Chicago Slaughter

My brother, Scott, and I had talked about going to see a Chicago Rush game before the arena league suspended its season.  The Chicago Slaughter is the other arena league team in the area.  Bears Great Steve McMichael is the head coach, Jim McMahon recently bought the team and signed Jarrett Payton.  So we picked up tickets to take Alex to the first game of the season.

It was a 7pm start, so there was no way Alex was going to make it through the entire game.  We figured on leaving at the half.  The first thing we noticed was that there were a lot of people there.  Not a sell out, but:

I took that before kickoff.  The stands filled in some more after that.

My camera phone decided to forget what the zoom function is for, so I don't have shots of Payton, McMahon or McMichael.  But so you know what you get for those $15 seats:

Nah.  You still can't tell.  It was really pretty close. 

The game was a bit weird in that the rules are clearly different and I don't have a handle on them yet.  For example, in the NFL, the offense is only allowed to have one person moving before the ball is snapped.  This game regularly had two receivers getting a running start.  "Out of bounds" means someone rammed you into the wall like a hockey player.  And game balls are going into the stands all the time.

Downside to that:  if the action is against the wall where you are seated, it is hard to see what is happening.

The big news is the Slaughter's first touchdown of the season was thrown by Jarrett Payton, the running back.  I like when a team shows some nerve.  Unfortunately, it didn't win them the game.  However.  $15 tickets, arena in the suburbs, $10 parking and McMichael/McMahon/Payton? 

I think we'll be doing that again.