Hershey, PA
While some sports' championship games have been held at various venues and cities across the state, no city is more associated with the PIAA than Hershey. Hershey's proximity to Harrisburg, as well as easy highway access via the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstates 81 and 83 for teams from across the state makes it an ideal location for the games. Hersheypark Stadium hosts the football and soccer championships; the Parkview Cross Country Course, located across the street from Hershey Park and Chocolate World, hosts the Cross Country Championships. Giant Center hosts wrestling, and the Hershey Racquet Club hosts the tennis championships.
In 2006, the PIAA announced that they had refused Hershey's application for a contract extension to host the basketball championships at Giant Center. Starting for the 2006–2007 season, the eight championship games will be played at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center. The PIAA cited monetary reasons for the move.
Even the non-PIAA sport of ice hockey hosted the 2005 Pennsylvania Cup championship at the historic Hersheypark Arena. The PIAA football championships have been contested since 1988, with the first games being held at various sites across the state. In the early 1990s, the game was moved to Altoona's Mansion Park, in part because playing four games in two days would not affect the artificial turf playing surface on the field. The football championships were moved to Hershey in the late 1990s to add to the tradition of PIAA championship competition near the state capital.
Altoona hosts the baseball championships at Peoples Natural Gas Field, home of the Altoona Curve of the Class AA Eastern League. The track and field championships are contested at Seth Grove Stadium on the campus of Shippensburg University, 40 miles southwest of Harrisburg. Shippensburg also hosts the softball finals at Robb Field.
Read more about this topic: Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association