The Inside LacrosseBig City Classic was an annual college lacrosse triple-header event played in East Rutherford, New Jersey from 2009 to 2013. It was held at first at Giants Stadium and then MetLife Stadium, the home fields of the NFL's New York Giants and New York Jets and is sponsored by the Baltimore-based magazine, Inside Lacrosse .
College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercolliegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
East Rutherford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 8,913, reflecting an increase of 197 (+2.3%) from the 8,716 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 814 (+10.3%) from the 7,902 counted in the 1990 Census. It is an inner-ring suburb of New York City, located 7 miles (11 km) west of Midtown Manhattan.
Giants Stadium was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue had been open between 1976 and 2010, and it primarily hosted sporting events and concerts in its history. The maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The structure itself was 756 feet (230 m) long, 592 feet (180 m) wide and 144 feet (44 m) high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 178 feet (54 m) high to the top of the south tower. The volume of the stadium was 64,500,000 cubic feet (1,830,000 m3), and 13,500 tons of structural steel were used in the building process while 29,200 tons of concrete were poured. It was owned and operated by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA). The stadium's field was aligned northwest to southeast, with the press box along the southwest sideline.
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The inaugural edition took place on April 4, 2009 at Giants Stadium, and featured six teams that possessed a combined 67 NCAA tournament semifinals appearances and 24 NCAA championships. One of the participants, Syracuse, was the defending national championship team. [1]
The Syracuse Orange men's lacrosse team represents Syracuse University in NCAA Division I men's college lacrosse. The Orange have won 15 national championship titles, and currently compete as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference men's lacrosse conference. Syracuse plays its home games at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York.
The 2009 Big City Classic set the attendance record for a regular season lacrosse-only event with 22,308 spectators. This exceeded the previous-record 20,130 fans that attended the 2007 Face-Off Classic in Baltimore, and also surpassed the expected crowd of 15,000 to 20,000. In 2008, 29,601 fans attended the Ohio State–Denver lacrosse match, but it also featured a spring football scrimmage, and therefore was not a lacrosse-only event. [2] The second Big City Classic in 2010 was the inaugural event at MetLife Stadium (then New Meadowlands Stadium) and featured the same six teams and broke last years attendance mark, with 25,710 attending. [3]
The Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic is an annual college lacrosse event played in Baltimore, Maryland early in the NCAA Division I season. From 2007 to 2009, the event consisted of a doubleheader; in 2010 it was expanded to include a third game. The event takes place in M&T Bank Stadium, the home field of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, and it was first held 2007. The event is hosted by the manufacturer Konica Minolta. The inaugural Face-Off Classic in 2007 set the attendance record for a regular season lacrosse-only event with 20,130 spectators. That was broken by the 2009 Big City Classic. The event was not held in 2014.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are the athletic teams that represent Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The athletic programs are named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and after the state tree, the Ohio Buckeye. The Buckeyes participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I in all sports and the Big Ten Conference in most sports. The Ohio State women's ice hockey team competes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). The school colors are scarlet and gray. Ohio State's mascot is Brutus Buckeye.
The Denver Pioneers are the sports teams of the University of Denver (DU). They play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Denver is a member of The Summit League for men's and women's basketball, swimming and diving, men's and women's soccer, tennis and golf for both men and women, plus women's volleyball. Other DU teams play in various conferences in the sports that are not sponsored by The Summit. The men's ice hockey team is a charter member of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC), which formed in 2011 with play beginning in 2013. The lacrosse teams for men and women are members of the Big East Conference; the men began Big East play in the 2013–14 school year, while the women left the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) after the 2016 lacrosse season. Men's and women's skiing compete in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association, while the women's gymnastics team became an affiliate of the Big 12 Conference starting with the 2015–16 season.
There was a shakeup in the lineup for the 2011 classic as only Syracuse and UNC remained in the lineup. In order to attract a more local audience, the first game featured New Jersey-based Rutgers and St. John's, which is located in New York City. Johns Hopkins joined the lineup, playing North Carolina, and Duke played in the nightcap against Syracuse. This change did not greatly affect the attendance, however, as 25,145 arrived for the games.
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights men's lacrosse team represents Rutgers University main campus in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college lacrosse. The program first started at the varsity level in 1887. The coach is currently Brian Brecht, who is in his eighth year at that position and who joined Rutgers after previously coaching at Siena College. The team plays its home games at High Point Solutions Stadium. On July 1, 2014, Rutgers joined the Big Ten Conference in all sports.
The St. John's Red Storm is the nickname used for the 16 varsity athletic programs of St. John's University, in the U.S. state of New York. St. John's 16 NCAA Division I teams compete in the Big East Conference, with the exception of the fencing team, which compete in the ECAC. On December 15, 2012, St. John's and the other six Catholic, non-FBS schools announced that they were departing the former Big East for a new conference. The "Catholic 7", after purchasing the "Big East" name from the FBS schools and adding Butler, Creighton, and Xavier, began operating as the new Big East Conference beginning in July 2013.
The Johns Hopkins Blue Jays men's lacrosse team represents Johns Hopkins University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college lacrosse. Starting in 2015, the Blue Jays have represented the Big Ten Conference.
The 2012 Big City classic once again has a lineup change, as Rutgers will not return to the event, having lost to St. John's 9-8 in the 2011 game. They will be replaced by Notre Dame, making their Classic debut. The games took place on April 1, 2012.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's lacrosse team represents the University of Notre Dame in NCAA Division I men's college lacrosse. Notre Dame competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference and plays its home games at Arlotta Family Lacrosse Stadium or the indoor Loftus Sports Center before it is warm enough outside each season, in Notre Dame, Indiana.
