|  Wys³any: 2019-02-27 07:07:14 Temat postu: 36 in April. He didnt manage a point on
MINNEAPOLIS - The Minnesota Vikings have been in transition all year.Rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater is learning on the job. Coach Mike Zimmer is shaping his new teams mindset. Dave Mansell is making sure a 970-foot steel roof truss will be in place on time and within budget, along with tens of thousands of other tasks.Whatever happens on the field this season and next will ultimately be a mere speck on the horizon of this franchises 54-year history. The stadium under construction, set for completion in the summer of 2016 as the next NFL venue to open, will become just as much of an icon for the Vikings as any player or coach.With the Vikings playing a couple of miles away at the University of Minnesota, the modern-style stadium has begun to rise. It will feature giant glass front doors, a see-through roof and a sharp-angled asymmetrical shape not-so-vaguely resembling the ships that once carried the original Vikings across the seas of northern Europe.The yet-to-be-named, 65,000-seat facility will look like nothing else in the league when its finished.When they walk through that bowl, theyre going to be like, Holy wow, said Mansell, the general superintendent for Mortensen Construction, the local company hired to build the stadium over 1.75 million gross square feet with a total price tag of a bit over $1 billion.Mansell managed construction for several other sports venues around town and around the country, at the request of Allen Troshinsky, the vice-president of operations for Mortensens sports group. They have taken the plans devised by the architects led by Bryan Trubey at HKS in Dallas, the firm that designed AT&T Stadium for the Cowboys and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for the Colts.These guys are used to big, high-tech and bold.This one, though, is headed for the front of the portfolio.The job is just awesome. It sort of exceeds the experience that almost anybody working out here has ever had, said John Wood, a Mortensen senior vice-president who oversees the sports group. Its the biggest project ever built in the state of Minnesota, and so for almost all of us its the biggest thing weve ever done in our careers.The blueprints Mansell and his seven lieutenants inherited came from Trubey and his team, the result of extensive cultural and climatological research.This, after all is Minnesota, where the Vikings were forced out of their previous home at the end of the 2010 season following a massive snowstorm that toppled the Metrodome roof. All those fancy features are useless if the stadium isnt functional through the winter.The pitch of the roof will be steep so the snow doesnt pile up. The peak will be more than 300 feet, about 30 stories, above the field. The building will be largely translucent to match the citys pattern of design. The stadium will feature five 95-foot-tall pivoting glass doors facing the skyscrapers of the central business district and sunlight over the entire playing field. The south half of the roof will be built with the largest span of ETFE in the nation, a lightweight, glass-like substance formally called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene.The multi-purpose facility, which will host the Super Bowl in 2018, also has landed the NCAA mens basketball Final Four for 2019. In addition to college basketball, it also was designed to host major soccer, college baseball, concerts and any number of other events year round.A striking, modern, very progressive, edgy building, Trubey said. Its a very future-oriented culture there.Before the future arrives, there is much work to be done. But not out of panic.Mortensens on-time record has helped the companys sports group flourish, with major venues in Denver, Kansas City, Memphis and many other locations beyond Minnesota. This is the result of careful, confident planning, ever more important with the standards of such buildings increasingly cutting edge and complicated.To try to rush it, it would only lead to safety and quality issues, Troshinsky said. So as often as youre encouraging people forward, sometimes youve got to pull those reins back too so they dont get ahead of their skis.Mansells workdays are often 12 hours. Hes a blunt-speaking busybody more comfortable next to machines than in meetings. Still, his hardhat sits idle on Sundays.Were here to make a living to support our families and it doesnt do us any good if were not with our families, he said, adding: We dont plan these jobs seven days a week. When you go by these construction sites and theyre working seven days a week, I guarantee you its a train wreck.The number of workers on site these days is around 750. Many of them will come back to watch a game in a couple of years. Troshinsky and Mansell always enjoy opening days with their families, but theyre hardly regulars in the seats. Looking around can sometimes feel too much like work.We didnt do it on our own, boy, Mansell said. It takes a lot of dedicated men and women showing up here every day to do the grind right alongside us.___AP NFL websites: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/DaveCampbellAP Matt Wieters Jersey . - Aroldis Chapman, with two black eyes, has returned to the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse four days after being hit in the face by a line drive. Cheap Nationals Jerseys China . He had spent 16 days on the disabled list before being activated Thursday. He was batting just .203 when he came to bat in the 11th inning on Sunday. http://www.cheapnationalsjerseys.com/. Switzerland faces Belgium or Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals in April. Serbia dropped into the World Group playoffs in September. A confident Chiudinelli and Lammer defeated veteran doubles player Zimonjic and young Krajinovic 7-6 (3), 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2. Cheap Nationals Jerseys . Leaning forward with both hands on his knees, Buffon appeared to be resting or somehow trying to withstand the rain. Or perhaps the 36-year-old goalkeeper and Italy captain was reflecting on this: He is only the third player in history to be part of five World Cup squads, along with Germany great Lothar Matthaus and former Mexico goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal. Howie Kendrick Jersey .Carla Fontes hadnt cut her hair since intermediate school, but her coach at Waiakea High School, Stan Haraguchi, thought the locks flowing below her waist were interfering with the sport. MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Defending champion Kei Nishikori of Japan rallied to beat Russian Alex Bogomolov Jr. 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the semifinals of the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships on Friday. The top-seeded Nishikori will next play 35-year-old American Michael Russell, who upset third-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia 6-3, 7-6 (6) in another quarterfinal match. Bogomolov broke Nishikori for a 3-2 lead in the second set only to drop his next two service games and lose the set. In the third, Nishikori fought off three break points to hold serve and broke Bogomolov in consecutive games to take a 5-2 lead. "Obviously, he was playing really well, I thought," Nishikori said. "He was hitting ball really flat and deep and wasnt making mistakes, especially from the beginning he was very aggressive. I wasnt maybe playing 100 per cent." Fourth-seeded Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan beat American qualifier Alex Kuznetsov 6-1, 6-4 in another match and will next face either Jack Sock or Ivo Karlovic, who play later Friday. Russell needed nearly two hours to finish off the former world No. 1 Hewitt. He was broken after double-faulting twice whhile serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set and also failed to convert a couple of match points in the tiebreaker before finally closing it out.dddddddddddd "Every time we play its a battle," Russell said. "Its kind of the mentality knowing, Yeah, youre serving it out. But this guy has a really good return. And vice versa the same thing when hes serving." Russell is the second-oldest player ranked in the top 100 behind Tommy Haas, who will turn 36 in April. He didnt manage a point on his serve while trying to close out the match at 5-4. He then went up 6-4 in the tiebreaker but hit a forehand into the net on his first match point. Hewitt fought off a second match point with a brilliant forehand down the line to level the breaker at 6-all. But the Australian hit a forehand wide and then a return long to allow Russell to advance to just his third ATP Tour semifinal. "My rhythm on my serve wasnt there," Hewitt said. "I was feeling my shoulder a little bit and just couldnt hit my spots. So that was putting me under a lot of pressure then, and he makes a lot of balls and makes you play a lot." ' ' ' |
36 in April. He didnt manage a point on
