Utica may have become a hockey town the last two weeks as the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship played out at the Adirondack Bank Center, but professional soccer had a moment, too, on Thursday evening.
Three members of the Utica City Football Club −mid-fielder and forward Gordy Gurson, goalie Julian Rodriguez and midfielder Ricardo Orozco − faced off over a foosball game in the Subaru World Championship Village along with Gurson’s son Enid, 8.
The village is set up inside and outside the former Audilicious building and features a German-style biergarten indoors, a variety of sports-based games and challenges both indoors and outside, live music and a Ferris wheel.
Asked whether soccer or foosball is harder, Gurson and Rodriguez said soccer. Enid, already a soccer player himself, agreed.
Gurson had been outside earlier, manning a goal net the football club had set up in the village so that visitors could try shooting a goal through a hole between the legs of a canvas goalie. He interacted with kids as they took shot after shot.
The footballers did find time to get into the hockey spirit as well, watching the game between Team USA and Finland on. They even started an “iconic” wave during the game, they said.
“It was fun, coming here, watching, being a regular supporter,” Rodriguez said.
Soccer and hockey are really similar, including the vibe in the crowd at a game, Gurson said. “I feel like the fans that support the (Utica) Comets support us as well,” he added.
A super fan
Gaetano Morreale, 30, took shot after shot with a hockey puck Thursday evening trying to land the puck in an open clothes dryer. A top-loading washing machine sat next to the dryer in an outdoor village activity dubbed the laundry shoot challenge.
Killing time before the USA-Japan game later that evening, Morreale admitted that the challenge is a lot harder than he thought it would be. The East Utica resident considered himself a hockey fan before the tournament, mostly rooting for the Pioneers of Utica University, his alma mater.
But after watching two earlier games in the tournament, he’s found his interest in hockey boosted to a new level and now has all kinds of questions about power plays, penalty strikes and other intricacies of the game, he said.
Morreale has dressed up for the evening’s game in a Team USA jersey and red, white and blue face paint in a flag pattern. “I figured I wanted to go out for Team USA,” he said. “The other day, I went all out for…
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