ADVERTISEMENT

kooter, personal ?, minor league sports

Manch.

All-ACC
Sep 25, 2004
12,810
678
853
kooter, did you end up moving up this way? I see you reference Portsmouth, but I am not sure if you moved up here, I believe it was you who asked about living in Concord or Manchester.

To keep in line with sports, if you get the chance, it's a blast to go to the Toronto Blue Jays AA team here in Manchester, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It's great, cheap ball and great to bring the family. I've seen quite a few decent major league players do their rehab stints here in Manchester, and a few years ago (2012)we had a string of 3 games where Carl Crawford, Jacoby Ellsbury and Ryan Sweeney all rehabbed for the Red Sox/Portland Sea Dogs here. Watched Crawford hit a routine gapper that should have been a single but he ended up with a stand up triple, that was the fastest that I have ever seen anyone round the bases, man was he fast. Saw John Smoltz get a rehab start here, also.

The LA Kings top farm team, the Manchester Monarchs are also here in Manchester, but will be moving after this year, as most of the west coast teams are bringing their AHL clubs out to the west coast. I believe that the San Jose Sharks are also relocating their AHL affiliate (the Worcester Sharks) to the west coast. Didn't see too many Kings rehab here, as it was too far from LA, but we have seen about 25 Monarch players eventually make it to the Kings where they got their names on the Stanley Cup. The Kings will be moving in their ECHL franchise, but I will not be going to many of those games.

I spent some time in Portsmouth when I went to UNH, as it's a short ride and Durham is a ghost town, even when school is in session. There is absolutely nothing there, and when I went to UNH, I think that there was only 1 bar in town, so everyone headed over to Portsmouth. Getting a fake ID was pretty easy then and they looked pretty good, and the trick was to use your real name so that if a place asked for a 2nd form of ID, you could use your UNH ID, which did not show your DOB at the time. There was this one kid who had a background made up to look like a NH license, and you would stand in front of the wall and he would take the picture. Most bars at the time didn't care, so it worked at a lot of places in Portsmouth, and when I came back to Manchester, the bars knew they were fake, so we would go to a couple of stores owned by Koreans, who couldn't tell the difference and we bought our beer there.

Smoltz warmed up 10 feet from us and that game still has the highest attendance ever for a Fisher Cat's game. Also, here is current Sox reliever, Junichi Tazawa.

4467_1067062522332_6714616_n.jpg


4467_1067062002319_3273708_n.jpg
 
Hey Manch,

Cool stuff on the Fisher Cats i'll have to pay more attention to the Blue Jays now, i've heard good things about the Cats. You got some great pictures and stories for sure. I've always lived by at least a single A club so i do enjoy the minors in baseball much more than the majors at this point. I'll definitely check out some games.

I know many are upset the Monarchs are leaving, not gonna help the Manchester economy. I can't believe 5 AHL clubs are going to CA. Sad news indeed.

And yes, i moved to Concord late in the Fall, been taking advantage of the great snow boarding in the region this winter, and traveling around quite a bit hitting breweries and getting a feel for the area on the weekends.

Concord is a good place to work and walk around for lunch, but it's pretty quite on the weekend. THere are no sports teams in Concord!
I'd move to Portsmouth if it wasn't almost an hour away commute, might look at Manchester when my lease is up. Haven't explored Manchester yet much but i'm well aware Elm Street alone has a ton of stuff to parse through.

I was at a meeting in Durham recently, that UNH campus and Durham are being gutted right now, Pretty ambitious renovations to make the area more vibrant and attractive to young professionals and off campus housing. Should be gorgeous when it's done. I usually followed college hockey closely but didn't make it to UNH hockey this year, though i'm not sure i missed much. I used to walk to Yale games which were always fun.
 
ADVERTISEMENT