{"id":34527,"date":"2021-07-02T13:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=34527"},"modified":"2021-07-02T13:31:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T17:31:53","slug":"colorado-rapids-full-capacity-dsg-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2021\/07\/02\/colorado-rapids-full-capacity-dsg-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Rapids are Prepared and Excited for Full Capacity DSG Park on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>COMMERCE CITY, Colo.<\/strong> &#8211; For the first time since the home opener last season, the Colorado Rapids <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coloradorapids.com\/news\/dick-s-sporting-goods-park-to-operate-at-full-capacity-starting-july-4\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">will play a match<\/a> with a full capacity DSG Park. On Sunday, they host Seattle Sounders in their traditional 4th of July game. Social distancing-pod seating is gone. The C38 tailgate is back. Fireworks are back. Potentially 18,000 Pids supporters will be back.<\/p>\n<h2>Colorado Rapids Prepared, Excited for Full Capacity DSG Park<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re incredibly excited to be welcoming the fans back in full on the 4th of July. This is something we&#8217;ve been looking forward to since March 13th of last year [the 2020 home opener, last game with a full capacity DSG Park],&#8221; Executive Vice President and General Manager Padraig Smith told Last Word.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">For the first time since 2011, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Rapids96?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Rapids96<\/a> are not playing a home game on July 4th. They played on Sunday the 3rd against Houston that year.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time in their history they do not have a home game on the 4th or the weekend of.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Matt Pollard (@LWOSMattPollard) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LWOSMattPollard\/status\/1279511536231346176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 4, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As exciting as this is for the players, staff, and supporters, it will need to be executed well. Keep in mind, the Rapids had one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in American Sports <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2020\/10\/07\/colorado-rapids-season-covid-outbreak\/\" target=\"_self\">last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They went a month without playing a game between late September and October. Five games got canceled. Drew Moor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2020\/10\/23\/drew-moor-rapids-player-coach-covid\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">almost served<\/a> as a player-coach for a game with the entire coaching staff testing positive.<\/p>\n<p>Last Word can confirm that the CDPHE did a thorough review and they could not find the source of the outbreak or any protocol violations that started it.<\/p>\n<p>The game day stadium staff are prepared for &#8216;normal&#8217; match, Smith elaborated:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re fortunate that we are part of one of the largest sports groups in the world [KSE]. We can share knowledge and resources across the group. With venue specialists, it puts us in a strong position to make sure we&#8217;re doing this the right way. The health and safety of everyone involved whether it&#8217;s the supporters, staff players, media is the priority. Doing this the right way was always the number one goal. We have a strong relationship with the local health authorities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Within KSE, the Nuggets and Avalanche had reduced capacity crowds for their home playoff games in the indoor Ball Arena. A healthy relationship with the local and state health authorities going back to last year will prove valuable as the club welcomes back supporters to a safe stadia environment, that also makes them feel safe.<\/p>\n<p>Head Coach Robin Fraser is excited to have a larger crowd, allowing the Rapids to feed off that energy. How important could that be against the Sounders, who are the only undefeated team left in MLS?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Critically important. We feed off their energy. We&#8217;ve experienced that (on the road recently). It&#8217;ll be even better to have that atmosphere supporting us and driving us forward,&#8221; said Fraser.<\/p>\n<p>A potential sellout crowd could have even more significance, as the Rapids will welcome back former player and coach, Pablo Mastroeni, who&#8217;s #25 is <a href=\"https:\/\/denver.cbslocal.com\/2021\/05\/28\/pablo-mastroeni-colorado-rapids-jersey\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">set to be retired<\/a> after the match along with the firework show on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo Credit: Mark Shaiken, Last Word on Soccer. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COMMERCE CITY, Colo. &#8211; For the first time since the home opener last season, the Colorado Rapids will play a match with a full capacity DSG Park. On Sunday, they host Seattle Sounders in their traditional 4th of July game. Social distancing-pod seating is gone. The C38 tailgate is back. Fireworks are back. Potentially 18,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1044,"featured_media":34528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,119,22],"tags":[1107,319,773,3057],"class_list":["post-34527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rapids","category-mls","category-sounders","tag-dicks-sporting-goods-park","tag-pablo-mastroeni","tag-padraig-smith","tag-robin-fraser"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}