My Favorite ARCO Moment: Frankie Cartoscelli

Mar 11, 2022, 7:45 AM | Updated: 9:08 am

(Getty Images)

Editor & Kings Beat Writer

Over the next two weeks, Sports 1140 KHTK will be sharing some stories from a variety of personalities that have experienced Sacramento Kings basketball at ARCO Arena.

After a 33-year run–28 years as the home of the Kings–ARCO will be demolished in the coming months to make way for a new California Northstate University medical school and teaching hospital.

The Kings will be holding a farewell event for the arena on Saturday, March 19th. You can find more info here.

Frankie Cartoscelli – Sacramento Kings beat writer, co-host of the Return of the Roar podcast

What is your favorite ARCO Arena moment?

It’s so tough to pick just one moment.

ARCO Arena was such a massive part of my childhood. Besides school and my house, I spent more time at ARCO than anywhere else from ages six to 20. Being able to grow up watching Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, Vlade Divac and Bobby Jackson is something that I will cherish forever.

It’s the reason that I got into sports. It’s the reason that I have this job that I love so much.

One game that really sticks out to be was a regular-season game against the Denver Nuggets on April 11, 2003.

Sacramento was a powerhouse and on its way to a second-straight–and last–Pacific Division championship. The game was tied with 20 seconds left, and Chris Webber made a game-winning lay-in that you had to see to believe.

Webber spun through two defenders and kind of flung up an underhand scoop shot–from outside of the key, mind you–to give the Kings a 105-103 win.

ARCO was deafening. As an eight-year-old, I had never experienced anything like it in my life. It made me fall in love with basketball in a way that I never thought was possible.

Immediately following Webber’s game-winner, I was obsessed. That obsession still lives on in me today.

Another moment that I will always remember was attending what could have been the team’s final game in Sacramento on April 17, 2013.

As soon as the news broke that the Kings were on the verge of being sold to a Seattle-based investment group, I immediately purchased tickets for the final game of the season. The seats were nearly at the very, very top of the upper level, but I didn’t care.

The atmosphere was incredible. Fans were living and dying with every play, even for a team that had 28 wins and was playing for nothing.

That’s the thing, though. Nothing? To us fans, it was everything.

Following the game, fans remained in ARCO for hours. Some fans hugged and laughed–some fans cried.

Just over a month later, we all were able to exhale after it was announced that the Kings were staying in Sacramento.

I’ll always remember that night, what I felt. The emptiness of thinking about a life without my favorite team was a type of fear that I hope to never feel again.

With all of the losing, it’s important for me to remind myself of how I felt on that night in 2013–as well as that night in 2003 when I was 8 years old.

It makes me feel truly blessed to have had those experiences in that building.

What will you miss most about ARCO Arena?

The sense of comfort once you were walking in and that ARCO smell hit you.

You know the smell that I’m talking about. Not a bad smell or even a great one, really. Just a comforting smell of fried food, spilled drinks, cotton candy, rotting wood, and who knows what else.

The optics in ARCO were what made it special. “ARCO Thunder” was real in every aspect, and Golden 1 Center–as gorgeous as a building as it is–has a long way to go before it gets on that level.

ARCO had a true “basketball gym” feeling to it. It’s something that I haven’t felt anywhere else, but of course, I’m biased.

I’ll miss the oversized parking lot that took a million years to walk across before and after the game. I’ll miss the narrow walkways at the top of the 200’s level. I’ll miss the blue and red stadium seating that made you feel as if you were back in the 1980’s.

I’ll miss the sheer excitement that I used to get while driving through those large rocks archways that stand over the stadium entrances. I’ll miss watching the jackrabbits skip through the parking lot towards the vacant fields that surround the arena.

I’ll miss it all.

HBO’s “Winning Time” chronicles the rise of Lakers basketball in the 1980s. Which era of Kings basketball would you choose to see re-created on TV or film?

The relocation has always, to me, been something that could be made into a movie or TV show.

If HBO want’s another golden idea for a sports show, they could absolutely make some magic with a Kings relocation saga surrounding the 2011-2013 years.

There are so many characters that writers and producers could have fun with: