Pensacola...the Perfect Arena for Spectator Sports!

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Pensacola, FL -
When it comes to sports, Pensacola is a major player...they are also a City of Champions, host of amateur and professional tournaments, and a terrific venue for all kinds of athletic competitions. Pensacola's own athletic greats include world heavyweight boxing champion Roy Jones Jr., Arizona Cardinals running back Emmitt Smith, PGA golfer Joe Durant, star baseball pitcher Don Sutton, Tampa Bay Buccaneer linebacker Derrick Brooks, and the player who scored the 2001 World Series winning run, Jay Bell of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Maybe it's the weather, the rolling surf or even the color of the water...but something encourages athletes and sports entusiasts of all kinds to get out there and...play!

Racing at Five Flags Speedway, Ice Pilots hockey, Pelicans baseball, and PGA golf tournaments are just a few of the sports you can enjoy in Pensacola!

Golfing is seen all along the Panhandle of Florida. Saying that there's a myriad of golf courses there would be an understatement, to say the least! Big name courses, designed by big name architects like Robert Trent Jones, seem to be, well...just everywhere! And none finer than the Moors Golf Club, patterned after a links course in Scotland, the very home of golf! The Moors is home to the Blue Angels Classic, a major senior PGA tournament, held this year April 12-18, when Pensacola temperatures are perfect...in other words it's not too HOT!

Northwest Florida is proud of being known as "the home of the Blue Angels" and now there are two events that celebrate that esteemed honor-the Blue Angels airshows, of course, and now the Blue Angels Classic, an official Champion's Tour event. It's a three-day, 54 hole competition, preceded by a two-day Pro-Am and a day of practice rounds. There's a 1.5 million dollar purse but the real winners are the many charities that benefit from this event...a wide variety of non-profit groups which serve health care, education, children's services, the community, the arts and athletics. All in all, the Blue Angels Classic has been a stronghold for the Pensacola area as well as one of the leading charitable organizations in Florida's Northwest Panhandle.For a schedule of events, check out blueangelclassic.com/events

The Pensacola Ice Pilots have been instrumental in bringing another great sport to Northwest Florida...ice hockey... and the fans are lovin' it! The Ice Pilots are part of the East Coast Hockey League and they get down and dirty in "The Hangar" (Pensacola Civic Center) during the fall and winter . The Ice Pilots are coached by Todd Gordon and their home games can be an exciting event with over 8,000 screaming fans in the Pensacola Civic Center. Other fun teams in the Western Conference are the Columbus Cottonmouths (does everyone fear the poisonous cottonmouth snake as much as Southerners do?), the Gwinnett Gladiators, Louisiana Ica Gators (now there's a misnomer), the Augusta Lynx, Mississippi Sea Wolves (huh?) and the Texas Wildcatters! With the proliferation of sports team in every arena, it must be increasingly hard to keep coming up with good names...but hey, it's all about the game and hockey is FUN!

So is racing...and Pensacola has the Five Flags Speedway, which hosts very interesting auto racing competitions, including its annual Snowball Derby now in its 30th year! With nearly 51 years of racing in the books at the historic half-mile oval, Tim Bryant of Bryant Motorsports, LLC, recently announced the 2004 schedule for racing at Five Flags Speedway. Operating under the celebratory theme of "Five Decades of Speed", the new management team made up of the Bryant brothers, Tim, Randy and Rick, along with their father Bill, will guide the speedway in some new directions in hopes of bringing back fans and competitors. A bi-weekly schedule with a handful of special events and a new-and-reduced pricing structure, are at the heart of the Bryant's plan.

Five Flags Speedway has operated every season since opening its gates on May 31, 1953. The first feature race was abbreviated to a one-lap event when fourteen cars piled into each other on the front straightaway. Two weeks later, Herb Thomas won the only NASCAR Grand National (now Nextel Cup) race at the storied oval over Dick Rathman and Lee Petty. For more information and a race schedule, run to fiveflagsspeedway.com.

If you'd rather watch dogs race around a track, Pensacola's got that covered too...the Pensacola Greyhound Track...a great place to catch the thrill of high-speed action-packed greyhound racing. The Kennel Club is fully enclosed and climate controlled when it's too hot to sit outside in the Grandstand or you can enjoy railside seating for a close-up look at the excitement! You'll find fabulous steak or seafood dinners in the Kennel Club with outstnding views of the races...and there's live and instant replay television throughout the complex. Racing begins nightly at 7:00pm, Wednesday thru Saturday and there's matinee racing on Saturday and Sunday starting at 11:30am.

Feel like adopting one of these speedy greyhounds? For a long time now, animal lovers have been discovering what wonderful companions greyhounds make. Intelligent, calm and graceful creatures, greyhounds make uncommonly good household pets. Thriving on love and attention, these good-natured sighthounds reward their owners with a lifetime of unconditional love and affection. It's easy to adopt a greyhound... they all need a good home once their racing career has ended and they will make a lifelong friend to you and your family. They're absolutely fantstic with kids, too! Simply contact the Pensacola Greyhound Track, 850-455-8595 and an adoption counselor will gladly answer any further questions and then introduce you to some of the most loveable creatures on earth. Bringing home a greyhound would certainly be a lifelong memento of your Pensacola vacation...woof!

The newest spectator sport on the Northwest Coast is Baseball, to the delight of visitors of all ages! In 2001 the Southeastern Association of Professional Baseball brought the sport back to Pensacola with the Pensacola Pelicans.

In the middle of the 2002 season, Quint and Rishy Studer bought the Pelicans franchise from the league. The Studers' wanted to make this pastime a fun experience for the fans and right away instituted giveaways and donated a percentage of the proceeds to charity. The Pelicans had a very successful regular season and earned the top spot in the playoffs. Finally, the Pelicans beat the Montgomery Wings in an extra innings victory to win the league championship at home. In 2002, the team boasted the highest attendance figures of the entire league.

In 2003, the Pelicans started their season strong by winning their season opener against the Houma Hawks and went on to become the SEPBL regular season champions. The Pelicans swept the Macon Peaches in the playoffs 2-0 and went on to play the Baton Rouge Riverbats for the championship series. In the end, however, the Riverbats prevailed and the Pelicans lost the series 3-1. But 2004 is another year and the fans are eager to put their support once again firmly behind "their team!" All games are played at Pelican Park, on the campus of the University of West Florida! For more information on the Pelicans, pitch to pensacolapelicans.com.

Most of the area's sports venues include world-class softball and soccer facilities as well as the Pensacola Civic Center, which hosts professional hockey, indoor soccer, and national roller-skating championships. In addition to the many spectator sports, there's also a variety of amateur competitions, runs and tournaments held throughout the year. The Pensacola Sports Association hosts a wide variety of sporting events including Golf, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, and Running. So many in fact, that Pensacola is now known as the "Amateur Sports Capital of Florida" with a refreshing mix of Gulf beaches and Southern hospitality. If you would like to stage your own sporting event in Pensacola, call the Pensacola Sports Association at 850-434-2800 or sport on over to pensacolasports.com. Whether you need fields or fairways, diamonds or ice, Pensacola has the setting for you! Let's PLAY!