My Trip to the Cintas Center

[Box and Won]

I was in Cincinnati this past weekend visiting my sister, who is a student at Xavier. Last night we went to the Cintas Center to watch the Muskateers dismantle Coppin State, and I must say that if our new arena is anything like the Cintas (and I think it will be), we're in for a real treat.

Some observations:

Student attendance and participation was excellent. The students stood through the whole game and were very boisterous. People I talked to told me that the atmosphere at the old Cincinnati Gardens was pretty good, but now that the team plays on campus, participation is a whole lot better. The students and the band took up both sections behind one of the baskets as well as one of the corner sections.

Playing in a smaller arena made the XU band sound really good. Our band will kick even more butt in the new building. XU played a lot of the same songs; it might be time for us to update the song list.

While I didn't go into the upper deck, I can't imagine that there is a bad seat in the house at the Cintas. It felt very intimate. We were in the last row of the student section, and it felt like being in the middle of the student section at the Savvis.

The renderings of the inside of our new arena look very similar to the interior of the Cintas. Ours looks like it might be a little bigger. The Cintas has some features that our arena won't have because we have them elsewhere. For instance, the main student dining hall is located in the center as well as banquet/meeting space that we already have in the Busch Center.

Whoever runs the SLU bookstore should take a trip to XU to learn a lesson on merchandising. XU has tons of quality merchandise available, with BLUE being the primary color of shirts, sweatshirts, etc.

The XU campus is a lot smaller than SLU's, so the Cintas is much closer to the dorms than our new arena will be (assuming that it will be built on the Waring School site). They also have a student shuttle service that picks up students who live off-campus and drives them to and from the games (as well as transporting them to class, etc.).

The concourses were very nice and featured huge historic photographs of XU teams and players over the years.

The exterior of the Cintas is sharp as well. It is not as extravagant as ours will be, but it has clean lines and a nice modern appearance.

Overall, visiting Cintas was a great experience, and I hope our new arena energizes our fans, students and alumni like the Cintas did for XU's.

[tseugnekillib]

Thanks for the insight. It is hard to believe that XU students could be closer to the Cintas arena than SLU students in the Green Forest Apts and the Towers will be to the new SLU arena at the Waring school site, but looking at an XU campus map I believe you are correct.

[Box and Won]

Yeah, the Cintas is literally just on the other side of a small parking lot from most of the XU dorms. If the new arena is built on the Waring School site, it will be a pretty far walk for students living in Fusz or Marguerite (but still not too far). I would guess that when we have an on-campus facility, there will be pre-game festivities, pep rallies, etc. in the new Busch Center that would help draw more students.

I was surprised to see that they sold beer at the Cintas as well. Hopefully A-B products will be available in our new building.