After Todd contacted the offices at FC Dallas to inform them of our “Pizza Incident” during our visit to the game between FC Dallas and Chicago, one of their customer relations reps contacted him about attending a game on the house in the future. After he told her where he lives, she was kind enough to let me use the free ticket since I live in Dallas and was at the game with him when it took 15 minutes to get a pie. The free ticket for the Chivas game was for the 5th row at about the 20 yard line. It was Juan Toja mullet night and they were giving away free wigs to the first into the gates. I didn’t get one but did enjoy all of the people that were wearing them. The game ended up being 0-0 with minimal scoring chances for each team. I left a little early as I was leaving for Nashville the next morning. The concession stand that had issues with keeping pizza on hand last time passed the test this time and I enjoyed a cheese pizza during the halftime break.

Todd made his way to the Dallas area to attend the big match between FC Dallas and his favorite MLS team, the Chicago Fire. He got a ticket hookup from a fellow Fire fan that was driving in from Oklahoma City but we weren’t sure if the guy was expecting payment or if the tickets would be free. Anyhow, we made our way to Frisco, which is a northern subarb about 25 miles away which meant over an hour during the rush hour drive. Once we made it to Pizza Hut Park, we took a lap while waiting for the ticket guy, Ted, to show up. Once he did, we quickly found our seats just in time for kickoff. The tickets were good and very free. It was my first visit to Pizza Hut park and I must say it was quite nice. We didn’t move around much but the site lines looked really good. The game was scoreless in the first half. We missed a good portion at the pizza stand as they ran out of pies. Not good considering the name of the place.

Chicago scored to take a 1-0 lead early in the second half and it looked like they would cruise to a win. The ref added 4 minutes in stoppage time, which seemed a little excessive. Sure enough, Todd’s favorite Dallas player, Carlos Ruiz, scored the late goal that produced a 1-1 tie. For the sixth consecutive year, the Brimstone Cup would remain in Dallas, although it has lost a bit of meaning since Dallas gave up their nickname, which was Burn. Overall, it was a good game although the result was not too great for the visitor from Atlanta. The traffic getting out of there after the game was atrocious as the Tollway leading to the park is not complete so we had to go on service roads for the last 5 miles and they were congested before and after the game.

Spring Break is here and we decided to visit our friend Matt and to go see Chicago play Dallas in an MLS Match. Since Chicago only plays once a year in Dallas and it fell during Spring Break, I knew that this game was meant for us to attend. Also while we were there, we wanted to go to the Mavs-Nuggets game and the Stars-Sharks NHL game.

On Saturday morning, my wife, my 3 Year Old son and I arrived at the Atlanta airport before 7 AM for an 8:10 AM flight to Dallas. The line to check in was ridiculously long and by the time we reached the ticket counter, it was 8:30 and we missed our flight. Not once during the 90+ minute wait did anyone from AirTran go through the lines looking for Customers that were on flights leaving in the near future as I have seen in my past experiences with Airtran. We were wait-listed for the next flight at 11, but we did not make it on that flight either because that flight, and from what we were told, all flights, were overbooked. Additionally, no considerations were made for the fact that we were travelling with a small child who ended up getting sick because he sat around in the airport for 9 hours. We finally caught a flight at 3:30, but by then, we missed the Chicago-Dallas MLS game that we were supposed to attend.

I can’t help but to think that AirTran had no intention of helping out its Customers because it knew the flights were overbooked anyway, so they knew this would help solve some of their Overbooking issues.

Anyhow, the Mavs game was great. The atmosphere was good and the fans were really into it. Dirk dropped 31 and the Mavs controlled the majority of the game. The American Airlines Center was as good as advertised. Janet remarked that the exterior resembled the old Chicago Stadium. The inside was really unique in that it felt more like an office building in the hallways than an arena.

With the Mavs up by about 20 points and less than 5 to play, the AA emptied out except for a few thousand. That’s when I commented to Matt that this is the kind of crowd that I’m used to at Philips.

It was Ismail’s birthday that day, so I bought him a Nowitzki jersey (his choice, I swear) and a Mavs mini-Ball. That night, we took him to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.

The Stars game the next night was not as impressive. While I saw tons of fans wearing jerseys, they were not very animated and the crowd noise wasn’t nearly as intense as the Mavs game. IMO, I think Atlanta has a better hockey atmosphere than Dallas. The Sharks won the game in OT on a Joe Thornton goal with 20 seconds left.

Overall, the trip was good. Matt was a great host and the two games that we saw were both good experiences. If only Airtran hadn’t shit in my hat, the trip would’ve been perfect.