Recent comments in /f/RhodeIsland

101955Bennu t1_jder1ic wrote

Reply to Pawtucket hits brakes on public borrowing for soccer stadium amid financial headwinds by Rogue-Island-Pirate

Rhode Island is the 14th best soccer market in the country, and soccer, per a 2021 Gallup poll, is the fastest growing team sport in the nation. Baseball, meanwhile, is the fastest declining. The team has already set USL records for season ticket deposits. The city and state chose this development over the PawSox because this offered a lot more to the city and state in terms of private funding in addition to public funding.

Everyone here seems eager to immediately get angry and dismiss this out of hand. “No one cares about soccer”, they’ll say, or “we should have kept the PawSox.” But the numbers disagree, and I think once the team gets going even more people will see the value in having a team in the fastest growing sport in the US at the heart of the largest urban revitalization project in Pawtucket’s history.

If you don’t like soccer, that’s fine. But there’s a lot of Rhode Islanders who do, and I’m choosing to embody Rhode Island’s motto of “Hope”. And this stadium doesn’t have to be limited to RIFC. The USL is forming a women’s professional soccer league, the Super League, and certainly an XFL or USFL team could end up calling the stadium home as well. This is a hopeful development for the city and the state. I honestly can’t even begin to convey how excited I am for it.

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PlayTriviaLA t1_jdejuod wrote

Reply to What is something or someone from Rhode Island that people from other states would recognize? by so-unobvious

Having grown up and lived 20+ years in RI and then moving to Los Angeles for work for the last 10… most of the things that are “Rhode Island Famous” are things than no one outside of New England have ever heard of.

I have had to explain to people many times…

  • what coffee milk is
  • what chouriço and linguiça are
  • what a little neck is
  • that Narragansett is a real beer named for a real place in RI
  • the Big Blue Bug
  • what the difference is between New England and Rhode Island clam chowder is and that Manhattan / red chowder is not really a thing in RI
  • the Station Night Club Fire
  • Waterfire
  • Dell’s
  • Dunkin Donuts, even though it is originally from MA, is everywhere in RI
  • that TF green is actually not in Providence
  • that Stop and Shop is a grocery store
  • that Papa Gino’s is a pizza chain
  • the Mr. Potato Heads
  • that the state is small by area, but in reality, it’s a fairly long drive from Warren to Connecticut, never mind driving all the way to Boston or worse, New York 🫠
  • that RI is, in fact, the smallest state by land area and not Delaware like they usually insist even though I’m a trivia writer and host from RI
  • that Rhode Island is an island within the State of Rhode Island, it’s just that everyone calls it Aquidneck Island
  • that the name was “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”, the longest state name, for the above reason, and that while “plantations” obviously has connotations of slavery, that when the name was used, it was commonly used to refer to any newly established settlement, not a large farm that used slaves from Africa…
  • that RI was the first to declare independence and the first to attack GB openly (Gaspee Affair) long before the rest of the colonies and the last to ratify the constitution—RI was basically coerced into joining the US by the other 12 colonies
  • “wicked” and that’s it’s not just a Boston thing and that you don’t say just “wicked”, it has to come before other value words like “good,” or “bad,” or “fucking annoying”.
  • buying milk and bread before it snows
  • “no school fostah-glostah” —I only include this one because I actually MET someone from Glocester recently at a trivia game and said this and he looked at me like I had spoken Klingon.

RI things most people actually have heard of—at least out here in LA—include:

  • Buddy Cianci—at least if they listen to a lot of crime podcasts.
  • Brown
  • RISD
  • URI for some sports
  • PC (basketball mostly)
  • Newport
  • RI International Film Festival (it’s a qualifying festival to receive Oscar nominations)
  • Family Guy / Quahog (thinking it’s a real town)
  • The Breakers
  • Holiday House / Harkness House because of Taylor Swift
  • H. P. Lovecraft

Things people think they have heard of from RI that are not from RI:

  • ESPN —because they assume when I say I’m from “Bristol” that it’s the same place as Bristol, Connecticut
  • “Oh, I love Long Island!” 🙄
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