I may go down there and watch a game. Sounds like it will be a good time.The name is Rio and the screen is rather grand. For the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a big bash is being planned.
Beginning June 9, soccer fans can enjoy noontime telecasts of the world's biggest sporting event in the renovated cinema near SkyTrain's Broadway station.
Normally a place just for flicks, the Rio will show headers, volleys and the dreaded play-acting dives on its 38-foot screen. Thirty-two nations will vie for global soccer supremacy in Germany through July 9.
Rio was built in 1938, the year Italy won its second consecutive World Cup. Proprietor Mukesh Goyal boasts 458 comfy seats and 20 surround sound speakers. Goyal is awaiting the rubber stamp from FIFA, soccer's governing body, to charge a suggested $5 donation fee. He's pledging gross receipts to SOS Children's Villages, a FIFA-endorsed charity benefiting orphaned and abandoned children.
"The atmosphere will be electrifying," Goyal said.
Rio is the flagship for the inaugural Soccerio festival, promising "friends, food and football" at 11 restaurants, cafes and bars on The Drive.
"I've seen grown men cry, people dancing on the streets, different cultures coming together," said La Rocca restaurateur and Soccerio co-chair Corrado Lenzi. "It's a beautiful thing."
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