Victoria, its still a little surreal for Dellavedova to grasp that | Forum

The Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants are going to Twickenham Stadium on Oct. Jamie McGinn Jersey . 23, bringing American football to the largest rugby union venue in the world.It will be the 16th NFL game played in London, continuing a series which began in 2007, but its the first matchup that wont be staged at Wembley Stadium.The teams figure to have plenty of elbow room, as rugby union requires a larger field than American football. The pitch at Twickenham measures 125 meters in length and 70 meters in width (approximately 137 yards by 77 yards), while a regulation gridiron is 120 yards long (including end zones) and 53? yards wide.The reverse will be true when the New Zealand All Blacks rugby squad plays Ireland at Soldier Field, home of the NFLs Chicago Bears, on Nov. 5.These events got us thinking about previous instances of athletic events being contested in venues typically reserved for other sports. A brief history:NFLAlthough the NFL didnt officially adopt a championship game until the 1933 season, the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans played in a de facto title game the previous year when a postseason game was added to break a tie atop the standings.But what made the game truly notable was the venue. The Bears played their home games at Wrigley Field from 1921-1970, but frigid weather in December 1932 led the teams to move the season finale indoors to Chicago Stadium, home of the NHLs Blackhawks. The playing field was 80 yards long and 45 yards wide, and only one goalpost was used. Field goals werent allowed, and sod was brought in to cover a dirt surface already in place for a circus appearance.The Bears won 9-0 in front of a crowd of 11,198. The only touchdown involved two future Hall of Famers, with Bronko Nagurski throwing a 2-yard pass to Red Grange.College footballMany decades ago, it wasnt unusual for college football to be played in baseball stadiums and other irregular venues -- many classics between Army and Notre Dame were played at the first Yankee Stadium in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. But in recent years, it has returned as a trendy quirk.Some notable instances:? Tennessee defeated Virginia Tech last month in front of 156,990 fans at Bristol Motor Speedway. The following week, East Tennessee State beat Western Carolina at the same venue, attracting a modest crowd of 13,863 -- and leaving approximately 143,000 seats empty.? Illinois beat Northwestern at Wrigley Field in 2010. With the right-field wall less than a foot from the back of one end zone, all offensive drives were run in the same direction. MLBs Chicago Cubs had added additional seating since the NFLs Bears last played at Wrigley decades earlier, which tightened the configuration for football games.? Notre Dame survived an upset attempt by Boston College in 2015 at Fenway Park, home of MLBs Boston Red Sox.? Army has played four regular-season games at the new Yankee Stadium -- a loss to Notre Dame in 2010, a win over Connecticut in 2014 and losses to Rutgers in 2011 and 2015.? A number of bowl games have been staged at baseball stadiums as MLB teams search for revenue during the dormant winter months. Among them are the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium, the St. Petersburg Bowl at Tropicana Field, the Miami Beach Bowl at Marlins Park, the defunct Seattle Bowl at Safeco Field and -- take a deep breath here -- the former Diamond Walnut San Francisco/Emerald/Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl at AT&T Park.TennisIn the much-hyped Battle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King vanquished outspoken male counterpart Bobby Riggs in straight sets at the Astrodome in September 1973. The match drew 30,472 fans in person and tens of millions of television viewers around the world.Andre Agassi and Roger Federer fearlessly took a precarious perch 692 feet above the Persian Gulf to smash a few shots on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel in 2005 to promote the ATP Dubai Duty Free Open.NBAA number of teams have played homes games in domes better suited for football and baseball over the years, including the Detroit Pistons (Silverdome), Seattle SuperSonics (Kingdome), Minnesota Timberwolves (Metrodome), San Antonio Spurs (Alamodome), Toronto Raptors (Rogers Centre, formerly known as SkyDome) and Atlanta Hawks (Georgia Dome).The NBA has held five outdoor games in its history -- all of which have been exhibitions involving the Phoenix Suns. The Suns and Milwaukee Bucks played twice in 1972 at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, a baseball venue in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Decades later, the Suns played three preseason games at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Southern California -- against the Denver Nuggets in 2008, Golden State Warriors in 2009 and Dallas Mavericks in 2010.College basketballA landmark event occurred in January 1968, when the University of Houston played host to UCLA at the Astrodome, home of MLBs Astros and the NFLs Oilers. It was called the Game of the Century, as Lew Alcindor and the No. 1 Bruins put a 47-game winning streak on the line against Elvin Hayes and the No. 2 Cougars. Houston won 71-69 in front of 52,693 fans. UCLA returned to the Astrodome in March 1971 for the Final Four and won an NCAA championship.The Final Four was later held at other football or multipurpose stadiums in New Orleans (1982, 1987, 1993), Seattle (1984, 1989, 1995), Indianapolis (1991) and Minneapolis (1992), and it has been staged exclusively in domes since 1997.Syracuse University has played its home games at the Carrier Dome, which seats nearly 50,000 and is home to the schools football team, since the multipurpose facility opened in 1980.In recent years, two college games were staged aboard aircraft carriers. North Carolina beat Michigan State in November 2011, with President Obama in attendance atop the USS Carl Vinson in Coronado, California. One year later and about a mile away, Syracuse defeated San Diego State aboard the USS Midway in San Diego. SDSU also played an outdoor game in 2015 at Petco Park, home of MLBs San Diego Padres, losing to crosstown rival University of San Diego.BaseballThe Los Angeles Dodgers played their first four seasons on the West Coast, 1958-61, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Cramming a baseball field into the football home of the USC Trojans and Los Angeles Rams turned out to be an odd proposition. Even with a 42-foot-tall screen in play, the left-field wall stood only 251 feet from home plate, creating an attractive target for batters. Straightaway center field was 425 feet deep, and right-center was 440. The Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox in the 1959 World Series, drawing more than 92,000 fans to each of the three games played at the Coliseum.Similarly, the Texas Rangers have played several exhibition games in recent years at the Alamodome in San Antonio, where the right-field wall is only 280 feet from home plate.The Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks opened the 2014 season with two games in Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where each game drew 38,000-plus fans. The dimensions were fairly typical, at 328 feet down the foul lines and 400 to straightaway center, given the space available on the larger, circular cricket pitch.We didnt forget about the fabled Polo Grounds in New York, which boasted arguably the strangest dimensions in baseball history -- well under 300 feet down the lines and as deep as 505 to straightaway center. Alas, the odd configuration wasnt a product of baseball being crammed into a mismatched venue. The stadium name was a misnomer, having been simply carried over from a previous iteration that was indeed built for polo.HockeyWhen the University of Michigan and Michigan State ice hockey teams faced off in a football venue in October 2001, it was viewed as an intriguing novelty. Marketed as the Cold War, a crowd of 74,544 turned out to see a tie at Spartan Stadium.That game inspired the NHL to follow suit in November 2003, with the Montreal Canadiens defeating the Edmonton Oilers at Commonwealth Stadium, home of the Canadian Football Leagues Edmonton Eskimos. The game drew 700,000 ticket requests (actual attendance was 57,177) and the NHL began regularly scheduling outdoor games within a few years. Subsequent outdoor NHL games have been played at NFL stadiums in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New England and Santa Clara, California; at MLB ballparks in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York, Washington and Denver; at the CFL venue in Calgary; and at the college football stadiums at Michigan and Minnesota.The largest crowd ever to see a hockey game, according to Guinness, was a rematch of the Cold War -- with Michigan beating Michigan State in The Big Chill at Michigan Stadium in December 2010. The announced attendance was 113,411, although Guinness later certified the total at 104,173.More than 105,000 tickets were sold to the NHL game at Michigan Stadium, where the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings in a shootout on Jan. 1, 2014, but Guinness couldnt confirm that the actual attendance topped the mark set there in 2010. Two months later, the Ottawa Senators defeated the Vancouver Canucks at BC Place, home of the CFLs British Columbia Lions. The stadiums retractable roof had to be closed because of rain for that one.What is now known as Tropicana Field was built to lure an MLB team, which it did when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays debuted in 1998, but the dome stadiums first major tenant was an NHL franchise. Starting in 1993-94, the Tampa Bay Lightning played their home games there for three seasons, when it was called the Thunderdome, and occasionally drew crowds in excess of 25,000. The Lightning set a record for highest attendance at a Stanley Cup playoff game in April 1996, drawing 28,183 fans to a game against the Philadelphia Flyers.Modified sportsSometimes the sports themselves are transformed to fit the venues:? Perhaps in the spirit of the Bears-Spartans 1932 NFL game, the Arena Football League launched with four teams in 1987. The sport is played indoors on a field approximately one-quarter the size of those used in regular football, with eight players per team on the field instead of the usual 11. With the exception of the suspended 2009 season, the AFL has operated continuously ever since.? Metro footy is a version of Australian rules football adapted to be played on American football fields. Nine players take the field for each team, as opposed to regular footy, where 18 players per side compete on much larger oval pitches.? Soccer gave birth to indoor soccer and futsal. Indoor soccer typically uses a surface about the size of a hockey rink, with six players per side, including the goalkeeper. Hockey-like dasher boards, which are in play, surround the field. Futsal can be played indoors or outdoors on a surface smaller than indoor soccer, with five players per side, including the goalkeeper. There are no walls in play.GolfIn 2015, Callaway Golf set up a temporary nine-hole, par-3 course at Petco Park. The course is scheduled to be open again Nov. 3-8 this year.Lastly, in what must unequivocally be the most unusual sports site in history, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard struck two golf balls with a 6-iron on the moon during the third manned lunar mission in February 1971. Evgenii Dadonov Jersey . And follow TSN.ca right through Deadline Day for all the updates. From Pierre LeBrun While Anaheim GM Bob Murray said earlier this season he was not going to trade Jonas Hiller despite the fact hes an unrestricted free agent on July 1, some sources have told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun that Murray might be willing to move another goalie. Cheap Panthers Jerseys Authentic . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. http:///...-jared-mccann-jersey .J. -- New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz will miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his left knee. Matthew Dellavedova was skeptical at first.Delly had just become a sneaker free-agent after years with Nike, wearing mostly Kobe Bryants signature shoe, so when Peak approached him with an idea to design a signature shoe especially for him, and also an apparel range under the Peak Australia banner, Dellavedova was understandably taken aback, but curious at the same time.I was a bit surprised to start with, but once I talked to [Peak Australia] they explained that Id have a lot of involvement in the development of the shoe, Dellavedova says.The allure of being the first Australian with his own signature basketball shoe appealed to Dellavedova. Sure, Andrew Gaze had a Gaze-branded shoe with Dunlop some years back, but not as an actual signature basketball shoe. When talks progressed to include apparel as well, Dellavedovas signing with the brand became an opportunity too good to pass up.We saw a real opportunity to develop a signature shoe for the Australian market and to promote basketball in Australia, Peak Australia chief executive Greg Bickley told ESPN. The shoe is the cornerstone of the range, but also were developing a running shoe, a casual shoe and a range of apparel under the Delly brand.Designing a shoe to an athletes individual specifications is a painstaking trial-and-error process of sorts. A company will begin with a prototype that the athlete wear-tests, the athlete then gives his feedback on improvements that can be made, along with things they particularly like and dislike. The process goes on for months until the athlete is satisfied with the final product.Dellavedova was hands-on with the Delly 1s development from day one.Peak Australia and Dellavedova went through five or six prototypes until the shoe met the specifications of the Bucks point guard.I had a whole lot of involvement with the shoe, Dellavedova says. I wanted a low-cut shoe that was light and close to the ground because I need to guard all these quick guards that are tough to defend over here [in the NBA]. They [Peak] did a great job with that, and as we went through the process of me testing it we just made minor adjustments.I was very particular about my shoe because thats the most important piece of equipment you wear in basketball.Some final adjustments were needed after Dellavedova saw an increase in his playing time as a starter with Milwaukee. The extra minutes on the floor meant that the Delly 1 required more cushioning to better help protect Dellavedovas feet. Wed developed a shoe which was what he wanted - it was low and fast, close to the ground, and modelled on the type of shoes that hed been wearing for many years, says Bickley. Thats what he wanted.Hes playing a lot more minutes [so] the demands on his shoe have certainly increased. We went into more development with the outsole and the cushioning that he needed because he was really putting a lot more demands on the shoe, so the shoe that hes wearing now is the final prototype that will now go into production.It was a typical cold and blustery late-June Melbourne morning.Darkness still cloaked the city as the sound of the overnight street sweepers had given way to trams taking early morning commuters to work.Matt Hammond, co-owner of Kickz101, one of Australias leading speciality basketball stores. made his way to work a little earlier than normal for a weekday. This was, after all, a big day for not only his store, but for basketball fans in Melbourne. Nestled right in the heart of the citys business district, its not uncommon for kids to be seen lining up outside Kickz101 on Saturday mornings when the latest sneakers are released.Hammond is accustomed to the sneaker drops - hes been handling those for years, but on this day, he had to orchestrate something entirely different. At 10am, Matthew Dellavedova, member of the recently crowned NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers, was scheduled to make an in-store appearance.Hammond arrived at work at 6:30am to a group of about 20-30 kids braving the cold and lining up to be part of the first throng of people to greet Delly when he arrived. Hammond asked the group when they had arrived: 1am, they replied.That was just the beginning.Not long after that the line just started growing, and growing, and growing fairly quickly, Hammond remembers. [Delly was due] in around 10, so I think it was probably around 9 oclock that the line had already gone around the corner, down Collins St and around the corner on Elizabeth St. By the time he arrived around 10, the line had gone down Elizabeth, and snaked all around back up to Little Flinders. It was a pretty huge line. As people were going to work they were asking us, whats going on?Hammond estimates the number of people waiting to see Delly reached between 1,500 to 2,000, including people from country Victoriia, Tasmania, and even a girl who had flown in from Cleveland for the event, which speaks to the popularity of the Maryborough product. Radim Vrbata Jersey. .It became a production line of sorts trying to get as many people in the store to meet-and-greet the Aussie.As Delly is, hes very polite, laid-back sort of guy. He was nice with everyone. Right on 10 we opened the doors and started filing people through, says Hammond. He was there for two hours, and a lot of people didnt get a chance [to meet him] but a lot of people did.Its a great reaction to a guy thats local. Weve had [Melbourne-born NBA star] Kyrie (Irving) at our old location and that was huge - if we had Kyrie out now we would have had a huge crowd [also], but it shows that even for a local player, theres a massive, massive respect. Of course, it helped that he played for Cleveland and had just won a championship. Its a real healthy sign for the guys that play in the NBA that there is a lot of love for them.Walk the streets of Australia and check the feet of anyone whos into sneakers, chances are that rarely will you see a pair of Peak shoes. Peak is still a fledgling company in the basketball sneaker world, but theyre hoping to make a dent in the market similar to what Under Armour did in recent years with Steph Curry. Granted, Dellavedova doesnt possess the global appeal of the two-time MVP of the Golden State Warriors, but he does have homegrown support as a foundation to build on.That support will largely come from the grassroots level, according to Hammond, who believes regional locations will be where Peak targets its marketing of the shoe.I think from talking to the guys at Peak, the [majority of] sales for them will come from the regional stores, he says. Country and regional locations which, for them, they get very limited basketball footwear range, and because Delly is from country Victoria, that market will do quite well with the shoe.Popularity with Aussie NBA fans is one thing, but the challenge facing the Delly 1 will be translating that popularity into sales of footwear and apparel. Hammond, who understands the basketball footwear landscape in Australia better than most, feels that the stranglehold established behemoths Nike and adidas have on the market could be the biggest hurdle to overcome for the Delly 1.One thing we are a little wary of is the price ($160 AUD) - its not necessarily a cheap shoe here, says Hammond. The Kyrie 2 is $160 retail [so] were wondering, is the consumer going to come in and buy Dellys shoe just because its Delly, or are they going to weigh up, and go with the Kyrie because it is a Nike and they have the runs on the board?Thats one area to be mindful of, and will people pay that price for a brand thats not necessarily premium here?In saying that, were still confident itll sell quite well.Will sales be the sole barometer the company used to judge the success of the Delly 1, or is resonating with the sneaker consumer just as crucial at this stage of development?I think sales will be [a barometer], says Bickley. Were in the business to make money, but [also] provide a product that is high quality, and give the Australian market a sense of something new, something different.Its definitely gonna sell, adds Hammond. Its not gonna fly out the store like a Kyrie does, or the main signature product from Nike or adidas, but were definitely having people asking us quite regularly about it.Although regional Australia will be the target demographic, Peak have plans to make a global push once the Delly 1 hits retailers. Peak China (where the company headquarters are located) have some very exciting plans for Matthew as an athlete all around the world, says Bickley. His product will be going into countries all around the world. Theyve already got orders from Europe, South America, Asia .... its a massive uplift in his profile.Were excited for what it will mean for him as a Delly brand, but also for Peak to have an athlete of his calibre as a person under their brand. Hes a great ambassador for the brand. Hes the ultimate role model for Australian kids, not just as a basketball player, but as a person.Even now, with the shoe already in production and scheduled for retail release in March or April next year, for a kid from Maryborough, Victoria, its still a little surreal for Dellavedova to grasp that he has his own shoe and apparel range. Its something that he never imagined possible.I never thought that would happen, that thought never really crossed my mind [but] its very cool and I cant wait for them to start getting sold in Australia, he says.Itll be cool to see somebody wearing them up in the local stadium in Maryborough. ' ' '