Starting this thread early because… why not?
I figured some people might be interested in the OKC Thunder games across the street from the FRC event. One is during early load-in on Wednesday and the other on Friday evening.
Mar 11 (Wed) @ 7pm - Utah Jazz
Mar 13 (Fri) @ 7pm - Minnesota Timberwolves
and the tickets are the cheapest I have ever seen them ($15$6). (They are cheap for a reason, though). (despite having an NBA all-star and making a strong run at the playoffs - go see them! They are great this year!)
So far I see 52 50 teams registered. We have some international flair, too! The team count looks like:
2 from Brazil-
34 from Mexico - 1 from Texas
- 4 from Missouri
-
1 from Louisiana,(not enough gumbo available in Oklahoma) -
1 from Colorado(decided atmospheric pressure in lowlands was too dense) -
1 from Minnesota (probably coming to see the Timberwolves)(decided last-place Timberwolves weren’t worth coming to watch) -
3941 from Oklahoma
For the out-of-towners: just stay downtown if you can. There is a new streetcar system that will get you pretty much anyplace you need to go for $1/trip or $3/day. There are a bunch of hotels with a negotiated rate for rooms for FRC teams.
There is a ton of dining in Bricktown (just east of the convention center), but Midtown and Automobile Alley are also on the streetcar and have a lot of good dining, too.
The Myriad Gardens are just west of the Cox Arena (which used to be called… the Myriad). The Bricktown Canal is a fun walk and you can also take a sightseeing tour boat (though there isn’t that much more to see than when you walk). Scissortail Park just opened and looks like a great space just south of Bricktown. Riversport opens for the season on March 14 (Saturday), so if you are into whitewater rafting or really tall ropes courses it is just south of Scissortail Park on the Oklahoma River.
For load-in you drive your trailer / truck / whatever into the arena and unload inside. Hopefully this won’t get messed up this year by the Thunder game traffic flow patterns.
If you have any questions about OKC, please post them here and I (or some other friendly Oklahoman, I’m sure) will try to answer them!