Real Salt Lake: A home of their own

During the early stages of stadium site scouting and negotiations, there was talk of building the stadium downtown, something Checketts even admitted was his first choice. It instead was built 15 minutes south in Sandy, but Wingert says he doesn't see that as a drawback at all.

"Even though it's not downtown, here downtown living isn't quite as big as it is in a lot of other cities, so proximity to everything is close to ideal," said Wingert, who grew up outside of New York. "Nobody's going to have a problem getting here, it's right off the highway."

As for construction of Rio Tinto Stadium, it is still ongoing and will continue to be so several more months after the 2008 season. Most of those issues are behind-the-scenes matters like offices and workout facilities. Stadium general manager Mike Steele is proud to say that virtually everything fans touch on Oct. 9 will be 100 percent complete.

The only thing that won't be complete are the south concessions, even though temporary ones will be used instead. Steele doesn't envision it being an issue despite an expected capacity crowd of 20,000 on Thursday.

"All 10 of the other concessions will be open, more than enough. There will be about 92 or 93 points of sale in the permanent concession stands. Everything the fans see and touch will be complete," Steele said.

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E-mail: jedward@desnews.com