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RPI 2026 Off-Season: Please Pardon Our Appearance As We Upgrade This Area

We attended both games last night. My wife noticed something unusual. A couple Penn State players were using totally white sticks. Assume that is not against the rules. Question is why? My wife thought the white would be hard to pick up against the white paint of the ice and boards when stick handling. My thought was the players using those sticks did not use black tape on the blade. With black tape on a black blade, I imagine it’s hard for goalies to pick up the puck coming off the blade. That is not the case with a black puck coming off a white blade. So does the white stick offer an advantage?
 
As I write this Qpac is down 5-0 to UND with 3 minutes left. That means the frozen four will be entirely Midwest/ Western teams. The ECAC and Hockey East and AHA must have some soul searching to do.
 
Today is 29 March 2026. There are 189 days (27 weeks) until RPI's next game.


This is based upon 4 October 2026 for the start of next season.
 
Yes, 3 NCHC and 1 Big 10 in the Frozen Four.

And not the Big 10 team many people thought ...
Interesting how Albany outdrew Loveland w the home team Denver in their mix. How did Albany's attendance compare with the other two regionals?
 
Uscho hasn’t posted the attendance for Albany yet, but if I were a gambling man (actually, I am!), I would say that we beat that 6209 figure that they had in Sioux Falls.

Update: good thing I didn’t place a bet. Attendance was 5751. Must be because all those Penn State fans went home…
 
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fr. joe said:
Yes, 3 NCHC and 1 Big 10 in the Frozen Four.

And not the Big 10 team many people thought ...
Interesting how Albany outdrew Loveland w the home team Denver in their mix. How did Albany's attendance compare with the other two regionals?
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It's actually 2 and 2. Wisconsin and Michigan are the Big 10 reps. However, it is 3 out of 4 for the old WCHA (and would have been 4 out of 4 if UMD won)!
 
RPI fan 4 life said:
Uscho hasn’t posted the attendance for Albany yet, but if I were a gambling man (actually, I am!), I would say that we beat that 6209 figure that they had in Sioux Falls.

Update: good thing I didn’t place a bet. Attendance was 5751. Must be because all those Penn State fans went home…
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It was a very good turnout for the Albany regional....(by regional attendance standards) I would have to think the NCAA was pleased with how the event played out.
 
Talk about your bluebloods. Look at the Frozen Four:
Denver- 10 NCAA titles
MIchigan- 9 titles
North Dakota- 8 titles
Wisconsin- 6 titles.

I believe they are the 4 teams with the most championships.
Should make for an exciting weekend in Vegas…
 
Great crowds both days, enough for a fun energy while watching the games (especially with Duluth's attempted comeback) but not too crowded for vendor lines, parking, etc. I did wish the Knick had its act together with respect to the plexiglass. Several stoppages over two days just completely sucked the life out of the building (and me). Also the no-admittance policy was a bad stance to take vis a vis the fans, especially with such a late start to game 2 on Friday.

The TU says they are bidding on future men's hockey rounds so it will probably be back here soon enough. In any event, I am stoked for more tournament hockey and hopefully I will be able to hit the road to see RPI in Lake Placid at the very least over the next few seasons.
 
RPIfanNYC said:
Also the no-admittance policy was a bad stance to take vis a vis the fans, especially with such a late start to game 2 on Friday.
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I know this was a factor for some friends in deciding whether to buy tickets. I know there are security issues and technical issues with allowing re-entry, but the MVP Arena is not a fun place to have to kill an hour or two, even if all the hospitality options are open.

That said, I am not sure how many venues of any kind permit re-entry these days, and I would be surprised if allowing re-entry was within the control of the local arenas--I would guess that the NCAA probably has security protocols on these issues the local arena has to agree to.
 
Wicked Slappaahs said:
It was a very good turnout for the Albany regional....(by regional attendance standards) I would have to think the NCAA was pleased with how the event played out.
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Attendance numbers are encouraging but I would like the NCAA to take one year out of the next few to experiment with the top 4 seeds hosting regionals on their respective campuses.

I don't see any serious consideration of that idea, despite being floated by a few personalities. There are some tradeoffs there, for sure, but some of the other regional locations looked dead on TV.
 
DavidNardolillo said:
Attendance numbers are encouraging but I would like the NCAA to take one year out of the next few to experiment with the top 4 seeds hosting regionals on their respective campuses.

I don't see any serious consideration of that idea, despite being floated by a few personalities. There are some tradeoffs there, for sure, but some of the other regional locations looked dead on TV.
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There has been talk of this for a few years now....no idea whether the NCAA is seriously considering it. Not to mention that most/all of the ECAC rinks would likely not be acceptable to the NCAA due to seating capacity limitations.
 
Wicked Slappaahs said:
Not to mention that most/all of the ECAC rinks would likely not be acceptable to the NCAA due to seating capacity limitations.
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Bob Belber is claiming 7100 people attended the Albany regionals, so 3550 per day, roughly. Albany was apparently first in attendance among the regional sites this year.

According to Wikipedia, the ECAC rinks that seat 3500 or more are Yale, Dartmouth, RPI, and Cornell. Brown, Clarkson, Harvard and Quinnipiac seat over 3,000. Everywhere else is below 3,000. Smallest is Princeton at 2,092. To be fair, some of these venues have few amenities and would really struggle if they had to entertain capacity crowds.

There are some other trade-offs besides capacity: students are on spring break and the NCAA control of seating and arena features can really dull down the atmosphere from what one experiences during the regular season.

I was at what was effectively an on-campus regional 21 years ago. It happened that Mariucci Arena was a regional site going into the season, and the University of Minnesota wound up being assigned to its home rink in the NCAA tournament (people might remember Mike Schafer complaining vociferously about this, both before and after Minnesota beat Cornell in overtime in the second round).

It was a muted atmosphere. Odd afternoon gametime, compared to 7pm faceoffs the rest of the season; no student section (students on spring break anyway); and the NCAA had moved to whitewash many elements of the home rink advantage: PA announcer and rink ops had to ditch regular season format and follow neutral scripts; every advertisement on the boards removed; home school insignias and advertisements on the ice surface removed; and some common area displays covered by NCAA branding.

Still, I think it is worth revisiting the on-campus format for a 1 year test run--but let the home team maintain its normal game formats when possible; the #1 seeds should enjoy some home rink advantages.
 
rvd5star69 said:
anyone know who laing got rid of today? player wise
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Not sure what the significance of today is. I haven`t seen anything on twitter. I think all the regulars on here expect some cuts or decommits. It will be clear when the portal officially opens. Players have started leaking intent to enter already so maybe an RPI guy might leak before the official day.
 
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