Last year, Gretchen Meltzer's team underestimated things. Badly, Meltzer, the direct of catering at Gillette Stadium, said.
In 2008, in the first year that the Men's Lacrosse Championships took place at Gillette - the first time that any lacrosse game at all took place at Gillette, home of the New England Patriots - the caterers planned for about 240 people at the welcome banquet, she said. There were a little under 200 people eating.
"They ate us out of house and home last year," Meltzer said with a laugh. "You watch five plates go by, and then they come back for more."
This year, roughly the same amount of people showed up to the banquet. The caterers planned for 400.
And so ended the first day of action at the 2009 Men's Lacrosse
Championships in Foxborough, Mass. Thursday began with Media Day (a
three-team affair, with Duke's plane coming into Logan late) and ended
with the welcome banquet, featuring hundreds of pounds of brisket,
pulled pork, baked beans, cornbread and cobbler, all finding their ways
into the stomachs - and onto the shirts and, not infrequently, into the
hair - of the four remaining teams in Division I men's lacrosse.
Officially, the food poundage totals are off the record, Meltzer said.
The adjustments to the cuisine are just a part of the stadium-wide tweaking that the Kraft Group - the owners of the Patriots and Gillette Stadium - undertook to make sure that this year's Championships follow up on the promise of last year's attendance-record-setting Memorial Day Weekend, according to tournament director Phil Buttafuoco.
It's become a point of assumption that the Championships' second year at a location is the masterpiece, the result of a year of planning, of lessons learned and of caterers shaken out of shell-shock. The three-day event outdraws every single NCAA Championship except for the years in which the D-I Men's Basketball Championship is played outdoors, so faults do slip into first-year efforts, no matter how Kraftian.
"Cornell won the first-ever NCAA championship in 1971," he said. "They played in front of 5,000 fans. Now, we've got 45,000 fans in attendance."
Even at Gillette, under the guidance of an organization that's overseen a near-perfect NFL season, a Patriot sellout streak of 157 games (every game since the Krafts took over in 1994) and the metamorphosis of Randy Moss from altered state to altar boy (albeit one that's faster than summer), 2008 - a year in which a number of attendance records were set - left some room for improvement, Buttafuoco said.
So, in 2009, the organizers focused on hospitality.
"We really took a look, in addition to the things on the field and in the stadium, we took a look to see what we can do to make the fans feel more welcome," Buttafuoco said.
There'll be free concerts. Lots of them, before and after games on every day of the weekend, at Patriot Plaza. Along with the events, there'll be what Buttafuoco calls a 'hospitality village,' giving the fans a place to meet and share in the joy of the sport before, after and during games.
But for all the differences in the stadium, the teams on the field look a whole lot like the ones that battled in the inaugural championships at Gillette. Three of them - Virginia, Duke and defending national champs Syracuse - are making return trips.
And the only new faces, Cornell, looked a little out of place. In a room full of teams and coaches in warm-ups and reporters in shorts, the Big Red showed up in suits.
"I guess you don't feel as comfortable as the teams coming back," joked Jonathan Kraft, president of the Kraft Group, about Cornell during his speech. "You're all in shirts and ties. I don't want you guys to feel intimidated. Welcome to our stadium. You guys look like you're gonna meet with Coach Belichick today and get dressed down."
Belichick, the Annapolis-born lifelong lacrosse player and fan who spoke during last year's banquet, didn't present this year. But, Kraft said, the coach will be roaming the sidelines all weekend long, just like he did last year.
"I think the only reason that Bill coaches football and not lacrosse is that you can't yet make a steady paycheck coaching lacrosse," Kraft said. "You can in football. I'm serious. I wouldn't be surprised if one day you found him teaching history and coaching lacrosse at some D-III school."
Officially, the food poundage totals are off the record, Meltzer said.
The adjustments to the cuisine are just a part of the stadium-wide tweaking that the Kraft Group - the owners of the Patriots and Gillette Stadium - undertook to make sure that this year's Championships follow up on the promise of last year's attendance-record-setting Memorial Day Weekend, according to tournament director Phil Buttafuoco.
It's become a point of assumption that the Championships' second year at a location is the masterpiece, the result of a year of planning, of lessons learned and of caterers shaken out of shell-shock. The three-day event outdraws every single NCAA Championship except for the years in which the D-I Men's Basketball Championship is played outdoors, so faults do slip into first-year efforts, no matter how Kraftian.
"Cornell won the first-ever NCAA championship in 1971," he said. "They played in front of 5,000 fans. Now, we've got 45,000 fans in attendance."
Even at Gillette, under the guidance of an organization that's overseen a near-perfect NFL season, a Patriot sellout streak of 157 games (every game since the Krafts took over in 1994) and the metamorphosis of Randy Moss from altered state to altar boy (albeit one that's faster than summer), 2008 - a year in which a number of attendance records were set - left some room for improvement, Buttafuoco said.
So, in 2009, the organizers focused on hospitality.
"We really took a look, in addition to the things on the field and in the stadium, we took a look to see what we can do to make the fans feel more welcome," Buttafuoco said.
There'll be free concerts. Lots of them, before and after games on every day of the weekend, at Patriot Plaza. Along with the events, there'll be what Buttafuoco calls a 'hospitality village,' giving the fans a place to meet and share in the joy of the sport before, after and during games.
But for all the differences in the stadium, the teams on the field look a whole lot like the ones that battled in the inaugural championships at Gillette. Three of them - Virginia, Duke and defending national champs Syracuse - are making return trips.
And the only new faces, Cornell, looked a little out of place. In a room full of teams and coaches in warm-ups and reporters in shorts, the Big Red showed up in suits.
"I guess you don't feel as comfortable as the teams coming back," joked Jonathan Kraft, president of the Kraft Group, about Cornell during his speech. "You're all in shirts and ties. I don't want you guys to feel intimidated. Welcome to our stadium. You guys look like you're gonna meet with Coach Belichick today and get dressed down."
Belichick, the Annapolis-born lifelong lacrosse player and fan who spoke during last year's banquet, didn't present this year. But, Kraft said, the coach will be roaming the sidelines all weekend long, just like he did last year.
"I think the only reason that Bill coaches football and not lacrosse is that you can't yet make a steady paycheck coaching lacrosse," Kraft said. "You can in football. I'm serious. I wouldn't be surprised if one day you found him teaching history and coaching lacrosse at some D-III school."
Even at Gillette, under the guidance of an organization that's overseen a near-perfect NFL season, a Patriot sellout streak of 157 games (every game since Gillette opened in 1994)
Gillete opened in 2002, not 1994
Wow, yeah. Sorry about that one -- meant when the Krafts took over...which it says now. Thanks, Jon!