Moby Arena- Home of the CSU Rams

Raise your hand if you've been to a WNIT game.  Raise your hand if you've been to two.  Just me?  Women's sports get a bad rap pretty much all of the time except the Olympics, but while my opinion might be somewhat biased, I enjoy a good high quality women's sporting event.  I'm particularly a fan of college softball and volleyball, but I can get onboard with a basketball game every now and then.

Joel and I got tickets for Garth Brooks in Denver a couple of years ago and were planning a trip down.  I was hoping we could see either the Nuggets or the Avalanche play, but when Garth comes to town, he takes over.  He had about a billion shows scheduled, all at the Pepsi Center, so my dreams of seeing a game there were shot.  It was the first weekend of the NCAA Basketball tournaments too, so none of the area colleges were playing at home either, with the exception of the Colorado State University women, who had earned a spot in the WNIT and a first round matchup with the University of Northern Colorado.  I'm always in for a game and I kinda knew the guy who coached CSU, so I was all about going!  I somehow convinced Joel to go with me, and I think he actually ended up really enjoying it!

The Seats

I can't even remember if StubHub was even selling seats, but either way, we did this game the old fashioned way- we actually went to the school's ticket office and bought some seats.  When we got there, we found out that we could get floor seats for like $30 each.  I figured if I was going to make Joel go to a WNIT game with me, I might as well get the best seats possible for it, so we pulled the trigger.

I'm going to have to make a lot more money before I can afford floor seats for any type of men's game, but when I do, it's definitely going to happen.  It was awesome to be that close to the action and the people sitting around us were die hards.  Neither of us knew much about Colorado State in general (although I bought a shirt ahead of time so I could at least look the part) so it was great to hear about the history of the school, the stories of some of the players, and big moments for the team that season from the people around us.  By the end we were on our feet with them cheering for the Rams, who unfortunately lost.  The Bears shot lights out, especially from 3, and were just the better team that night.  Despite the loss, though, I was impressed- the arena is super cool and the fans showed up for their team, which isn't the case for a lot of women's programs around the country. We had a great time, and it was a step in the right direction for convincing Joel to go to the women's Final Four with me someday.

The Eats

There are probably lots of great places to eat in Fort Collins, but I may never know.  I am usually only there for one day, and if that's the case, I'm going to Beau Jo's.  They have a great selection of beer from some of the area breweries, but their claim to fame is really their pizza.  Joel is definitely more of the pizza lover in our relationship, but I enjoy a good pie every now and then, especially when I can build my own.  They offer 5 different types of crust, but if you're anything like me and love your carbs, I would go with one of the two Prairie Pie options- thick crust that comes in either honey white or honey wheat.  I go with honey wheat (it's healthy that way, right?) and get an olive oil base with whatever toppings catch my eye that day.  It is heaven from an oven.  They even put bottles of honey on each table for when you get to the crust to make the experience even more enjoyable!  Joel isn't as big of a sweet tooth as I am, but even he enjoyed it (sans the extra honey).  We were stuffed to the gills by the time we left and munched on the leftovers for the rest of the trip!

Other Deets

Fort Collins has a really interesting downtown area.  There are tons of places to visit, and if you go in the summer, there's oftentimes stuff going on out in the streets.  One weird thing that we ran into (thankfully not literally) is that they have parking in the middle of the street.  At one point we were wondering why a car wasn't moving forward at a red light until we realized it was parked.  We ended up parking in one of the middle spots while we were eating, and it was fairly challenging to get out.  But it definitely makes it so there's more available parking downtown, which is nice.  For the game at Moby, we parked in the parking lot- they have a big one outside the arena and it was easy to find a spot.

Something we didn't do this trip but that I have done before is make a stop at one of the breweries in town.  New Belgium and Odell both make their home near there and both have some great brews to offer.

Also, Garth Brooks was awesome.  We also went to the Denver Zoo, which is probably my favorite zoo I've been to.  Overall it was an awesome trip and I'm glad we got at least one game in!