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Game Cancelled

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I will agree that there should've been some foresight about what would happen if the game couldn't be played, or hell, if the storm damaged the stadium. That doesn't fall on the planners to use Rentschler as the staging ground, but on the department for not thinking ahead as much, and potentially even rescheduling the game to Saturday or Sunday in advance of the storm. Boo hoo if you're going to Cape Cod for the weekend. Compare that inconvenience to those whose towns are under water and have no food. If the game is played this weekend sometime, this is a non-issue and the correct decision was made.
 
Seems like lot of space and cops can set up direct routes in and out for support work. Have everyone park close together and no tailgating room, or buses or something that would free up more than enough space for 100 soldiers and supplies. It took me 20 minutes to walk from the parking to game, there is a lot of space there. The game wouldn't be until Saturday, that is a lot of planning time. Also, expect lot of fans wouldn't be going so how big is the parking need anyway.
 
+1

This game has to happen otherwise it looks bad for the state of Connecticut.

UCHuskies08 said:
As long as the game happens, I'm okay with this. If it is completely canceled then this is an epic fail.
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Fenway should be shut down. For different reasons though.

husky91 said:
Please. This is beyond idiotic. NJ was hit harder than CT and somehow Giants Stadium isn't shut down, nor is Fenway, Citi Field or others.

This idea that this is a higher purpose is lunacy. Just simple coordination. I agree, another failure of many from Malloy.

Leas
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Husky68 said:
Seems like lot of space and cops can set up direct routes in and out for support work. Have everyone park close together and no tailgating room, or buses or something that would free up more than enough space for 100 soldiers and supplies. It took me 20 minutes to walk from the parking to game, there is a lot of space there. The game wouldn't be until Saturday, that is a lot of planning time. Also, expect lot of fans wouldn't be going so how big is the parking need anyway.
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You don't think that 30+K fans coming in and out would disrupt the NG? Really? It isn't about parking either. It is about being able to get in and out of these areas without severe congestion.
 
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minidarren said:
Fenway should be shut down. For different reasons though.
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I was wondering whether someone (not you, the poster you quoted) would moronically ask why Fenway wasn't closed. I live about four blocks from Fenway, we never lost power once, the storm damage in the city of Boston was very, very minimal. By about 3:00 PM, there was no more rain, just some weak breezes, which is common here, this being the windiest city in the country. No flooding, a tree or two down, some branches and leaves on the ground, but other than that, absolutely nothing. People were out jogging and everything was open by mid-afternoon. The only reason anything remained closed was because the T was pre-emptively shut down for the entire day, so employees couldn't get places. Most people here thought this was an overhyped media creation and nothing really happened.

Of course, that's not to mention that Fenway would probably be the single worst place in the city to set up a National Guard post to distribute supplies, seeing how it's surrounded by one lane roads that mostly go nowhere important, is not accessible to 90, 93, or Storrow Drive, and has about 10,000 traffic lights within a five minute walk, so anybody trying to get in and out of there would be stuck for hours.
 
Well, if we're going to get political, then let's say this ... At least our guardsmen are here helping the Citizens of CT instead of being in Iraq or Afghanistan.
 
Jax Husky said:
You don't think that 30+K fans coming in and out would disrupt the NG? Really? It isn't about parking either. It is about being able to get in and out of these areas without severe congestion.
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You telling me with all the high IQ guys in government they can't figure out how to set up a zillion acre field with many exits and entrances to facilitate 6 hours of conflict with some parking and entry exit. With an announcement that no tailgating, people must have 4 in a car to get in, buses available from points xyz; this couldn't be figured out. How much stuff is there and how much traffic in and out with these supplies? I don't know that, but boy if our national guard leaders can't figure this out, wow. And you don't think 300,000 homes without electricity still and all the fixing up and repairs to be done on houses won't keep an unscheduled Saturday game against Fordham down below 30,000. If true I say expand now.
 
Here are some facts:

The National Guard can't use the Hartford Armory as it's being used as the state's CT Emergency Operation Center.

Here's why Rentschler Field won't be available on Thursday (article):

[Gov.] Malloy said 92,160 liter bottles of water and 21,300 meals were delivered to a staging area at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, and the supplies were then transferred to 37 towns. On Wednesday, 12 tractor trailers carrying water and 15 with food will arrive at Rentschler.
The UConn football game Thursday night at Rentschler is expected to be postponed until Saturday.
 
According to that article, and that's why I love HuskyNan, for links just like that:), everything that came in to the facility as of Tuesday - was already out, and that consisted of 96k liter water bottles, and 22k meals, sounds like a lot, but it's not, that probably was less than 10 trucks worth of supplies and regardless - it was out.

So today, 27 trucks are arriving, for unpacking, sorting and distribution, of water and prepped meals, with approximately 40 or so towns requiring pickup/delivery. By a 100 soldiers with equipment and lots of experience doing stuff like that.

They need the entire facility and grounds of Rentschler to do it.

I just really hope the game gets rescheduled quickly. Let the dust settle later. Cancelling this thing the way it was done, for the reasons given, with no rescheduling in place, is a mess. I read this a little while ago.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/uconn-fordham-game-is-postponed/

A completely factual report of the events as they're going on, as it looks from the outside, it appears taht the state is doing something organized and important on a large scale, as was my first thought upon hearing the game was cancelled, and it wasn't postponed, it was cancelled, postponed - means that you know your'e going to play the game in the future.

But the reality of the situation is so much different.

Politics and politicians.
 
So The Rent is uniquely indispensable to the disaster relief Thursday night but is irrelevant Saturday morning - there are no projections of people getting their power back on Friday to support this nonsense.
Business Lawyer I am not anti government just anti the way this fiasco has been handled. And yes I thought Katrina was handled poorly, especially in New Orleans. Get your head out of the sand - all levels of government failed there - the Mayor did not use the available buses for peeps to get to safty, etc.
 
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Chief00 said:
So The Rent is uniquely indispensable to the disaster relief Thursday night but is irrelevant Saturday morning - there are no projections of people getting their power back on Friday to support this nonsense.
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Maybe by Saturday there will be an alternate distribution center set up, one closer to the areas of need? But I tend to be an optimist, thinking well of people rather than assuming everyone else (but me, of course) is disorganized, badly motivated and hapless.
 
Of course the government failed in katrina. That is why government needs to be given far more slack to make sure they are overprepared for natural disasters, which is what the State is doing.

What is your first point -- that relief efforts can't be wound down at some point? You don't care that it looks like you're just trying to save face?

The State said "not yet" to a facility that it was using for disaster relief for Thursday evening on Tuesday and decided a day later that Saturday morning would be fine. You have to be beyond paranoid to be finding things suspicious in this.
 
This is a state-owned public facility. It's owned by all of us and all of us deserve to use it in emergencies. No brainer to use it, as opposed to other sites, for this type of thing. Happens once every 25 years. We will get over it. It's only a football game.
 
We should blame this whole thing on?

A) Global Warming
B) Bush
C) The Tea Party
D) Oswald
E) The guy on the grassy knoll.
G)) Aliens
H) Big Bang Theory
I) Malloy
J) Edsall
K) Hathaway
 
rich1122 said:
We should blame this whole thing on?

A) Global Warming
B) Bush
C) The Tea Party
D) Oswald
E) The guy on the grassy knoll.
G)) Aliens
H) Big Bang Theory
I) Malloy
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Couldn't find room for Edsall/Hathaway in that list? :D
 
I'm really stunned at some of the responses I've seen here and a few other places. To save typing I'm copying a response that I sent into the Courant (on Dez' bog piece on 100 National Guard on duty):


The thing is there are 'Big Time' programs in the southeast who have postponed games on the threat of a hurricane that ended up doing little damage. Their 'Big Time' fans accept this without complaint (that it cost them a weekend or screwed up their plans) and attend the game (80k - 100k strong) at its new date.

Nobody is a bigger college football fan than I am (going back decades before the idea of UConn becoming a major player was even a pipe dream) and nobody is a bigger fan of any school than I am of my alma mater. With this, the past weekend made it very clear how insignificant playing Fordham on its intially scheduled Thursday evening is. I was very fortunate to have only lost power (for ~70 hours) save a generator keeping my fridge running. The inconvenience of having to eat every meal out, not shaving for four days, having no television or internet until this morning and likely needing a couple of days to get things fully reorganized is nothing compared to what some went through. If added to this is the minor inconvenience of the game being postponed for a couple of days, the total inconvenience is still minor.

If we are really this upset by the inconvenience of postponing this game (in order to ease the national guard's effort in providing some relief) the last thing we can do is claim that we are a big time fan base.
 
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FfldCntyFan... just wanted to say, awesome avatar.
 
HuskyNan said:
Here are some facts:

The National Guard can't use the Hartford Armory as it's being used as the state's CT Emergency Operation Center.

Here's why Rentschler Field won't be available on Thursday (article):

[Gov.] Malloy said 92,160 liter bottles of water and 21,300 meals were delivered to a staging area at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, and the supplies were then transferred to 37 towns. On Wednesday, 12 tractor trailers carrying water and 15 with food will arrive at Rentschler.
The UConn football game Thursday night at Rentschler is expected to be postponed until Saturday.
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1 liter bottles come 12 per case, 60 cases per pallet or 720 bottles per pallet, 22 pallets per 53' truck 15,840 per truck
MRE's 12 per case, 48 cases per pallet, or 576 per pallet, 22 pallets per truck 12,672 per truck
 
Business Lawyer, next time please read the actual post before you respond. My point is the facts on the ground do not change materially between Thursday Night and Friday when they dismantle the relief operation. The Operation is intended primarily for those who are suffering from power loss. By any projection there will still be 100k - 150k plus people without power then as compared to perhaps 200k or so on Thursday. So my point is if this was actually an indispensable operation for the folks without power on Thursday night, why is it being wound down when you still have probably 100- 200k or so w/o power on Friday afternoon -when it would have to stop to prepare for Saturday..

businesslawyer said:
Of course the government failed in katrina. That is why government needs to be given far more slack to make sure they are overprepared for natural disasters, which is what the State is doing.

What is your first point -- that relief efforts can't be wound down at some point? You don't care that it looks like you're just trying to save face?

The State said "not yet" to a facility that it was using for disaster relief for Thursday evening on Tuesday and decided a day later that Saturday morning would be fine. You have to be beyond paranoid to be finding things suspicious in this.
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Chief00 said:
Business Lawyer, next time please read the actual post before you respond. My point is the facts on the ground do not change materially between Thursday Night and Friday when they dismantle the relief operation. The Operation is intended primarily for those who are suffering from power loss. By any projection there will still be 100k - 150k plus people without power then as compared to perhaps 200k or so on Thursday. So my point is if this was actually an indispensable operation for the folks without power on Thursday night, why is it being wound down when you still have probably 100- 200k or so w/o power on Friday afternoon -when it would have to stop to prepare for Saturday..
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From uconnhuskies.com:
Through the cooperation of United Technologies Corporation, it will be possible to have both the football game and the relief efforts run concurrently on Saturday.
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So it sounds like a) the operation actually is indispensable since it is continuing through the weekend b) the decision makers wanted to continue the operation in the same location rather than shutting down and moving somewhere else in the state c) they needed a day or two to negotiate with UTC for the needed space. Aside from parking and traffic headaches (construction plus the relief effort) I think we got what we wanted, namely for this game to be played. And with it still being played at home as a bonus, it makes a decent story. You'd have a hard time being critical about the end result (unless your name is Jeff Jacobs).
 
I thought Jacobs' piece was spot on. The game won't be played on Thursday because it just wasn't deemed important, which is evidence of a narrowminded, defeatest, can't do attitude. Thankfully the game will be played on Sat so there is no damage done unless you planned to attend and can no longer do so. I feared it would be cancelled and lead to the loss of two wins, Fordham and Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt because it would take away a chance for the team to gain some much needed experience.
 
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metsfan2323 said:
The game won't be played on Thursday because it just wasn't deemed important, which is evidence of a narrowminded, defeatest, can't do attitude.
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I just don't see it that way. At all. In fact, I see it as evidence that the decision makers had their priorities straight. It would have been nice if they could have worked out the logistics of moving the Guard operation over to UTC sooner, but considering that Thursday would have entailed infringing on a weekday with more employees in the parking lots, etc. I bet it just wasn't possible.
 
I can definitely see both sides of the argument here, but what I can't see is the way people seem to know with 100% certainty what the right move is without all the facts.

Do you know why there are so few great leaders? Because leadership is hard. Sitting back at your computer desk and criticizing others? Well, that's easy.
 
The fact is that this game has been on the calendar for months and the state should have had some basic foresight in realizing there may be scheduling conflict if the Guard was still at the Rent and the UConn game. CT is a small state, but there had to be site alternatives for the 100 man Guard. We shouldn't have had to have this discussion of "if" they should move locations. Common sense says to go to a site that is not already booked for College game within 4 days of a hurricane. It is not like Irene caught us of guard.
 
Jax Husky said:
Just spoke to my brother who says he can probably go (with 3 others) to the game now since it is not on a Thursday, which typically interferes with coaching youth football. If it is played on Saturday, the net/net likely won't be too bad.

Also, using the Rent as a staging area for a natural disaster (no matter how big or small of an event) is absolutely the right use of a public venue. We all want to see some football Thursday, but it is what it is. Make the best of it, and realize that you can now tailgate a lot more freely than on a typical Thursday night game.
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Are you in Jacksonville?
 
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