08-17-2018, 05:31 PM
(08-17-2018, 07:49 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: I look at this like if I were to work at an office in a crazy cool building with a gym, rooftop lounge, modern design, outstanding cafeteria or just at an old building with a cramped desk like in "Office Space".
I have serious envy of this new facility.
From Peter King on PFT.com:
EAGEN, Minn. — In 1995, the Jacksonville Jaguars spent $121 million to build a shiny new stadium close to downtown, using some parts of the old Gator Bowl structure.
Some 23 years later, the Minnesota Vikings spent $140 million to build a training facility.
The Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, a training and team office complex on the east side of Minneapolis, joins The Star (Dallas’ complex) as NFL training kingpins and overtakes Seattle’s beautiful facility on a lake south of downtown. It includes:
• Four grass practice fields (two heated), an 6,500-seat outdoor stadium where the Vikings can scrimmage and where local high schools are booking games, and an indoor facility with a ceiling high enough to avoid punts hitting it.
• A stand-up three-person Cryotherapy chamber, where players go for three-minute treatments to alleviate muscle pain and inflammation and improve blood flow. Some players, like tight end Kyle Rudolph, go twice a day.
The cafeteria menu at the TCO Performance Center. (Peter King/NBC Sports)
• A cafeteria that does not contain an ounce of junk. Last Wednesday, for lunch, you could have had a cup of pinto bean stew, and a plate of grilled Arctic char, bulgar lentil pilaf, grilled asparagus and a spinach/kale/beet salad.
• A outdoor sand pit for rehab and training for all leg injuries and leg fitness.
• A pool room. Here, there are three pools: a cold pool, a whirlpool, and a pool with a treadmill with a sort of elevator; the lower you’re dipped in the pool, the most energy you expend while running or walking on the treadmill. On the end are several more traditional single-person ice tubs.
• A draft room/personnel meeting room with rising auditorium seating that is so advanced that … well, I was shown the room off-the-record, so I can’t talk about the specifics. But it’s other-worldly. Very 2032.
One more thing: The locker room has fireplaces.
“I feel like there’s no place in the United States that has a facility so well-designed to take care of the players,” Rudolph told me. “No pro team. No college team—and college teams are in an arms race with those facilities they have. No national-team training center. Usually in the off-season I go to Newport Beach for six to eight weeks to work out and live. It’s 75 degrees. Every day’s perfect. But this year I stayed here.”
Where, presumably, every day was perfect inside this nirvana of a facility.
Sounds like heaven, as long as there are brewskies.
Zim must be loving life.
