Stanford Maples Pavilion — Attraction in Palo Alto

It's a clean, fairly modern facility, complete with oversized screens displaying game stats that you'd expect at a tech-heavy school like Stanford. It's also fairly small--in overall size, and in some important component dimensions--to the point that the bleacher seating is really incompatible with the legs of anyone over about 5'6". I've sat in quite a few bleachers over the years, and rarely was ever this cramped.

The fans were fairly polite and respectful, and whirled their towels enthusiastically on occasion. Still, and it may very well have been the holiday break timing, the level of energy didn't approach that of other college arenas I've been to. There was no discernable student seating area, complete with its typical raucous energy; there was no band; and there were no yell/cheer leaders. It felt subdued. I'd be interested in attending a conference game, when there aren't competing holidays, to see if the...

Home-y feeling pavilion for multiple sports and student events. The entrance is a bit confusing as there are multiple entrances that some do the same thing as others, but not all. They should really figure out their student section though... all the students get up and leave with 20 minutes left just to get Stanford free items, but there is a line of students outside that didn't even go into the event. Would make a lot more sense and be safer to have someone scan the IDs of remaining students in the student section and have them get their items later instead of giving out free stuff to students that didn't even show up. This also caused a rather unsafe stampede outside the arena of students when the students who remained in came out at the end and were forced into the middle...

Surprisingly easy enough to get there and park. Its nice inside although the spacing between the permanent bleechers is way too narrow only one person can walk at a time. Funny thing happened while we watched Stanford mens basketball game, one of the baskets was damaged, so they brought out 2 roll out baskets to finish the game. So my view of the center video screen was not blocked by the upper basketball support. Getting out was pretty easy too. 4 because the food an exits, and restrooms were crammed all at one end...