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The Jimmy

Filed under: Imported

Saturday night at 7 p.m. is the final regular season home game for the Minnesota Thunder. This means it's potentially your last opportunity to visit The Jimmy.

The team's decision to relocate to the Central High School stadium this season was met with considerable skepticism from footy snobs, myself included. The Jimmy has three big strikes against it: artificial turf, permanent football lines, and a much-too-narrow pitch.

That said, my feeling is that the move has been an unequivocal success. The most significant positive attribute of The Jimmy is that fans are much, much closer to the action than they were at the National Sports Center. This means that, not only is the game much more aesthetically appealing, but that the home fans can also hurl abuse at the enemy forces from close range.

This has led to some outstanding comedic moments during the course of the season. There was Milwaukee's Moron In Chief Art Kramer hurling his visor at us following his squad's overtime victory in June. And San Jose's classy veteran defender Jeff Agoos flipping us his middle finger.

But, by my estimates, the funniest moment of the season came during the very first game at The Jimmy. With the Thunder leading 2-0, Bruce screamed out to the Edmonton goalkeeper "Nick, your team's terrible!" Rather than ignore the comment, as one might expect from a professional athlete, the guy actually turned towards the stands in the middle of the game and shrugged his shoulders, basically conceding the point. (My recollection of that game is that "terrible" was an entirely fair and accurate characterization of the Edmonton squad.)

Attendance at the Jimmy was quite shaky at the beginning, and it's still not great. The week before the Thunder's first game there, the team's marketing honcho told me that he was expecting a sellout. It was not even remotely close. The announced attendance was 2,506, but I doubt there were half that many people actually present. (The Jimmy holds about 6,000.) The next game was even worse, with just 1,446 paying customers.

But things have built steadily over the course of the season to the point that attendance is comparable to previous seasons in Blaine. Over the last three games at The Jimmy, the average crowd has been 4,289.

The Thunder's record is 11-8-3. They halted a four-game losing skid Tuesday night with a crucial 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps. If the Thunder can get a win Saturday night against the league-leading Portland Timbers, they are all but assured a place in the playoffs. (The top four teams in each division make the playoffs.) It's particularly crucial that the Thunder don't falter given that the team's final five games of the season are on the road where they are yet to win a single game, compiling an astoundingly stinky record of 0-6-3.

Posted by Paul Demko at August 13, 2004 4:49 PM

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