously not your typical college rink where you’re right on top of the ice, but everyone should have a pretty good view of the rink, even if they’re pretty far away. Pretty much every seat will have a trade-off. Being high up gives you a better view of the rink, but you’re also that much farther from the field.
The portable bleachers are on a much lower grade than I was expecting. It goes up about 37 rows, and the bleachers extend out to the 30-yard line on the opposite side of the field. That’s good for people on the sidelines of the football field, because their view won’t be obstructed, but people in the top row are around 60-70 yards away from the rink. It’s tough to judge just by looking at it, and not skating on it, but the ice looked average, which is about all you can expect for a rink just put in and not skated on much. It’s probably not any worse than what