My visit to MC Posted on November 1, 2025 at 03:57:18 PM by Jim
First time ever at the place, and I was surprised a several things, most of which may not be interesting…here goes.
I’m in town for a big bowling tournament, and Friday night was open, and I thought it would be cool to go watch the battle court playoffs. Came in at the start of Zulaika and Arta vs. Benetrix and Benny. Some great points and all around play..better than I envisioned, but clearly, they are all experienced.
Next up, Jaden and Bradley vs. Kubala and I forget his new name, but it’s Tennessee. Huge difference in pace of pelota speed and play. Jaden was way, way off. Kubala and Tennessee easily won and didn’t have to do much, as Jaden was very aggravated in his play, understandably so. As majorly and athletically built as he is, his left side power seemed very slow and his movement as well.
Later on, singles and Zulaika vs, Nicholas. A great comeback for Nicholas to win second set, then Zulaika completely took over in throwing four consecutive remate cold winners. Never seen that before, ever.
Now about the court. Me being experienced in architecture and structural supports, if you look close…and I’m surprised no one ever mentioned this, the entire court, except the floor, is actually! It could all be removed and transferred somewhere should it ever need be…maybe to Miami? Interesting. All three walls basically sit on a support system, anchored below and heavily above to the intricate metal framing above. Even more interesting, if you stand behind the front wall and walk over to the side wall, you can see all the way through that wall system. attached to the floor and the all the upper metal framing. Pretty cool. When a player slams into the side wall, you can feel the wall system shake.
Rostock said hello to me while judging and asked if it was my first time, to which I said yes, and that I thought the setup was very very cool. While I prefer traditional jai alai, the overall play was really good.
One con, though. The announcing audio on the premises is very poor. You can’t hear anything he is saying, and there seems to be a pretty heavy echo making it worse. It was not the music in between points that made it hard to hear him. You couldn’t even hear him during the points or after the points were over.
Still, though, I would say the whole essence was actually really better than I thought it would be. And the pace and the play was very good, and Zulaika looked extremely good. Etcheberry is better than I remember from Dania, too. He’s definitely improved and not so erratic. Replies:
Tiger's Jai-Alai Chalk Talk
