For those having apparent issues connecting(ex: timing out before spawning in) i can only give you this advice.
On the FTB Launcher, Allocate more RAM to the minecraft process if not done already.

As i understand not everyone has tons of ram,(although you probably should if you're playing minecraft)
If you have 4gb, allocate 2.
if you have 6GB allocate 4
if you have 8gb allocate 6
or just allocate all of your ram if you want *shrug*
(side note: it would appear if you arn't using 64-bit java you cannot for whatever reason allocate more than 1gb, i find that to be terribly stupid, but please correct me if i'm wrong on this.)
If ram isn't your issue, the IP could be.
97.97.236.173:
25566The ip is not the mostly standard 25565, this is because for whatever reason minecraft refused to allow connections with that port, so instead we are using 25566, it is required to add the :25566 to the end of the IP or you will not be able to connect.
Hopefully this was helpful in some way.