MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: My favorite place to see a game, and here's why

This list had to be shared eventually.

Sports fans are fascinated by stadiums and arenas (along with other related facilities, like racetracks).

I’ve written enough of these “Memories” columns that you know I’ve visited plenty of sports venues.

Then, fairly recently, we got into a discussion about my stint actually writing about the facilities themselves for the Sports Business Journal.

So, predictably, I now have plenty of additions to a list of questions that had built up over the past couple of years.

To take all those emails and shorten everything, here’s what you’ve asked…

What are your favorite sports venues, and why?

Fair enough.

I’m finally going to do a list today, and I have to tell you up front that there are all kinds of criteria involved.

I’ll try to explain in the short description of each place (a few of which no longer even exist), and you’ll understand that I have all sorts of different reasons for loving these places.

Note: I haven’t put any golf courses on here. That’s for another day.

Ready to go?

Okay, let’s visit some fantastic venues, if only in our imaginations.

Yes, there are only 10 — and I could do hundreds. I’ll give you the next 10 sometime soon.

Remember, these are MY favorites, but you are invited to submit the places that you’ve enjoyed the most.

I’m still right here, at scameron@cdapress.com.

Right, we’re off…

HIGHBURY

LONDON

The top spot wasn’t even close.

Known officially in England – yes, really — as the “Home of Football” (there is a brass plaque on Gillespie Road that we’d sometimes touch for luck). Highbury hosted my beloved Arsenal from 1913 through 2013.

Highbury is where I became a footy (soccer) nut, and where I got to watch the incomparable Thierry Henry.

If you are trying to hack any of my various accounts, you’ll always find the number 14 somewhere in a tribute to Henry.

Arsenal eventually built a fancy, 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium just down the road to keep up with soaring revenues in global football, but it’s just…meh.

On the final day at Highbury, Thierry knelt to kiss the grass after smashing home a penalty, lifelong Gooner Roger Daltrey of The Who sang a specially written tune called “Highbury Highs,” and I cried.

Of course I did.

WRIGLEY FIELD

CHICAGO

If you’re a true baseball fan, and you HAVE to keel over and die suddenly on a sunny afternoon…

You’d want it to be at Wrigley.

What’s NOT to love about this dear old stadium, with that old fashioned scoreboard, ivy on the outfield walls and fans who chuck any visiting player’s home run back on to the field.

I was lucky enough to cover the Cubs during a stretch when Harry Caray was doing the broadcasts, and there’s never been pure joy in the National Pastime to match Harry leading the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ballgane,” during the seventh-inning stretch.

(“And let’s get some runs!”)

Cubs fans will get that last line.

Even Wrigley’s neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side is the best in American sports.

CHURCHILL DOWNS

LOUISVILLE

I guess you have to be a Thoroughbred racing buff to put the Twin Spires this high on any list, but if you’ve attended the Kentucky Derby just one time, you’d be hooked.

The Derby has been called, among other things, “the most exciting two minutes in sports,” but its charms (the outfits, the Mint Julips, the pageantry) go much further than the race itself.

By the way, the legendary Secretariat begs to differ with that tag of the most exciting two minutes, etc.

The greatest Thoroughbred ever to take your breath away, Big Red didn’t quite make it to the most exciting two minutes, etc., running the 1973 Derby in 1:59 3/5 on his way to a spectacular Triple Crown.

Having said all that, a lazy weekday afternoon of racing at Churchill Downs is still just about as good as it gets.

By the way, even as in-person attendance gives way to online betting, there are plenty of other tracks where I’ve had wonderful experiences, win or lose – Del Mar, Keeneland, and so on.

ORACLE PARK

SAN FRANCISCO

The best of the “new” baseball stadiums, edging Pittsburgh’s PNC Park simply because I’m a Giants fan – but also because of the neighborhood.

The Giants, amazingly, have had the most bizarre stadium “trifecta” since moving from New York in 1958.

First it was quaint and lovely Seals Stadium, then the abomination of Candlestick Park – the coldest place in America on a July evening – and now, finally, the jewel that has been Pac Bell Park, AT&T Park and now Oracle.

I guess that tells you that sponsors love the place, too.

I’m not going to claim it’s golf-shirt weather for night games at Oracle, but China Basin is San Francisco’s warmest little mini-climate.

Everything about this ballpark is fantastic.

Everything.

MAPLE LEAF GARDENS

TORONTO

I’m referring to the old Gardens here, not the snazzy new place that tends to suck the joy from hockey history.

The old Gardens, also known as “The Cathedral,” was a place you HAD to visit if you love hockey.

Still do, in fact.

Happily, although the NHL Leafs abandoned the building in 2000, it’s still there at the corner of Carlton and Church Streets.

You could take a tram through downtown Toronto – perhaps North America’s most wonderful city – and almost hear the echoes of great hockey battles by simply walking into the place.

I was lucky enough to cover some games in the original building, and even do a TV broadcast from a gantry that hung terrifyingly above the ice.

Now then…

I have to admit, right here, that I miss many of the old arenas.

You can’t replace the “feel” of places like Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, or The Forum in Montreal.

There’s only so much to like about wide concourses and gourmet food at these new arenas.

And to me…

The difference shows up most dramatically in Toronto.

McCARTHEY ATHLETIC CENTER

SPOKANE

The noise.

The rocking atmosphere.

Oh, I’m sure there are other college indoor arenas that can offer the same raucous feel (I’ve covered BYU-Utah games at the Marriott Center), but there two things that make the Kennel different.

First, I’m here, and if the infernal Covid-19 will just go away, we can all get back to the fun of Zags games – right there in person.

Second, it’s small.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be something you’d advertise as a positive, but AD Mike Roth’s argument to keep the capacity at 6,000 – when Gonzaga could sell tons more seats – turned out to be a stroke of genius.

Roth said he wanted demand to remain high (yep!), but mostly for every customer to have an awesome view of the action.

Roth and the university administration made the right call.

And you know what?

I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a louder building.

Well, maybe when the Beatles first came to America.

LAMBEAU FIELD

GREEN BAY

There’s nothing else like Lambeau.

In fact, since I wrote the Packer’s 75th anniversary coffee table book (and thus became a Cheesehead), I would have put Lambeau even higher on this list, except…

They keep adding magnificent things to it – massive lobbies and gift shops, the hall of fame and all sorts of other things that make one end of the stadium feel like a Packer-themed shopping mall.

But the bowl itself, the actual football stadium, ranks right up there near the very top of my list.

Lambeau is NFL history itself, and obviously, Green Bay remains the only small city in the league – a Catholic community that leads the league in bars and brats.

The waiting list for season tickets is astronomical, and never gets much shorter because families will their tickets to their offspring.

I don’t think they do this anymore, but NFL stadiums used to announce the paid attendance at games, along with no-shows.

In Green Bay, the no-shows (there would 10 or 12, like that), were loudly booed for their lack of allegiance.

The coolest thing about Lambeau is watching a guided tour in the summer.

Every attendee wants, and is given, a chance to dive into the south end zone from the 1-yard line – copying Bart Starr’s game-winning sneak in the 1967 Ice Bowl.

Anyplace else offer THAT?

FALCON STADIUM

COLORADO SPRINGS

There are two things going on here.

First off, there’s just a stunning view down the mountain range, from the Air Force Academy itself almost to downtown.

Going to a football game at Falcon Stadium makes you want to shake the hand of the designer who put the facility exactly where it sits.

Perfect.

And…

Call me a sucker, but I love the pageantry of seeing the cadet corps marching in and out of the stadium.

In fact, let’s add Michie Stadium at West Point to this list right here, and just tack it on with the Air Force Academy – even though the facilities are nothing alike.

(Unfortunately, I’ve never been to a game at Navy.)

Michie is old and rickety, and has nothing much to offer except…

It’s West Point, on the bank of the Hudson River, with all that history.

And if you show up early on a football Saturday, you can watch the cadets march on the parade ground.

Okay, I’m all in for that.

Guilty.

TULLOCH CALEDONIAN STADIUM

INVERNESS, SCOTLAND

I’m guessing this will be a new one for you.

But you know what?

You’d adore the place.

It’s the home of Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC, a soccer club that flits between Scotland’s top and second divisions.

The club is called Caley Thistle, which is a contraction born of a furious fight between two clubs that played in Inverness – and finally merged to ensure mutual survival.

Inverness itself is a treasure, the “Capital of the Highlands,” and Tulloch is perched right at the edge of the city – just alongside the Moray Firth.

The firth (it means bay) is connected to the North Sea.

It’s a beautiful sight, but of course, you would need to bundle up for those days when the wind whips straight in from Greenland.

Sometimes it blows in the other direction, though, and I’ve always wondered if someone like David Beckham could boot the ball all the way into the waves.

I actually thought of wearing my Caley Thistle uniform shirt for the picture running with today’s column – nah, I’ll save it for another occasion.

NOTRE DAME STADIUM

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA

What can I say?

Even if you aren’t a fan of the Irish…

Even if you just can’t stand ‘em…

This is a pilgrimage you have to make.

I mean, these people invented the forward pass, for heaven’s sake.

It’s almost impossible not to get goosebumps when the marching bands strut onto the field, gloriously playing the Notre Dame Victory March.

Sure, you know the tune, since half the high schools in America have borrowed it as their own fight songs.

I actually liked this place more when the stadium itself was old and ratty, and you could imagine Knute Rockne prowling the sideline.

It’s been spiffed up now, so you don’t get splinters when you sit down, and it’s actually possible to find a toilet at halftime.

But some things really don’t NEED to fixed, you know?

This was one of them.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published each Tuesday.