Tribeca Film Festival Family St. Fair (Part II)

From Washington Market Park, we walked over to Duane St to check out the Tribeca ESPN Sports Film Festival section of the fair. The guys from the American Express Guest Information booth told us that we should totally check out the Dave Voelker BMX Stunt Show that will be starting soon, so we hurried over there to check it out.

The Tribeca ESPN Sports Film Festival section must be one of the more popular sections at the fair. All of the major NY/NJ pro sports teams had booths with all kinds of games, sports clinics, celebrity appearances as well as meet the fans sessions. Among some of the big names represented were the NY Giants, NY Jets, NY Knicks, NY Rangers, NY Red Bulls, Brooklyn Cyclones and of course, the boys from our neighborhood, the Newark Bears :P

When we arrived, we realized that we were a little bit early and the BMX show has yet to begin. In fact, they were just starting to set up. So, we decided to walk around to check out the booths first. This is a cute little play section sponsored by ESPN. There were all kinds of bouncy balls in all sizes as well as hula hoops for the kids to play with. Oh how I wished I was still a kid. Looks like they were all having such a great time, just bouncing around!

The folks from the NY Knicks booth were having some sort of hoops shooting competition for kids and the winners walked away with some cool NY Knicks merchandise. Nice! Apart from having competitions, they also had quite a few hands on basketball clinics by basketball pros through out the day.

A large crowd was gathering at the NY Knicks booth and we were wondered what was going on. So, we made our way over there to check out the scene. Looks like the Knicks City Dancers were giving out autographs and having a meet and greet session with their fans. Geeezzz...all this commotion just to get autographs from a bunch of cheerleaders??? I wonder what will happen when the real basketball pros come out. I bet it will be a mad house!

They also had quite a number of this big bouncy things all over the ESPN sports section. This particular one is sponsored by the NY Jets. It was quite fun to see the kids running and bouncing through the 'big guys', trying to make it to the end zone and go for that touchdown. :D

The NY Rangers also had quite a lot going on at their booth. They too had those big bouncy things and little kids would try and score a goal by hitting an over sized puck into the goal. The bigger kids had a chance to try their hand at box hockey. The first guy to hit the puck into the goal wins. The NY Rangers also set up a street hockey rink where there were clinics as well as competitions through out the day. While we were there, they were just getting ready and suiting up the kids ( I think they should be about 3-4 years old) for a game. We didn't stay for the game though, should have. They were so cute. The goal keeper was so padded up, I didn't think that he could even walk!

Ahhh the NY Red Bulls booth. It's actually quite sad and pathetic to see the lack of interest for the game among Americans. All the other major league booths were filled with people but nobody really cared for the only MLS team that was represented that day. In fact, they didn't even get a spot in the main sports section. They were out over by themselves, outside of the sports section. Hopefully America does well in the upcoming World Cup (actually, maybe not too well. they are in the same grouping as England and I'm an England fan!). Maybe Americans will start to take notice and give soccer a chance if Team USA shines at the World Cup. Who knows. Anyways, from the Tribeca ESPN Sports Film Festival section, we headed off towards Greenwich St (which is the main section of the whole festival). Will blog more about that next!