2 week hiatus between Regionals - Frozen Four

[davyd83]

Then it’s a direct conflict with the Women’s Final Four, which will never happen. Still think my suggestion having the tourney over two weekends after the basketball FF, with the Frozen Four after the Masters makes the most sense.

Then you compete with USHL, ECHL & AHL playoffs for building availability. Places like Providence, Worcester, Allentown, Bridgeport, Fargo...

 

[jfromvt]

Hockey should wrap up before baseball, The Masters, the final four and NHL playoffs. The longer it goes it runs right into all of them and delaying the Frozen Four even more is an awful idea. As it is, it's a winter sport that starts in fall and you want it to end even later in April? There just isn't enough of a demand for it, as evidenced by meager regional attendance and now a Frozen Four filled with thousands of empty seats

The regular season should start three weeks later. Get rid of the bye week, move FF one week later, and shorten the regular season by one week. Total season will be two weeks shorter.

 

[Sean Pickett]

The regular season should start three weeks later. Get rid of the bye week, move FF one week later, and shorten the regular season by one week. Total season will be two weeks shorter.

I think it should end earlier like it used to. Start the season the first full weekend in October and have the Frozen Four the weekend before the Final Four. That would give leagues 20 or 21 weekends for the regular season and two or three for league tournaments while keeping the current NCAA regional-bye-Frozen Four format.

Sean

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: 2 week hiatus between Regionals - Frozen Four

I forgot which commissioner it was that said it on the USCHO podcast during the Frozen Four (I want to say maybe the wcha commish), but one of them brought up the idea of reworking the timing of the Frozen Four.

There might be more voices hoping to change up the format than I’ve given credit in previous posts.

 

[chickod]

Re: 2 week hiatus between Regionals - Frozen Four

the regular season should start three weeks later. Get rid of the bye week, move ff one week later, and shorten the regular season by one week. Total season will be two weeks shorter.

No!!!!!

 

[chickod]

Re: 2 week hiatus between Regionals - Frozen Four

I think it should end earlier like it used to. Start the season the first full weekend in October and have the Frozen Four the weekend before the Final Four. That would give leagues 20 or 21 weekends for the regular season and two or three for league tournaments while keeping the current NCAA regional-bye-Frozen Four format.

Sean

Yes!!!!

 

[TigerFan86-87]

Re: 2 week hiatus between Regionals - Frozen Four

It has nothing to do with the venue. Went to Buffalo in 2003 and had a great time, the place was packed. The attendance and whatever other issues here are likely more indicative of the FF itself, and/or possibly the teams involved -- not the venue.

The college hockey season is most definitely too long. It starts before basketball, it ends after it. Does it need to be that long? I think you also see the fatigue set in, at least in a lot of places, by the conference Quarterfinal round.

IMO the sport should end a month sooner than it does. Get into the conference tournaments in February, move it up at least a couple of weeks. Play the FF before the basketball wraps up, not after it. Maybe it wouldn't make a big difference, but once the weather starts to turn, it seems some casual fans who might go to games in January and the depths of winter, lose interest by the time the season wraps up and Spring Break hits. You can even see it on this board! I lurk more than post these days, but it always seems there's more posting activity in December and January than February and March.

I, too was in Buffalo for the 2003 FF. We have to remember that back then the FF was nearly an automatic sellout or very near sellout at the ticket lottery time regardless of the venue.
How long it takes to sell out trended upwards for a while. Then it would only be an automatic sellout in Boston or St. Paul. As the trend has continued, now it is nearly never a sellout, certainly not in a market like Buffalo (I imagine Pittsburgh will be better, but not a whole lot). Although the NCAA won't admit it out loud, the interest in tickets to this event has gone down since it's peak in the late 90's and early 2000's. This year's attendance may be an aberration in that it was ridiculously low, but still a result of the decrease. They're trying (through articles like the one on USCHO this week) to act shocked and stunned that the attendance was so low and needs to be investigated relating to what went wrong in 2019. The problem isn't 2019, it has been going in this direction for a while. They don't want to admit that the price of tickets has got to be a major factor. They've priced certain long-time FF customers out of the event, period. But the prices just keep going up. I still go, but don't know for how much longer at the rate it's going. My wife is more annoyed by it each year.
To me the root cause of attendance woes is pretty clear... Follow the $$$.
All the other factors people have listed, debated, etc on this thread are not new: Final Four, Masters, weather, NHL playoffs, 11-day layoff after 1/4-finals, etc. They've all been in place for quite some time. The demand for tickets keeps going down.
As for the weather, any earlier than Final Four weekend would be taking the event into potentially even worse weather conditions that could hamper folks' ability to even get to the event, kind of like we had for our friends from Minnesota this past week. I'd actually be curious to know how many fans couldn't get here in time for the semi-final games because of the snowstorm and subsequent cancelled flights. They announced 13k+ attendance at the semi's, but even that was clearly an exaggeration. I'd be surprised if there were even much more than 10k in the building.