Our least favorite venues

Welcome to paradise: the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Mike Stobe/Getty Images My Favorite Venues   Football Latrobe Stadium, By Peter King Clemens Stadium, By Austin Murphy The Louisiana Superdome, By Lee Jenkins Baseball Fenway Park, By Tom Verducci Shea Stadium, By Phil Taylor Dodger Stadium, By Kelli Anderson Eddy D. Field Stadium, By G. Dorhmann Basketball Boston Garden, By Ian Thomsen Pauley Pavilion, By Damon Hack Allen Fieldhouse, By Jack McCallum Additional Sports The Montreal Forum, By Michael Farber Grand Olympic Auditorium, By R. Hoffer Daytona Speedway, By Selena Roberts Churchill Downs, By Tim Layden L'Alpe d'Huez, By Alexander Wolff La Bombonera, By Grant Wahl The Old Course, By Michael Bamberger Best of the Rest | Our Least Favorites Your Turn React: What is your favorite stadium?

By Michael Farber and Richard Deitsch

We love our jobs. We really do. And not just because most of us are incapable of fixing a car or wiring a house or doing something useful for a living. Because we are sportswriters, we travel the world on our employer's dime and go to all kinds of fabulous sports venues.

We also go to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Sure, we deserve two minutes in the box for whining but honestly, if we were veterans we would be sorely upset our good names are part of this egregious building. Like a dowager that can no longer hide behind her rouged cheek, the home of the NHL's New York Islanders is beyond any touch up. (One, apparently, is in the works.) The arena, opened in 1972, is impossible dreary by modern standards, little more than shelter from the frigid winds that whip through that barren part of Long Island from November through March. Then again, that Champions bar in the Marriott across the parking lot is decent so you can find sunshine amid any darkness. Below, we list of our least favorite venues -- current and deceased -- in no particular order:

Candlestick Park, San Francisco
What was it Twain said? The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer at Candlestick Park. Because of the gales on the spot where the stadium was built, Candlestick was an ordeal for both players and fans. After clouting two monumental drives during a 1960 practice and seeing them land, wind-slowed, just short of the 397-ft. left-field fence, Giants outfielder Willie Mays told Time Magazine: "This park is too big. Somebody's gonna get some salary cuts around here."

Izod Center (formerly Continental Arena), East Rutherford, N.J.
A depressing place to watch a game. The empty seats act like kryptonite upon the players, draining the energy and enthusiasm from them.

Kemper Arena, Kansas City
Located in the stockyards, some believe the place was cursed: A tornado tore the roof off in the late 1970s, and the wrestler Owen Hart met his untimely demise there while riding down from the roof.

Madison Square Garden, New York City
Why? Because of the gap between what it should be and once was as compared to what it is now.

Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
No need to pile on.

Olympic Stadium, Montreal
Choose one: The Big Owe, Uh-O or The Big Mistake.

Shea Stadium, Queens
For some such as Michael Bamberger and Phil Taylor, Shea is a romantic bandbox, warts and all. For others, Shea is merely warts and all.

Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia
The kind of ambiance one might find at an East German detention facility.