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2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Congrats to the Broncos on their first GLI title in 27 years.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Fun day downtown, best overall GLI I've been to, but wow did they screw up not putting that rink from 3rd to home or 1st to home. Sight lines are absolutely terrible unless you're upper deck behind Home or in those corner sections behind the goals. Just not steep enough to be able to see
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Wow there are going to be some sore guys tomorrow.
Sure hope D. Johnstone is back for Lake State.
Mike Neville could have been the hero, but he still played amazing this weekend.
Good luck in the 2nd half, enjoy the classic, and beat LSSU.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

13cupsandcounting said:
Fun day downtown, best overall GLI I've been to, but wow did they screw up not putting that rink from 3rd to home or 1st to home. Sight lines are absolutely terrible unless you're upper deck behind Home or in those corner sections behind the goals. Just not steep enough to be able to see
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If this event was specifically for GLI...they could have done that no problem. But since this event his also hosting an OHL, AHL and Wings alumni game (that should pack the house) they set it for having more people.

Our group moved up for the semifinal game but a usher told us to go back down (seriously who cares when there are 30,000 plus seats available). We gave up then, but the upper deck was a fine place to watch hockey (little far from the action but not bad).
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Biddco said:
If this event was specifically for GLI...they could have done that no problem. But since this event his also hosting an OHL, AHL and Wings alumni game (that should pack the house) they set it for having more people.

Our group moved up for the semifinal game but a usher told us to go back down (seriously who cares when there are 30,000 plus seats available). We gave up then, but the upper deck was a fine place to watch hockey (little far from the action but not bad).
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We sat in club seats for the title game and no one told us to move. I think after the UM/MSU crowd left, they stopped caring.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
We sat in club seats for the title game and no one told us to move. I think after the UM/MSU crowd left, they stopped caring.
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I would have moved up normally but we stayed with all the Tech fans *shrugs*. I figured once the big crowd left they wouldn't care as much.

BTW, paid attendence for the OHL game today was 25,000...was the Winter Classic and these games part of a ticket package they made people buy?
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Biddco said:
BTW, paid attendence for the OHL game today was 25,000...was the Winter Classic and these games part of a ticket package they made people buy?
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My understanding was that to buy Classic tickets, you had to purchase a package that included at least some of the games at Comerica, so yeah.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

Shirtless Guy said:
The big difference here is that this is a 4 game tournament. That is complete overkill. Single game events are getting beaten to death and now they try a whole tournament? Just not well thought out.
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It's more than one tournament. It's six days of outdoor hockey.

If you're a hockey fan in Detroit, you had the following to choose from:

1. Wings v. Leafs at Michigan Stadium.
2. Wings alumni v. Leafs alumni doubleheader at Comerica.
3 & 4. GLI (two different days doubleheader) at Comerica.
5. OHL doubleheader at Comerica.
6. AHL game at Comerica.

I don't know how many seats they're using at Comerica, but let's say it's 30,000. That's 260,000 outdoor tickets to sell for the six days. Not easy to sell that many.

Wings v Leafs is sold out. That's 110,000 people getting their outdoor fix right there.

I would not expect many to go for the OHL or AHL games. That leaves the GLI and the alumni games for the rest of us. I can tell you what my calculation was: do you (1) see players you'll never see skate again in the alumni game (and educate your children about who the likes of Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio are), or (2) see Michigan play outdoors yet again, when I've already seen them play Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State outdoors, plus seen the Frozen Four at Ford Field? Easy calculation for me. I'd rather go to the alumni game.

I'm sure others made similar calculations. Thus the poor GLI attendance. I would have expected better than 4,000, but I'm not surprised that it wasn't great.

I don't know that the outdoor thing has jumped the shark. You wouldn't have 110,000 in Michigan Stadium for Wings v. Leafs. But in this case, supply clearly exceeded demand. And, for Michigan fans, who are a very large proportion of college hockey fans in this town, it probably HAS jumped the shark, given that Michigan has played 4 outdoor games in 5 seasons.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

UMICH said:
Anyone hear Matt Berry on the pregame? He was asked about playing their (michigan states) biggest rival in an outdoor game and Berry stated that it makes everything "more better".

Can't read!!!!

Can't write!!!
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You guys must be related.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

My friend and I went to the consolation and title games of this wanting to experience outdoor hockey while it was here. We had a pretty good time all told....the sight lines in the lower level though are pretty bad. We were sitting down the 1st base side for the consolation game, about 20 rows up and it was really hard to see the puck as the game was going on from there. You kinda got used to the angle in terms of following the action but to actually see the puck it was near impossible especially when it went down towards the net on the 3rd base side. What made it worse was the fact that all around the rink on the bottom you have those Red Wings and Toronto banners promoting the event basically, and it covers up part of the game. When the puck was by the boards, or around the net on our side (not sure about the other or how it is from the outfield view), those banners blocked you from seeing what was happening. The placing of the banners there was poor planned I think, my friend and I both thought they should have made the entire board portion transparent. There's no point in a seat near the field if your view of the action is obstructed like that.

Conversely, when we moved up to the 3rd level behind home plate for the title game, you could see and follow the game MUCH better. It was a perfect vantage point really......those seats to me are really underrated, for baseball and hockey. You get a far better view of the action as it's happening from up there than in the lower levels (particularly outfield seats for baseball). Did anyone here sit in the outfield btw? Curious what their view of the game was like.

But yeah, had a good time, was fun to experience something different, but they coulda built the rink better so the fans could see inside it easier. Not bad crowds really for either game either, title game looked small at first but it kinda filled up after a while. Fanfest was definitely packed wall to wall too.....almost seemed like the area was too small for all those people, coulda been bigger.....the hall of fame tent was jammed with people in between games when we visited it. Some neat stuff though (missed the Stanley Cup by a couple days though apparently which was a bummer), but just hard to get through especially at first. It may have been partly packed just cause everyone was leaving from game 1, but yeah it was really busy. Was it like that at other times too for others who were visiting it?
 
Biddco said:
I would have moved up normally but we stayed with all the Tech fans *shrugs*. I figured once the big crowd left they wouldn't care as much.

BTW, paid attendence for the OHL game today was 25,000...was the Winter Classic and these games part of a ticket package they made people buy?
Click to expand...

The package I purchased only came with the Winter Classic and the alumni game. You could add on the other games, but it was only an option.
 
Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

hockeytown26;5843659 Conversely said:
Between periods I tried to walk around the whole ballpark (it was blocked off near the fountains and centerfield so you couldn't), and I stood at the top of the outfield seats. Sure you were higher up but you were further away from the action. Upper deck was the place to be, which is why they charged more for those seats.

The actual Hockeyfest was packed (especially the Hall of Fame Tent) but I suppose that will happen when you go there between games. It was great seeing all the NHL trophies.
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Re: 2013 Great Lakes Invitational, One like no other as part of the Winter Festival

It appeared there were more people at the GLi than at the AHL game.

I wasn't thrilled with Murray. I thought he handled the press poorly, and was dour when he was on tv.
 
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