Vikings hold official opening for Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center

Even though the Minnesota Vikings have been making use of the new Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center in Eagan since April, the team held their official opening for the new facility today.

Numerous luminaries were on hand, as was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Goodell seemed to really like the new digs that the Vikings replaced the old facilities at Winter Park with.

He called the TCO Performance Center a “special place” and said the “community is going to rally around this type of development.” Much of area is still being developed. The finished product will include a hotel and conference center and residential and retail development.

“(Goodell) came here and he was, as everybody who’s visited for the first time, extremely impressed,” Mark Wilf said after the ceremony. “I think this sets a new bar for state-of-the-art practice facilities in the NFL, and really in the world.”

Former Vikings’ coach Bud Grant also seemed to like the new place, declaring that he was “born 50 years too soon.” Coach Grant, who was on a motorized scooter because of a bad back, will have an office in Eagan as he did at Winter Park.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune writer Sid Hartman was also on hand, and the Vikings honored him by naming the media room at the facility after him.

One of the centerpieces of the facility, the stadium that will host the Vikings’ training camp scrimmage as well as high school games and other events, is still not quite finished. It is slated to be done in about a month, just in time for the Vikings to start their first Training Camp in Eagan.

Has anyone out there been to the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center yet? If so, what did you think of the place?